As a multi-instrumentalist, Things sometimes get complicated. Lots of projects beginning with close friends and it feels a little overwhelming when things can change so quickly.
It feels like i’m always working on a project with a close friend that truly excites me, and then some completely other force causes these people who have passion and beautiful ideas withdraw. I’m left to wonder if it’s something I said, did or played. Or something completely out of my control...
Either way I can not settle with the current affairs and I felt the need to push outwards. To work on the projects that resonate with me deeply and with people who have the patience to discuss and develop them.
The person who stands out most as being my rock would have to be my partner Syrena. While she is not as experienced in music, she as a great time just exploring sound and listening to the things I create. Her integrity as a kind hearted person stands out as something that will certainly develop into a great artistic intuition. She is currently studying metalsmithing in Undergraduate.
After a traumatic couple of weeks that I wouldn’t want to get into, she was there for me. It was enough. Now I feel like I am coming back into touch with why I started playing music in the first place. It wasn’t to make money, it wasn’t about an audience or anything like that.
I had dreams of my grandfather, lecturing me deeply about church bells, spirituality and the harmonic nature of the human existence. In his life we were very close, he occasionally lived at my house and I even have the same slender build and tall posture as him. He was called “skinny papa” Stephen.
He was a bizarre and bold man, who had a passion for providing for his family and maintaining the house with his own ingenuity; frequently criticized by my grandmother.
Anyway, he’s gone now, and all my grandparents are. What I truly want to write is a message to the other side, so that we may all be aware of the spirits of the lost.
I have decided to start working on my next album, which will be a tribute to all four of the parents who raised my parents.
The first act was to clean my garage, clear enough so that I could think, reflect, play, and meditate clearly. That took a while, but I finished. Now I brought all the audio tools out, set up a sub mixer for mic’ing the drumset. I send that out to a 16 track SD recorder, meet that up with clean vocals through a decent mic pre and my guitar signals, direct and mic’d.
I spent a lot of time working on the sounds I was getting out of the drums, I was no longer feeling the floor tom, the crash cymbal. All of those instruments just feel loud and like I’ll never be able to convey this song of revelry through the muddiness they provide.
Instead, I opt into an improvised sub-kick on the bass drum, congas and bongos instead of those big clunky toms. Of course the hi hat and snare are still in... I’ll be using two low budget small diaphragms as overheads to capture those sounds.
The final touch to these super-demo drum sounds would have to be a large diaphragm condenser about 7 feet up and off the kit- nearly in the rafters to capture that soupy garage room sound.
I’m just happy that I did all of this, and I’m ready to just put my heart into what I’m doing and trust the process. I know that my friends will need me to play gigs with me soon, but maybe that will be easier when we are honest about what resources and talents we have to offer to the rest of the musicians In the area.
I am really looking forward to doing this, I will be sure to post what I create here :)
If you are still reading here is a great video about the process that was put out on YouTube only today by the great Mary Spender.
If anything I said here inspired you or resonated with you, Pretty please leave a comment. Let’s start a conversation!
Best,
Shua