Originally, I was just trying to figure out how to put this song's drum
patterns into my keyboards "pro level" sequencer. Surprisingly, even
though there are 1,000 buttons, it wasn't a total nightmare and I
figured it out pretty quickly. So I learned new guitar chords and tried
to actually sing it. Ambitious or maybe foolish because I hate hate
hate it when I work a week on something, and the end result is
inadmissible. In the end I'd call it a success* Oh well learning
occurs most when you tackle something and you don't even know if it will
yield anything.
I was surprised again by the challenges - I'll just list them out:
VOICE
- Staying connected to your voice is a difficult technique, but
thankfully when you sing high or a melody rises it is stylistically
appropriate to just get louder which happily strengthens the connection
and it sounds normal because the notes get lighter as they go up (lite
notes + heavy voice = OK balance). But a descending melody that goes
pretty low just "seems to get louder" by itself so then what do you do?
(heavy notes + heavy voice = rumble) You have to try to lighten up the
tone WHILE keeping the connection in anticipation of the melody going
down = difficult. So inversely if you go back to the first theory
then: Lite notes + lite voice = super difficult
- Rapid fire text is hard, so you have to be extra aware where you can breath and not let spit accumulate in your mouth.
- When your mind is multitasking elsewhere your intonation can totally
screw you up. A note thats normally reachable will just randomly arrive
a step flat if you're concentrating on something else = ugh. Oh well
thats why you practice.
- Don't just get louder, try to really project / "send it" to the microphone. (This theory isn't really fleshed out yet)
With all these ideas coming and going while trying to record one thing
that does happen is you eventually develop a sense of when you got a
good capture. A good one can be a take of the entire song start to
finish, or a phrase, or even a single word. This song I never got a
take that was good from start to finish, so I started Frankensteining a
version using software. 6 months ago I never would have seen myself
doing this, but now I think I understand why its necessary. I kinda
compare it to photos? You have a lot of versions where theres something
good in each one and because this Reaper program is so awesome you can
literally just glue them together - I can hear the differences but maybe
some day I'll learn how to put an end finish on it so no one can tell.
Although I'll say now I'll never Frankenstein a classical piece because
that would be just crazy... but 6 months from now who knows..
Ishida