Recording – How strange. How artificial. Yet, how fun. Two weeks ago, I was sweating away in an un-air-conditioned but beautiful, quiet performing hall in a small town in Spain, recording 2 triple concerti by Bach. I’ve recorded before, but this was an entirely new experience. I wasn’t doing the recording myself, dealing with cheap microphones and minidiscs; I wasn’t even at school, using an excellent student sound engineer, but battling sound space with percussionists in the next room. No, this sound engineer (perhaps I should say sound artist, even?) was big time, from Berlin. He’s a friend of a (lucky) friend, so I think a special deal was worked out, but still… A sound engineer is part technician, and part therapist. “That’s fine, great job, beautiful take, you’re really swingin’ now, let’s just do one more section again…” Our perception as musicians was of the whole take, the entirety; thus the increasing frantic feelings and frequency of admissions like “I missed a note in measure 39.” The sound engineer told me for him, a recording project is more like a puzzle – he can see the whole and just has to put in missing parts, adjacent pieces. In take 3, I might have missed a note in m.39, but he got my part on take 2. He’ll use the other instruments’ lines from take 3 and mine from take 2. Amazing.
I was actually pretty relaxed throughout the recording. I really enjoyed it, and I felt the entire group was putting forth their best efforts, exhibiting immense concentration and drive those few days. Those mics didn’t bother me at all, either, which is a new recording experience for me. In fact, I felt like I could flirt with them – it was like a different kind of audience. One that you want to show off to, but don’t feel judged by. By now, I’ve also recorded enough times to know that getting nervous just makes you too tired to continue.
However, each project has its drawbacks. I was struck by the realization that in a recording you must know exactly what you want to say with each particular note and phrase, in order to re-create it 4 or 5 times. The tendency is to play something a little different each time in order to vary, highlight, exploit. And now it is all being recorded. A good engineer will be sensitive to that, I think. I hope. I cannot say I was entirely consistent, therefore I wonder how much room there is for spontaneity in a recording? What if your best take 3 was a spontaneous response to something someone else played, but in the mix, for the other voices he uses take 4? Will your inspired response be invalid in the final product?
Further, can a recording also capture the personalities and relationships of me and my colleagues? Can music? How much of this is visual, really? Will this recording even come close to how I felt on that recording stage, in front of those mics? And with my colleagues, barefoot and concentrated, flowing with me?
It was so hot in that room! Almost sweltering. Taking breaks in the cheery Catalonian sun were so refreshing. We had to tune all the instruments again after almost every take. Frustrating that my wooden flute swelled up towards the end of the day and almost refused to tune to itself anymore, no matter what I tried. It made me doubt myself, and I struggled with that self-doubt on the second day of recordings. Again, wondering how much the recording will capture my personality – will it display the self-doubt on the second concerto? I hope not but fear it may. Will I like the recording? Will I recognize myself? What if I end up hating how I played? What if I don’t really like my sound after all? How can one judge one’s own playing?
I look forward to hearing the cd. I’m glad I don’t have to deal with all the edits, just like I didn’t have to set up the mics and adjust the levels. For once, we musicians could concentrate purely on what we do best, which is of course playing the music. With that came tremendous freedom, actually. And I realized I want to do this type of thing forever.
For more photos: http://picasaweb.google.com/amandamarkwick
