25% of a Studio

This semester is a bit discouraging.

It seems as though everyone else has got something going on. They've formed bands or tight alliances and have a strong team to support everyone involved - be it gigging or for folio. This year I'm pretty much doing it alone. There are 4 big jobs when creating a song and having it come to life: Songwriter, Producer, Engineer, and Instrumentalists.

Songwriter I have down pat. Pretty comfortable with writing a song, structure, progression, lyrics, melody. The ones I love are few and far between but at the end of the day that's what I am, a singer-songwriter.

Engineering isn't too bad. The job basically (technically) consists of setting up the day; protools session, mics, and running the show. Learning how to mic is really just that, learning. A lot of trial and error; a lot of experimenting and eventually you find something you like. Learning protools is also fairly simple. Once you understand the layout and how it works, all you need to learn are the shortcuts and you're on your way. I've got my head around it pretty well - though sometimes I do muck up still. But who doesn't!

The instrumentalists have a decent amount of pressure on them (at least they would in the real world where money is involved). You give them a chart, a listen to the song, a direction, and they roll with it. Sometimes they'll have a lot of guidelines to keep in mind, other times there's no direction and they just do what they're feeling.

A producer is the hardest thing (in my eyes). To me, they're the King of the studio. They tell everyone who does what, they have to see the big picture in the song without forgetting about the small, background noises that fill it out. It's a very creative job.

Technically, these are all different jobs, but in a growing world, they are merging more and more. It's very likely for you to find one person who does all of these things.

This semester I've had to take on the roll of everyone but the instrumentalists. I will be the FIRST to say I am not cut out for it. Engineering I could get a grasp of with enough time, but in the present environment, I don't feel I've got enough time to be adequate at it. Producing is the big one for me, though. When I write a song I don't think about other guitars, drums or piano; I don't think about the groove or feel or tempo. I just write. It comes out of me and I write it down. "What kind of feel do you want?" "Where is this going?" "What instrumentation do you want in it?" "What do you want the instruments to be doing?" "Where do they come in? When do they come out?" The simple fact is; I don't know. I can tell you if I don't like something, and I can tell you what I don't want, but for me to be confident and finite about where the song is going?... forget about it.

That's why this semester is proving to be challenging. Last night I had a drum session tracking 2 of my songs. Thankfully my friend Jared was there to help with the engineering side of things, and when I made a mistake in protools he fixed it faster than I could have. But as soon as he left and I was in the room by myself the nerves set in.

Yeah, we got through it all right. And the guy I "hired" was a magnificent drummer. He churned out some ideas of his own, humored me with mine, and when I gave him a not-so-easy beat to try he powered through and didn't give up. I quite like him.

However, my direction wasn't very clear. I'm aware of this. With back-and-forth idea bouncing through the wall we managed to finish the songs and they sound fine, but I'm left looking back wondering if it's really where I want the songs to go. That awesomely daunting question.

All I can do at this point is keep with it and see what the end result is. So that's what I'm going to do, but damn it's frustrating.

Ultimately I would love to have one of those little alliances/groups. I know I definitely want to find a guitarist who can sing with me, and ideally I also want to find a producer who sticks with me, gets to know me, and believes in what I do.

Knowing that I probably can't find this here is hard to accept. Well, to be honest, I haven't quite accepted it yet; I still have my eyes and ears open but there aren't any prospects so far. Last year was fun for me - I had Josh King on my side as a producer. He's incredibly talented as well, and we listen and write pretty similar music so I thought it could have been the perfect match. By the end of the semester, though, I realized we lacked one key thing: communication. It's not that we didn't express to each other our thoughts and feelings, it's that we didn't see eye-to-eye on them. The songs came out wonderfully, but not at all what I originally "had in mind."

Needless to say he didn't even hint at wanting to work with me this semester. Oh well!

I don't feel I'll get much out of this semester to be honest, but that doesn't mean I won't try. I hope I don't have to do it solo next year as well but if that's the case, I'll still do the best that I can. In saying all that, I know that if I called anyone in the program up in dire need, they would come to my rescue. I'm not totally alone, and I'm thankful for that.