Adventures in Recording pt. II
    This past Monday, August 2nd, I drove to band practice with the intention of trying out some new guitar parts to our four original compositions. When I arrived, our singer came out and said, ‘ I don’t know if anyone told you but we are recording tonight.’ So, he and I drove over to our bass players house to record onto his hard disc recorder. On the drive over, I was deliberating on whether I should record the new guitar parts that I had never tried out with the band or whether I should record the old guitar parts that I had not rehearsed during the past week.
    We arrived at bass player Don’s house with Don taking on the role of engineer / producer. After recording my part on one song, my guitar started producing a hissing sound that we could not get rid of. The producer then handed me an Aria Pro II guitar and said, ‘ tune it up and start playing.’ The strings on this guitar are closer together than the strings on my ES-125, causing me to occasionally grope for the chords rather than playing them with authority. The space between the frets on this guitar is a little greater than on my Gibson, which necessitated a little more thinking about where the notes were located. This extra step in the performing process distracted me away from the act of transmitting an emotion through the instrument.
    As I began playing the next song, the output jack started shorting out. The producer sprayed the output jack with a lubricant called WD-40, which must have worked for him before when encountering this problem. As I plugged my guitar cable in, I got lubricant on my fingers and guitar pick. These fingers are used to hold the pick and need to be clean and dry. I wiped my hands and pick with a paper towel and then washed my hands. By the time I was back, there was a time issue which was the result of switching guitars. We had to run the songs; add my guitar parts; and then record the singer’s parts. So, I quickly added my new, unrehearsed guitar parts on a greasy, unfamiliar guitar. I packed up and continued with my evenings activities as the singer prepared to add his vocal parts. As I was leaving, the producer mentioned that these songs would be up on the internet in a couple of weeks…
     So, in about a week from now you all will be able to listen to the results of this experience. I will let you know where to point your browser. There was not time for me to listen to what I had recorded.
Curiously,
I.C.