Right now, I'm taking a break from recording. Yes, Matthew Clark is here with his traveling recording equipment ("Where did you record?" - "Suitcase Studio," I reply.) It can be quite exhausting to record, and though I've been looking forward to it for quite some time, in some ways I'm looking forward to it being completed. I don't dislike recording altogether, but I don't love the way it has you look at your music, with a painfully critical ear, making you nervous and overly conscious over every single note that escapes your mouth. I miss more guitar chords and squeak out more off-notes than usual. Yes, I prefer house concerts and living room praise choruses and shower-singing.
Yet, I've also discovered something else today, that recording is like a spiritual discipline.
Not in the sense that you are doing it all the time, but in the sense that sometimes you don't want to; it is hard, and it is necessary. Matthew said today that when we write songs and play them live, they are developing... changing and forming into their best form. Then, we are ready to record them, to make them solid and complete. They've been tried and tested, and so we need to do "finish" them (though they live on and on and we continue to play them over and over and over...) This helps us even move on in writing more, to change and grow, to see new experiences through the lense of song-writing. I can often feel an experience even more fully by putting it into a song, singing it over and over makes it even more real to me.
I am resting right now, as Jeff is in there putting drum tracks over my vocals and guitar. Matthew will go home and add some bass, some harmony vocals, etc.
Together, we'll make this music complete. What's best about recording is the togetherness of it all. I need Matthew; I need Jeff. We do this together.
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