At Odds with Nerves

It has been about 20 years since I last sat in a recording studio and worked through songs over and over until its right, waited for the other players to do the same while drinking coffee and playing pool to kill time. It was a great experience for me. I learned so much about the recording process and was in awe of the recording environment and the equipment used. I recall reading a book about audio and sound at the time. It detailed out frequencies audible by humans and at what levels of loudness they are generally perceived by the human ear. The Fletcher-Munson curve is one of the graphs in the book and it is used by Sound Engineers to improve the recording. This graph shows that lower and higher frequencies are less perceivable and require higher volume levels in the recording or playback process.

Photo Courtesy Lance Troian

20 years ago I was an idiot. Not necessarily for anything I did or didn't do, but I was 20 years younger and more stupid than I am now (though some would argue I am still as thick as two short planks). That said, I was at Woody's place recording his original songs last week. His 'recording studio' is like many others of this era. In his basement with a mixer and a 12 track Korg recorder. I set up my drums and microphones and started recording as best as possible. The previous week I used Rhythm Rascal, a software application for creating drum patterns, to create the dummy drum track for 2 of the songs. I created the basic drum parts that matched the songs patterns and sent it to Woody. He used it with one of the songs to record the guitar parts and together they became the bed track for all other instruments to play to in the recording process.
 Since the guitar part was recorded to a click or electronic drum line, the drums needed to be recorded. In the 20 years that passed since my last recording experience, I must have forgotten how different it is to play live versus being recorded. When I am playing live and a mistake is made, I can usually cover it up and carry on without notice. If I miss a drum or I miss the beat by a fraction, it may be noticeable, but is forgotten by the next bar or phrase. Recording is definitely another bowl of goats. You can't miss a drum or be out of time because that mistake will be played over and over (and over if we become famous). 
 After about an hour, going through the same song, trying to get the recording perfect, I found myself nervous. Not because I was worried that Woody and Lance thought I was useless (the only two listening to me at the time), but because I was half way through the song and hadn't made a mistake. My muscles tensed and I felt butterflies in my stomach. I started getting that nervous shaking that comes when you are about to make a speech in front of thousands of literary academics ( I'm guessing). Once I noticed the flying larvae in my Santa belly I had a good chuckle at myself. I found it amusing that after all of the playing experience, I still get nervous when I play.  At this point I still have a minute or so left in the song that I am recording and I am trying to relax and play what I want and need to play to get a great track down. Breath, think about my parts, play on time, DON'T F***-UP!  I did manage to finish without incident and it may end up being the final take.
 The recording sessions were at the end of three weeks of a busy farm and work schedule. My wife and I were in Vermont acting as judges for a Cashmere Goat competition, I worked days and nights to get a new virtual application environment running for a client, we were cleaning pens and barns to get ready for breeding season, Becky was training a cow to be milked for a buyer and we setup our booth at a Fibre Festival to show and sell our yarn.