Week 4

Starting this blog because I've been reflecting on my process more and more to aide me in my approach towards future projects.

A big thing that inspired me to do this was the other night when I spent hours on a recording session, just for it to sound like garbage when I listened to it back. I got upset, and had a mini-rage. Broke small things and made small damages, but nothing insanely out of control. 

Then I played a Lil Wayne documentary while I was surfing youtube trying to drown out how upset I was. Looking at how great Wayne's work ethic was, I asked myself "What Would Weezy Do"? Would he just get upset and throw in the towel? Taken a long break? Do drugs and drown out his feelings? Or would he learn from the experience, and keep going to commit to the art and get good results? 

I assumed the latter. Then I recalled Drake's work ethic. How, at times, he was known to rewrite a song over 20 times until he got what he wanted. He's known for his perfectionism and work ethic as well. He's also been very good at successfully dodging hard controversy and still coming out victorious in the end. Persevering and committing to his craft without letting real life shit shake him up. 

So I asked myself "What Would Drake Do?" 

And from there, I made the decision to commit. To learn what I did wrong in my approach, and how I could record again to get better results. 

Since that day a few days ago, I've learned to be more patient with my work.

Perhaps its the new mic I'm using, but for the most part I haven't been happy with the way my recordings have been sounding. So I said, before I try to re-record again, I'm going to watch a tutorial and see if there's anything I 'm doing wrong in my recording proccess. 

I really liked what I learned about creating a nice space and removing distractions. Taking that advice, I cleaned up my room, got rid of distractions, handled my business so I could focus on music for the next few hours, and commited to leaving my drama at the door, and focusing completely on the music when I'm at home.

I also tried better mic positioning, as well as changing the part of the room I record in to minimize reverb. On top of that, I made sure to close apps and websites that are usually distracting. 

Now, I've usually been a write-and-record-the-same-day type of person. And albeit, I've been pretty successful with that approach. But I think it was just luck and assitance from other artists that made that possible. 

Using what I been learning in my voice class, I spent my day solidifying the lyrics, as I noticed I was tripping up on them and recording. For 2 days straight I  constantly went over the lyrics in my head until I was able to spit it word-for-word without much forethought. By the time I was ready to record, I didn't even need to read the lyrics because they were already inside of me. 

Not only had I memorized the lyrics, I rehearsed them as well, making sure I had the proper delivery, accents, voice changes, etc. 

One thing I noticed is that I have a tendency to hold my throat to create a raspier voice. I was doing this to imitate the sound of yelling without actually yelling. I'm working to unlearn this, and actually yell from my chest instead of from my throat. My microphone hates that raspy voice. 

Another thing I noticed is that I tend to bring my chin forward, and even upward at times. This is further worsened when I record sitting down, as its messing up my alignment and causing me to let out weird sounds. When I mindfully corrected this, and projected from my chest, I got a warmer tone.

Anyways, got more to say but I need to sleep. Peace!