The Light of Day

So you want to make an album? (part 14)
KeithHandy posted in Personal Favorites, So You Want... on June 1st, 2007

To read the entire series, go to the “So You Want…” category.

Installment 14: Installment fourteen is the new installment one!

Yes indeed, thirty is the new twenty, white is the new black, and now, installment fourteen is the new installment one. Since I have so much momentum going with this “so you want to make an album” series, where you would expect to find you everything you ever needed to know about cutting your own number one, it’s time for me to stop yakking about all the drugs I’ve taken and all the parties I’ve gotten naked at, and time for… reader participation!

If you haven’t started work on your album, I don’t want to hear about it. I know you’re confused, because you’ve been told all your life that the green light means go, and the red light means stop — but you’ve entered the bizarro parallel alternate world of recording, where things are different.

Yes, that’s right, red means “tape is rolling”. And in your case, tape is most likely a metaphor for hard drive space. But it’s also a metaphor for something much larger: your life. Your life is rolling. The red light on your life is always on. So the only reason for the red light on your recording equipment to not be on as well, is to maintain the comforting illusion that this particular moment doesn’t count.

Are you ready? That’s a trick question, and I’m only asking it because that’s the question you’re asking yourself. The answer is: you have always been ready. And also: you will never be ready. There is no such thing as “ready”, so purge yourself of this paralyzing concept right now.

Name any excuse why this is not a good time for you to put down a track, and I’ll tell you exactly why that makes it the best time to put down that track. At the risk of getting all “lemons to lemonade” on you, I sincerely believe that every perceived obstacle is really a gift to help us each find our unique sound — if we let it. Sore throat? You’re about to discover an interesting way of singing the melody. Injured left hand? Obviously that guitar bit is destined to be played with a slide. Power outage? That’s the pad and pencil calling your name. Malfunctioning equipment, or lacking a critical piece of gear? Congratulations, you’re an inventor. Broken string, and no stores are open? Fresh, “innovative” guitar part on the horizon, or maybe a keyboard part you hadn’t thought of. Bad mood creeping up on you? New song en route. I suggest you thank whoever or whatever is guiding you with these helpful nudges, and nothing says “thank you” like hitting the frickin’ record button.

How many songs need to be written and/or selected when you hit the button? Zero. Are you plugged in? When you hit the button, can you make a sound? Can you play just one note? Play it. Can you improvise well? No? Can you improvise badly? Do it. Nothing to sing? What’s in front of you? What’s to your left? Talk about it. Talk about how boring it is. Talk and talk and talk until something comes out that you like. Then sing it.

Creating is sort of like fishing. You don’t just magically burst forth with product. You simply elect to begin capturing what flows through you anyway. And unlike fishing (hence the “sort of”), the very fact that you’re doing it at all feeds back into your well of inspiration and accelerates your “magic moments”. Think about it: if you were an angel, seeking a worthy conduit for an awesome guitar solo, would you give it to someone with a long track record of avoiding the button?

You don’t need to have everything in place in order to start. You don’t need to know everything you’re going to do, or how you’re going to to it. You don’t need to read the rest of this series, or even the rest of this post. You can start with a click track, or you can use the internal sense of tempo yo’ momma gave you. You can have the levels set wrong. You can use a crappy microphone. You can play like shit*. You can have zero ideas. And no matter what winds up on that track, you might still find something on it worth using as the foundation for a great song.

*Sensitive readers: if you don’t like the word “shit”, be forewarned that I use it a shitload in the following paragraph.

So why doesn’t everybody do this? Well, because it’s about starting with shit and turning it into greatness. But in order to do that, you have to hear the greatness in the shit. As young people, we do this naturally, sometimes to the point where we don’t even realize it’s shit. But as we get older, we only hear shit as shit, as if resigning to its shittiness somehow makes us more sophisticated. The third level of awareness, the one I’m evangelizing, is to hear both the shittiness and the greatness. You need to be able to fill in the blanks in this sentence: “This is such a shitty ______, but it would be great as a ______.” Experience teaches you how to fill the blanks. The more recording you actually do, the more happy accidents you experience, thus the fuller your bag of tricks, and subsequently the keener your ability to perceive the greatness in the shit. The only way to kickstart that cycle is to hit the button.

Are you getting the point yet? If you still have no idea what to do, I’ll spell it out. Consider this a homework assignment. Pick an instrument that you feel most comfortable with. If it’s your voice, pick your voice (although when you read the rest of the assignment, you’ll change your mind). Set aside one full hour, including setup and wrap-up time, when you will hopefully not be disturbed; but, if you must be disturbed, then promise ahead of time to use that disturbance as a source of inspiration. Record yourself improvising continuously for at least thirty minutes. HOLD THE PHONE, BUSTER, I can hear you saying, I CAN’T IMPROVISE MY WAY OUT OF A PAPER BAG. Shhh, calm down, it’s okay. You can play one chord. Get a rhythm going. When you feel like changing the chord, change it. Pick one that you know will sound good, or pick one at random. Just go with it, and no matter how bad you think your choice was, play it as if it was fantastic and you really meant it. Go back and forth between two chords. They don’t have to be super-original. When you get sick of what you’re doing, change it to something else — change the feel, change the rhythm. Do strange things with your instrument to get strange sounds out of it. But whatever you do, don’t stop, for at least thirty to forty minutes.

Now for the hard part: listen back to the whole thing, either that same day or as soon as you get a chance. You may well hate most of it. But I guarantee there will be a minute or so somewhere in the middle that makes you think, “hmm, that part actually isn’t so bad”. Feel free to delete everything else, but preserve that one little bit. Now you can loop it, play around with overdubbing something on top of it, or just take advantage of your newfound courage and record something new from scratch. It’s up to you!

Your life is rolling. Hit the button. We’ll worry about “making it good” later.