Saturday 9 April 2011

Recording Day

Let me tell you about my day...

So I wake up at 8am after having had an incredibly bad night with pretty scary dreams, and I'm pretty de-hydrated. My throat is all tight, and my vocal range is similar to a teenage boy's; low and gravelly with the occasional excited squeak popping out from time to time.

Big Uh-Oh.

Today is Recording Day, and I have one shot at recording my song 'For Zoe'.

So I get singing. Operatic exercises warm up my voice pretty quickly, so I launch into that while i'm putting on my eyeliner, (this is at about 9am now)... and I gargle. And I do siren exercises. And then... and then... and then... literally ANYTHING to get my voice back. Thank God it did.

So at about 10am, I grab my giant hoop earrings and a even more giant bottle of water and head to the subway.

At 10:30 I arrive in Williamsburg in Brooklyn. I find the street where the recording studio is supposed to be... but errr.... where the *** is it?!?! It was a pretty grungy street, and I was looking like a right pansy looking back and forth. Eventually I found it.

You know those metal doors in the pavement, that you usually walk over and hope you don't fall through them? Well it was inside one of those. So I went down "into the dungeon" down some very steep steps, and nervously knocked on the door.

I was welcomed in by the very kind man Ken who runs 'Grand Street Recording Studio', and we got to work straight away.

I was put in this little room with lots of microphones, and padding on the walls. I had to put headphones on to hear what they were chatting about behind the glass. And I did a take. And I did another take. Overall I did about 6 of them from start to finish.

There was a shed load of editing next; taking the best phrases, making me cringe while we listened to the worst! And finally we had a pretty decent final version. (I always feel like I'm cheating kinda, but oh well...!)

I think my favorite part of the day was doubling up the vocals and adding harmonies. So much fun, and much easier for me than to sing the melody...!

And then BOOM they played me what we had achieved. It was a pretty special moment. Though the song is all about Zoe, I hadn't really allowed myself to think too much about her all day, because I knew it wouldn't be too productive to get emotional when I was trying to record. But at 5:30pm after a long hard day, when we listened to what was (nearly) the final product, I'm not gonna lie... a few tears appeared.

My producer Michael wants to have some time with the track, so he said he will send it to me when it's all done! I honestly can't wait, but I'm so lucky I have people working on it who are willing to take the time to make it perfect.

It's such an important song to me, and I know a few of you have connected with it too. I can't wait for you all to hear it when it comes out. Check back in a few weeks ok?

Much love x

1 comment:

  1. So exciting and very special can't wait for the final product. love you!

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