ok.
so....
a little frustrated.
It's just been a sucky day for this project musically.
GooooooddddddDDDDDAAAAMMMMIIITTTTTTTT!!!
Sorry.
just...
releasing some stress.
better to do it here than throw my laptop out the window, eh?
Ok.
I've hit a wall with some arrangements.
I feel like i've wasted hours at the piano just recording and deleting over and over.
I'm starting to worry that all these songs sound the same and why am i only noticing now that they're mostly all in the same KEY?
How the hell did THAT happen?
Will that matter?
Will people's ears get really really really tired of that one key?
Or is it just mine because i'm listening to these arangements over and over and OVER.
Should I change keys?
Should I change songs?
Should I maybe just give up music and start working the corner of 43rd and 9th?
I'm trying to lay down some piano tracks and...i'm just fumbling about like a complete tool. Plus walking with a cane recently, my right hand is just all pissed off and crampy.
Basically...
I am way off my game today and...I don't like it.
Not one bit.
I don't like feeling like i'm wasting time.
Also, it doesn't help that I'm also doing test vocals and am pretty sure that I suck absolute toaster streudel.
UGH!
For the me, the worst part is trying to be objective vocally.
It's.....impossible.
It really is.
THIS is where i really need a producer...to save me from MYSELF.
I can be much more objective about my instrumental playing... but the perfectionist in me becomes an absolute tyrant when it comes to my own vocals. I've always been this way. Ever since I was a little kid.
So, on the one hand it's great because I can do as many takes as i want and not have to worry about someone else paying for studio time as I try to get it as close to ideal as possible. But on the other hand, there is no one to talk me down and make me move on when I believe that absolutely everything I'm singing is for shit and should never ever be heard in public.
I must resist the urge to obsess over the vocals.
I must resist the urge to obsess over the vocals.
I must resist the urge to obsess over the vocals.
The weird thing is, I know this is me just being really hard on myself and somewhere inside i know it doesn't sound bad at all. I can remember being in the studio recording My Life With Albertine and just HATING my stuff because i was sick, and tired, and vocally exhuasted...but I couldn't do more than two takes of my stuff because of time. When it came out, i refused to listen to it because i was SO convinced that I would be absolutely horrified by my performance. Years later, I happened to hear my solo number (i think maybe in the car on Sirius XM, maybe) and I remember thinking,
"Oh my God, that was actually really good! What was my fucking problem?"
When i got home, i bought the album and listened to it all night...thoroughly enjoying it.
It's like that syndrome where...the whole time in high school you were convinced you were an ugly, fat monster...and then ten years later you look at pictures of yourself and think,
"Oh my God, I actually looked really good! What was my fucking problem?"
So it's something I'm aware of.
But it's also something that...is very difficult for me to deal with all by myself in my apartment. I may have to put Andy (the bf) on "perfectionist" duty. Ahhhhh, Andy Arrow. The luckiest man in show business. Bless.
And not for nothing....
My brilliant plan to use the rehearsal room in the building?
yeah.
not so much.
Complete and total waste of fucking time.
Last night i waited until 11:30pm to get the key to the basement rehearsal room (my sign up time was 11:30pm-12:45am) and i'm already kinda stressy. I'm standing at the front desk of my building with music, computer, cords, pop screen, bread crumbs and vodka in my backpack--
and a microphone and microphone stand in one hand and a cane in the other--
all the while trying to sign in for the room (at Manhattan Plaza you sign for everything), get the keys and try to pry directions to where it actually is from the security guard.
So...
already.
it's a stressful production just getting there in my 'condition'.
I get down to the basement-
start walking around and following signs to the practice room, I hope.
Even though I've been down here plenty of times...I never really did notice how loud it is down here. It sounds like being in the hull of a working ship. Clanging pipes, hissing sounds of 'steam', and an overall general "hummmmmmmmmmmm" that I was extremely wary of.
I take a deep breath to remove judgement until i'm in the actual room.
So i turn the corner and see the practice room....
i look through the window of the door...
"not bad".
Put the key in, turn the door knob, open the door....
take one step onto the floor and ccccrrrrrreeeaaaaaaaaaakkkkkkkk.
fuck.
I try to remain optimistic.
"it's not so bad...i'll just throw my jacket down and stand on it and not move...
on one leg....
with a cane...
and a walking boot."
I give a little vocal 'heeeeyyyy' test...
it bounces back to me for, a little part of a minute.
it's a fucking echo chamber of acoustic death in here.
So...
basically in denial...
i keep unpacking...
my...
stuff?
cause.
I'm.
crazy.
All the while registering now, not only the cracked out acoustics but the creaking floor, the yelling maintenance people outside in the hall, the slamming doors, oh oh.....what's that? I don't know but it sounds like some sort of trash compactor...?
to go with....
....what IS THAT?!
ahhhhhh yes.
brilliant.
awesome.
fan-TAS-tic.
The piece de resistance is this.....
sound of someone slamming on and off some sort of...
water faucet?
Like in an old house, you can hear when the water turns off and on with a thud?
ok.
now.
THIS is the kind thing that will make me..........in-SSAAAANNNNEEEEE.
I am extremely sound sensitive anyway-
but...
i can deal with people talking...
i can deal with washing machines....
i can deal with traffic sounds....
because in a way they have a rhyme and reason.
a conversation will eventually end...
the washing machine will eventually shut off...
traffic sounds tend to cycle around rush hours...
but...
something like this?
this...
RANDOM turning on and off of whatever this FRIGGIN BALLSACKING MILK COCKING SOUND ISSS ALLREEAADDYY MMAKKINGG MEEE HOOMOOOCIIIDDAALLL!!!!!!!
Obviously, a smarter and more rational person would have walked into this room...
immediately clocked the impossibility of it...
and walked out.
Not me.
No no nonoononoooooooooo.
This is where the Irish stubbornness works against a girl.
No...I'm gonna STAY.
i'm gonna MAKE THIS WORK.
I'm gonna......find something POSITIVE IN THIS ROOM I KNOW IT!!!
Defiantly.
I set everything up...
i don't know...
hoping once the clock struck twelve that all of a sudden everyone in the building would go to sleep and....stop talking...and taking out the trash...and USING WHATEVER *^^%$)(*YU)(*)*&^*&^%$*&^%$&$%#^#@^#$@^ WATER FAUCET/PUMP/THING??!!
oh sweet Jesus i'm going to kill someone.
I forge on.
Because somewhere...obviously, i hate myself.
just a little bit.
I start to try to record tracks....
please don't question the logic...there is none.
I wait for all the noises to stop...
i press record hoping that i can get through the quiet part of the song to the louder part before everything starts up again.
And it's like...
well it's like a Carol Burnett sketch honestly.
It's quiet...
I press record....
it's quiet...
it's quiet...
it's quiet...
i take a breath aaanndd...
all of a sudden i've been drop kicked into a mixer.
and not like a fun party, i mean like...
an actual kitchen appliance.
with tons of reverb.
this happens over and over and over and over....
until at about 12:20am...
practically in tears...
I give up.
So.
Fuck.
I pack everything up and head to the elevators.
I press up and wait...and wait...and wait.
Finally, I start looking around and then i see it.
A sign that says,
"Due to regular maintenance, the elevators will be shut off from 12am-2am. We apologize for any inconvenience".
and, scene.
xo
dl
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