“… Not Because They Are Easy ...”

“… but because they are HARD!”

So said JFK at Rice University, Texas in September 1962. He was talking about the enormity of inventing the as-yet-uninvented technology required for a future moon-trip. I’m happy to appropriate his words to describe how, six months after I began the New Big Plan (and this blog), I’m still faffing around, recording my first song.

I’ve had a rare, full week in the studio (no trips, mainly free-time). Blague Central has a new sign up and I’ve been able, purely through “showing up” regularly, to get a bit of momentum going and predictably, delightfully, craft has begun to turn into art. Here’s a clip from last night’s efforts.

I’ve kept a recording log since Album One (of course I have) in order to know how to recreate an old sound in the future (“Tuesday: Strat – Pod 3 – Edge Power – Analogue Delay”). Even so, the new studio set-up (iMac + I/O box + control surfaces) defeated me for part of the week; without my old patchbay-ful of Aux. outs, in trying to make a special effects track, I struggled to physically send anything into my Line 6 delay pedal and on to a new recording track. I managed in the end – a soloed track (one of the jangly guitars) sent via a headphone output, then patched back in. As with many such sounds recorded in the heat of battle, I’m not sure I’d know how to do it again.

Anyway, you can hear I’ve at least been able to recapture a bit of that old super-saturated analogue delay “noise” with which I swamped many songs on my first two albums. Some artists are instantly recognised by their fantastic voice or signature guitar playing. With me, it’s that fabulous way I fiddle with the “feedback” knob on my delay pedal. Clearly a superskill.

So the “HARD” bit I’ve re-encountered this week is just how much work is required, how many tiny bits of music need to be written, learned, voiced, played, edited and at some future point, placed in the mix – and that’s all just for one song.

I spent today creating guitar & Rhodes piano plinky-plonk melody line, which will sit quietly in the background of the verses, just a splash of colour. I see from the diary it was only Session 21 in these six months of trying. It’s like shifting the Sahara with a teaspoon.

But Oh! The Joy when you get it right. I’d forgotten that bit too. 

So yes, “We choose to go to the moon …”