Over the last couple days, we have been doing a lot of socializing, and as I've mentioned before I typically just don't film in social situations so this video is short and sweet. Our friends hosted a vegetarian dinner for us in South Seattle, and then the following night we went to see Ladybird (set in my hometown!) at the movies with some other friends.
But the biggest change in my routine is that I learned how to operate a home recording studio! Nash basically info-dumped all his knowledge of sound engineering while I kept careful notes in a Google Doc.
Then, Spencer came over and I ran the tracking session for a full song with vocals and piano. Nash knows how difficult it can be for me to take charge, so he left the room. I was in the hot seat for pointing out mistakes and deciding when to move on, but Spencer is a seasoned pro and a great singer and helped out tremendously. It was so fun!
Fortunately, I have some background of signal processing from my electrical engineering/mathematics days so many of the concepts are familiar - high-pass/low-pass/notch filters, compression, digital sampling, etc. And my experience with video editing helped a lot with comping takes. It was surprising to embark into a new field of knowledge and discover that it seems familiar!
Unfortunately, my knowledge of music comes from classical piano and marching band. This means I know how to read sheet music, but I am pretty much incapable of true musicality. I can't see the right chord progressions or instinctively sing the right harmonies. Which is why I'm in total awe at how Nash and Spencer can birth new songs as effortlessly as breathing.
My untrained ears also totally suck at mixing/mastering at this point - which means there's plenty of room for improvement. If anyone can point me to how produced pop songs sound so crisp, please let me know. And I'm still fumbling through most of the UI in Ableton and other specialized tools.
The idea is that as I learn more I will be able to help out with Nash and Spencer's Vest-Pocket Musicals project and also record some of the many solo songs Nash has written. I'm so excited to be able to support these incredible artists, and maybe some of their musicianship will rub off on me!
Have you learned any new skills recently or is there anything you'd like to learn? Please share! (I upvote my favorite comments)
Thanks for popping by! It seems that shorter videos lead to more writing, which suits my personal preferences just fine. If you made it to here, plase consider checking out the new contest I'm hosting!
-Katie, @therovingreader
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