Testimonial

Well, we’ve finished recording all five tracks for our EP, and I thought it was time for a bit of a recording retrospective.

I feel incredibly proud but also kind of hollow, like I’ve put all of myself somewhere else and now have to figure out how to regenerate a new self. Like a lizard. Only, less tail and more soul. I spent years working up to this, and I really feel like I’ve put everything into these five songs. I’m also really going to miss working on a project of this scale.

It’s funny, but even though we went into this project with the attitude that this was going to be our one shot at creating something of this calibre, we came out of it casually discussing when we’d be able to do it next. This was our first time doing this for real and it… wasn’t what we expected at all. Less defence and more collaboration. Less struggle and more growth. I expected to find it excruciating to have to listen back to myself so many times while we worked on getting things right, but instead, I learned to truly love my voice.

Oh, I’m not pretending to be perfect, nor am I blind to my flaws as a singer, but I finally realized that the absolute biggest thing separating me from “actual” recording artists¹ wasn’t talent, it was editing.²

Yes, our producer/mixer, that multi-instrumental fount of knowledge, ideas, and wisdom with bonus follow-through capabilities, proved conclusively that what we were missing was someone with more recording experience than we had. The demos we recorded ourselves were of varying quality, but I am blown away by the final product. He’s also very kind and nonchalant in his feedback, making it easy to accept. I am prone to crying at feedback, not just in music but in general, because I take making a mistake as a moral failure. I’ll either cry in the moment or after the fact. But I didn’t feel a hint of teary-eyedness throughout this entire project.

I’ve expressed to numerous people now what an absolute joy it has been to work with our producer. I keep describing what I was afraid the process might look like,³ my fears that the process would be taken away from us,⁴ and how overwhelmingly relieved I was to discover that we ended up staying so much a part of the process.⁵ Throughout the production of each track, we exchanged ideas, thoughts about those ideas, and feelings about those thoughts. He put all that knowledge, those ideas, that wisdom, at our disposal, without assuming that because he knows more than we do he automatically knew better.⁶ Nothing was done until everybody was happy with it.

Now the tracks are all ready to be shipped over to someone else for mastering, and I realize that I’ve left the most difficult part of the whole project for last.

Because I promised that when this was all over, I’d write a testimonial.

I am not good at that. Not least because it’s only something I would attempt in a case where I am exceedingly enthusiastic about the person, product, or service in question. See, I write my delight to the extreme, and it ends up sounding… over-the-top. Am I over-grateful? I can imagine people reading what I have to say being a little suspicious about just how positive I am. So I try to be really specific to prove that I’m an actual satisfied customer and, well, end up saying things that don’t really have a place in what I’m trying to write. I also tend to just use too many words.

Knowing this about myself, I’ve been unable to get started on this testimonial. Of course, all I have to say is good things. I know I’ve got plenty of things to say that don’t need saying. Result? I’m practicing by writing this blog post first. Maybe by the time I get to the end of it I’ll have figured out how to write a compelling testimonial.

I want to do this right for three reasons. Firstly, I appreciate the work our producer did on this project and want to convince other people of how good he is so that they’ll pick him and he’ll have plenty to do in the future. Secondly, I want other musicians like me to have access to this kind of experience that pushes you forward instead of pulling you down. And thirdly, I damn well want to make sure that in the future, when we decide it’s time to release more music, he’s still there, doing what he’s so good at.

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¹ Not comparing myself to the greats here, but there might be a few of the less idolized that I’d pit my skills against.

² This is an oversimplification for effect. And… humour.

³ Dehumanizing.

⁴ Devastating.

⁵ When I say overwhelmingly relieved, I am choosing my words with extreme care. I was overwhelmingly relieved.

⁶ I mean, a lot of the time he did know better. But he let us figure that out for ourselves!