Sparks from the Fire

I’ve always enjoyed vocal arranging. Growing up as student choir director in my high school and college choirs was a big influence on my appreciation for the craft of putting voices together.

Harmonizing them always came easy for me – somehow I just heard the harmonies in my head and usually what I heard, worked.

Also my teenage days were full of folk music, and the harmonies and vocal arranging of Peter, Paul and Mary, The Four Freshmen and The Beach Boys opened my mind to many refreshing possibilities.

So when I first got into the music business as a composer, I always did my own vocal arrangements, was good at it and enjoyed it immensely. (more…)

By the time I’m finished producing an album, I don’t ever want to hear it again – at least for a year.  It’s not that I don’t like it; it’s just that I’ve heard it – over and over and over again, way too many times for any human.

Alabado sea Dios

The process of creation demands the repetition.  Often I’ve also written the songs, or some of them anyway, and that only increases the ear and brain fatigue.  Repetition is definitely a large part of the writing, producing, engineering process, and since I do all three, that also extends the repetition.

On top of it all, by the time I’m deeply into the making of a CD, the songs go coursing through my brain all night as well, over and over while I sleep just to add to the number.

So when I listen to that last master reference copy back from my masterer and approve it as final, I always breathe a sigh of relief that the prolonged grind is finally over.  If you were to ask me to listen to a CD that I produced when it comes in from the manufacturer, I would go screaming into the night.

Last night, while testing the ecommerce end of the new Watchfire Music site, I arbitrarily decided to download El Amor from Julia Wade’s Spanish CD, Alabado sea Dios.  Thrilled by the simple and intuitive process of purchasing and downloading, (a blatant plug) I decided to check the MP3 download as well.

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