Pre-production

Hello everybody!

So pre-production is fun, exciting, new, and challenging - I'm lovin' it. Today Dean and I tackled my song "Hey, yeah". I wrote this song a couple years ago - it's about a bunch of things that I love, that I think of when I need to be cheered up. It's got this funky groove / Sara Bareilles feel.

Dean had some great ideas for the song - a breakdown in the 3rd verse, subtle lyric changes, jumping straight into the bridge after the 2nd chorus, a funky fade out for the ending... (am I giving too much away?) So this is pre-production. And this is what it's like to have a producer! Here is Dean driving the sound ship:

During the recording of the scratch track (the track you eventually "scratch", or erase, but use as the template for recording all the other musical elements, meaning drums, bass, piano, vocals, etc.), Dean encouraged me at the piano to terrace and build the song, saying things like "be sneakier at the beginning.... then do some higher register octaves in the chorus". On vocals he asked me to emote more - pick certain words to sing specific ways, become an actress if I needed to. I can tell he's going to do his utmost to drag the best I have to offer out of me.

The brim on my black hat kept bumping the screen in front of the mic, so I turned it backward - all of a sudden the gangster style just started flowin' out. Just kidding.

I'm excited for the CD. I look forward to sharing these songs with friends/family/the world - and I'll do my best to record them well.