Spreading the Wealth

Being in a band is awesome, especially when you're the drummer. You get just sit back and jam and enjoy the music. Recording music for the band is a different story. When in practicing at home you can just come up with a fill or do a different beat to see what it sound like until you find the one that fits. When you're being recorded you have to make sure you do the same thing over and over so that way during the mixing and editing everything will match. It's an awesome feeling being recorded, like your music is actually doing something and will mean something to more then just yourselves or your friends who have heard you. Yes, people can hear you in concert but live music is more a communal experience. Everyone comes to experience the artists while their working, to experience the creation itself. Recording is like fossilizing your music so that it will be in its final form. A piece of art that can moved and duplicated for all to hear.
When I first stepped into the recording studio I was so excited, I wanted to play all our songs at once and then hear how they sounded. But recording is much more tedious then that. You as well as your band mates must play each the way they want it to finalized, and if someone messes up you must do it over. This happens for track until they are all completed. I set my drum set and sat down ready to play. But before I could get one hit out the recording engineer started wall me off from my comrades as if I were being quarantined. My only way of communication being a small window to look through. Once everything was set up. I started to practice, but everything sounded muffled like I was stuck under a blanket. There was no reverberation at all no sound but the original tone leaving the drum after being struck. This was when I realized how delicate sound was. If you are going to have a good sound track you must have every instrument in its most organic form. Every note must be clear otherwise things will start to be distorted and the notes will bleed together creating a new sound. Everyone experiences sound differently, but in order for a sound to be spread the way the artist wishes it to be heard they must perfect it in the recording.