February 23, 2009

  • Preliminaries... Music Recording and Future Ambitions

    I thought I'd take this opportunity to provide some background information on my musical history and aspirations.

    Before going any further, let me say that I'm not famous: you probably won't have heard anything I've produced and you might be wondering why I think I'm in a position to discuss music and audio recording with any degree of authority.  The answer to that question would be "Because I know things, and I'm willing to share what I know."  The sad fact is that music production is a fiercely competitive field, and as much as published recording artists like bragging about the gear they have and the tracks they produce, they will often be coy about how they use it.

    But my story doesn't begin there... let's go back to a 5 year old boy whose parents have just moved to a country town in South Australia called Renmark.  His father has brought his aunt's old piano with the family, and Jeremy is keen to find out more about how his father makes such great tunes come out of this complex looking artefact that towers above him. 

    After a few experimental bashes (possibly more than a few, truth be told), young Jeremy sees that his fathers fingers aren't hitting all the notes at once - he doesn't bash the piano with his wrists... those fingers are waggling around excitedly and hitting the notes one at a time.  Jeremy tries working with this one note at a time trick and eventually manages to teach himself some songs he's learnt from watching PlaySchool and Sesame Street on television. 

    Twinkle Twinkle Little Star was the first tune young Jeremy taught himself.  Baa Baa Black Sheep was the second.  Jeremy's little brother Michael then interrupted his experiments - bashing on the keys, keen to be involved and the elder boy pushes the younger one away, starting a fight and leading to exasperation from their parents.  It took weeks to remember how the tune went again, but Jeremy eventually got there...

    To be continued....