Here is the next song on the Before the Harvest album; it’s called “You and Beauty”. This is a song that was written back when I was younger and thinking too much about some situations in life that I probably didn’t need to think about as much. In the end, I want to be chasing after God.
This song is partially recorded by and mastered by my friend Andrew Nagatori.
Spent some time after work on some upcoming song projects, this week. One of the songs is the next song in the series from the Before the Harvest album. It’s called Dragonfly Skies. Began adding a little bit more to the drums around the middle or end of the song. Still need to check and make sure it works with the song. After that, hoping to finish mixing that song and then planning to send it off for mastering.
Had the opportunity to recently record some of the “base layers” (rhythm guitar, vocals, and bass) along with electric guitar this week on a song called Seek First. Added a little bit more to the drums on this song today, as well. This is a song from last year, but thankful for the opportunity to record it now. Ordered a percussion shaker in order to use it on some songs if possible. These are harder to play/use than I thought, but I like how it can add some percussion. I might have to do some copy/paste or re-recording in some places, though, because I ended up losing rhythm or getting tired during some of the recording.
Also had the opportunity to get some of the base layers recorded for other songs, including two new songs: A Path Divides and Fireside. Still trying for “as good as possible at the time” for the recording while still learning that it probably will not be perfect recording whether on the musical side or the technical side. Added some percussion (using the new shaker) on an old song called Narrow, too, and I like how that is turning out. Learning that when I try to make something perfect, I usually never finish whatever it was I was trying to make perfect.
Here is a new song (though of old stock from 2008) called Air Balloon. I think it’s a song that reflects on how my ideas don’t always turn out the way I thought they would. This song is mastered by my friend Andrew Nagatori!
The next song on the Before the Harvest album is now currently being mixed. This (You and Beauty) song is one of the least favorite songs of mine on the album, but I think it is worth keeping. Something that bothers me about this recording, though, is how parts of it are out of tune to an extent that I probably can’t fix for now. It’s possible to change some of it, but the recording on this song is more complex than the last one. I guess it’s a reminder to me that when recording, it’s a good idea to tune up before each take, even when a guitar was in tune at the start of the session. Still learning a lot about mixing as the time goes by with hopefully some learning to show along the way. Working on making the mix a bit “flatter”, though I like to lean towards making something less “bright” at times.
As a follow up to the earlier part of this post, I went back and re-recorded some of the electric guitar parts that were out of tune and/or not quite how I was hoping they would turn out. I like the overall result now with that and now I’m making sure the timing works.
Began mixing the first song of the Before the Harvest project called Air Balloon, today. With audio work, especially with recording at least, mixing is kind of like bringing a lot of different instruments together into one overall product. I think mixing can also make it easier to listen to a song. It reminds me a little of how an orchestra works: there is a conductor who is leading the music to some extent and the audience can pick out different instruments playing at different physical locations in the orchestra. The instruments in the orchestra are not all in the same exact place, which makes it easier to physically hear individual groups of instruments to some extent. In mixing, the person mixing is kind of like the conductor and the listener is like the audience. The person mixing can also get some separation between instruments and “tracks” in a composition by moving the instruments and tracks to different sides (e.g. left, center, right) of the listening space. Tracks are individual recorded parts that can make up a recorded song (for example, an electric guitar might be a track). This separation that can happen when mixing helps prevent the listener from getting overwhelmed by all of the instruments seeming to come from the same exact location in the listening space. Mixing can help the various tracks mesh well together.
Been working on separating the instruments out in the mix and adding things like EQ and reverb to certain parts of the mix. Trying to get the vocals to be somewhat easy to listen to from an audio standpoint. It’s been a while since I’ve mixed anything, though, so I’ve looked back into some mixing tips. In some ways, I like how this song is turning out… but the perfectionism is telling me that it could still be different/better.
In spite of wanting to have a perfect product, I want to aim for “better” this time, and not “perfect”. This is a common theme that I want to remember during this project, though, because it is easy for me to forget this.
Finished up some recent fixes or adjustments on the Before the Harvest project, today. After that, listened through the songs in order as they are meant to appear on the album. There are still areas that I wish I could fix, and there may still be time to fix some of that before being “done” with this project… but sometimes this just gets into the problem of trying for perfection. I want to do the best possible job on a project like this, but I also realize that this is not a commercial project. Getting closer to a point where I can focus on mixing the songs, though, but having that moment of ear overload when listening through the whole album at once. It can be hard to discern what still needs to be changed on a project when a lot of it sounds “bad” once reaching that point of overload.
Had the opportunity to work on adding drums, bass guitar and some electric guitar to a song called “Test Me with Fire” during part of today. For the drums, I use a program called Addictive Drums that plays drum sample sounds when a certain MIDI note is played on the music program I use for that. It works out well and is nice because I don’t play drums very well. Been putting to use an older drum/percussion set of pads for adding specific drum parts as well, and that is fun.
Had the opportunity to change the bass strings earlier this month and they have been working out well so far. Currently using D’Addarío Nickel Wound XL (EXL22OTP) (from an earlier post on a friend’s Facebook wall) for the strings.
Fun to add the electric guitar parts in general, but I’m learning that it’s easy to add too much electric guitar too quickly. A little electric guitar seems to go a long way. Been working on keeping rhythm when recording electric guitar as well, and this song from today is one of the faster songs on the related album. Fun to play the faster songs!
… things were left off on an old music album project from 2008, this week. It is something I put off for too much time and there has been so much time given to me recently that it seemed evident it was time to work on something constructive.
This album is called “Before the Harvest” and has some fall-related songs and some regular songs, but I’m not sure how soon it will be done if at all. Things have been going well, though, with adding drums, bass guitar, and some electric guitar to the 2008-recorded guitar and vocals. It is strange to work on something with such a long gap in the actual recording… but it has been interesting.
So thankful to God for the time to work on this project once again. Also thankful to Andrew Nagatori who spent a lot of time listening to me try to get a better recording over many takes when he did a lot of the early recording for this project.
One song on this project is called “Air Balloon”. It’s a simple song, but here is a glimpse at what it might sound like (pre-mixing, etc.) in the future if you have time to listen.
The next semester rolled around quickly and I found out that there was a required class that I would need to take. I really wanted to dive into “regular” classes at the time, but reluctantly registered for the required class as well. Technically, I was now taking the same amount of credits as last term, but this time it was made up of three classes instead of two.
One class was the second part of the Greek language class series with the same instructor as last time. There was definitely a lot to learn in that class and the instructor kept encouraging us in studies. I still remember the example that this instructor gave about certain verb “conjugations” (paradigms)—jokingly saying something about how we might be called up sometime on the phone at night or early in the morning (when we least expected it) and asked to recite things from memory. If you like languages, this series of classes can be fun—and I found it fun. Sadly, I became increasingly focused on grade point average by this point. The first semester went well, but now I was unknowingly on the path to striving for some sort of perfection.
Another class was about various approaches to worship and what that can look like in terms of worshiping God. This was an elective class, but I took it thinking it was meant to be about worship in the sense of worship music. In some ways, what I began to learn could be applied to music as well, but the focus was broader in that sense. One of the parts of this class that especially stood out to me was the opportunity to visit other churches to observe varying traditions. Sadly, the paper I wrote about these experiences probably dripped with my increasing pride at this time.
The third class during this semester was the class I was reluctant to take—the required class. Many students at my seminary are required to take this class and it goes through various personality and ministry-related tests in order to help students see one’s personal gifts and how gifts might be able to be applied. This was one of the hardest classes for me, though, because it involved getting together with other people who were not a part of the same class. I’m thankful that there were fellow brothers at church who were willing to spend time meeting together during this semester.
Throughout this semester, however, my pride turned to panic as the semester was drawing to a close and my grades were starting to slip.
Though it took a number of years to actually start, I began seminary thinking I would become a pastor. When I was little, I thought it would be interesting to be a preacher. I know my grandma was at least somehow related to this thought about being a pastor someday, too. But I somehow had the idea that one can easily become a pastor if only one goes to seminary. So, it was time to go to seminary.
Seminary began with a class at night and an online class. One of my early mistakes was that I didn’t realize there is a difference between undergraduate credit load and masters program credit load. I ended up taking what felt like many credits while still chugging along at my new workplace. But I kept running along with this rearranged “full time everything” idea (though, not actually full time in this case) that had seemed to work out well for a previous program of study. But I think this “full time everything” mentality was part of my pride winding up—unbeknownst to me.
These first two classes dealt with learning how to interpret Scripture and Greek Exegesis. The first class was definitely difficult as it brought up a lot of new vocabulary and concepts that I hadn’t thought about before. The second class was the beginning of a series of classes in Biblical Greek. I thought it was fun to get started on the Greek class, and my course instructor at the time seemed enthusiastic about the subject.
The semester went by pretty quickly and things seemed to be going well. It was the start of a new season, and I felt ready for the new challenge.