You'll Hear It: Full Album Deep Dives with Jazz Musicians - 5 Tips for Performing in a Recording Session - #72

Episode Date: April 12, 2018

Today, Adam and Peter give some advice for getting the most out of your studio sessions. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

This is Adam Manus. And I'm Peter Martin. You're listening to The You'll Hear at Podcasts. Daily Jazz Advice. Today we're going to give you five tips for performing in a recording session. Good, because I just got signed to a major label, and so I'm going to be doing a lot of recording sessions coming out. Well, we know that's not true because this thing is a major label anymore.

Yeah, I think it's Telark Jazz. Have you heard of it? What's wrong with Telark Jazz? That's a real thing. It is a real thing. We can't clown. Sorry, sorry. We've only got to call.

Okay. I was joking that I would be signed to tell us. They don't even really do anything. It's self-deprecating. Today we're going to give you five tips for performing. How do you perform in a record? Well, you're doing a performance. Today we're going to give you five tips for performing in a jazz recording session.

Good, because my band just got signed to a major label, and I'm going to have a lot of recording sessions coming up. That sounds good. Yeah, I mean, that's not true. Sounds false, too, because there is no major labels anymore. Absolutely. Good luck with that. Okay. recording sessions can be fun and actually all jokes aside the beauty of the current times we live in is that you know it's more accessible more affordable and more available for anybody to do a recording session to make a you know a full CD you know just to do some online tracks put it up on on you know sound cloud or whatever there's so many different ways to get your music out there you can record you know with just a computer and a little keyboard you you know a lot of

recording studios are more affordable than they've ever been. So it's something for us all to be thinking about. It's a great thing to sort of plan for. You know, you prepare music, you know, be at standards, your own original recordings, kind of put together some documentation of where you are as an artist. But you've got to know how to perform once you get into the recording session. That's right. And, you know, whether you're recording on your laptop in your living room or at Avatar or New York,

some basic principles apply to either one about performing and about some techniques that we're going to give you here to hopefully get your best on record. Great, great. So let's jump right in with number one, and those of you that are regular listening, listeners, till you'll hear, will know that it's usually listen, and that's what it is today. That's right.

And this is very important, and you have to kind of adapt this to the surroundings of your particular recording session. A lot of times you have headphones on. Sometimes you're in kind of a live recording situation on a gig, festival, club, outdoors, or whatever. But you have to really make sure that you're, I mean, look, you're always supposed to be listening when you play. But you may have to kind of pay more attention.

You're nervous about the music. You're thinking about the sound quality, all these things. But you need to be listening to each other. You need to be listening to yourself. And really, as you're recording, not just when you're going in to listen and to takes and things like that. The same kind of things that make for a successful performance live are going to make for a successful recording. So first and foremost, listen. It's simple and it's simplistic, but it's just so important.

beauty of the simplicity of it is that whatever level you're at in terms of you're listening, if you apply your mental and, you know, your mental energy, your concentration to that first and foremost, you're really going to be able to put your best recording on tape, as they say. Yeah, and I'm going to add to this that, you know, in order to listen properly, oftentimes in recording sessions, you may be on headphones, right? You may have cans. Make sure to take the time to get a good headphone mix at the start as good as you can so that you are comfortable with what you're listening to.

You know, don't skimp on that time. That's very, very important. Yeah, because you want to, I mean, even if you have, like, the volume correct, a lot of newbies in recording sessions, you know, the engineer will give you time, or if you're the engineer, you know, how do your can sound, how do your headphones? And you're just thinking about the different levels. That's right. And that's fine, but you also want to get a really good sound quality.

You want it to be pleasurable what you're listening to so that nothing gets in the way of, you know, you're listening really for the music. You want it to sound good as good as possible. That's right. Our number two tip is to be prepared. This is really, really very important, especially if you're in a professional studio because they're very expensive. Yes. And you don't want to be wasting your money or the band leader's money or whomever's money. You want to have your stuff together. If there's charts, make sure that you have them with you, make sure you've at least practiced the music a little bit the day before that morning. But be as prepared as possible so that when you get in there, you're not wasting time trying to. figure stuff out that could have been figured out, you know, days, weeks before. Right. And I think that in my experience, the level of concentration that you need to really execute a successful recording session is pretty high. So the better prepared you are with the things

that you can anticipate, the more your concentration and mental energy is going to be able to go to really executing on a great creative product of your playing. So you want to, you know, the preparation, you can't prepare for everything that's going to happen musically and you shouldn't, but you want to be prepared to be able to react to those things, to be able to concentrate on those things so that the little mundane things like, oh, I wish I'd taken care of that. That's just more mental energy you have to put there. So take care of what you can take care of and then be open to the moment.

Yeah, I think that even comes down to like thinking about your sound that you want to record. If you're a saxophone player, you know, pick out your reeds before, if your drummer pick out your sticks and what symbols or what snare drum you want to use. If you're a pianist, just show up. No, but think about, you know, where you think you want the mics, if you know anything about that, like having a vision for that before you get into the room. Well, and I would say as a pianist, you know, see if you can get a little bit of time

to get in and get accustomed. I always go to sessions early. And I'll usually ask them, even if I can go the day before, if possible. So because if you just show up an hour before the session, supposed to start thinking, I'm going to get to know the piano. They're setting up mics. They're moving things. The drummer is like, you know.

So really, you know, take the time to try to get at the instrument. Let's look at number three. We're doing five tips today, right? What happened to seven? We're getting lazy. We're getting a little lazy. Well, I think our attention span of our audience is also waning. Let's be honest. That's true.

By the end of this podcast, it's going to be one hot tip. Listen. Yeah, listen. Okay, so for number three, we've got, you know, be free and creative like there was an audience there, even though there's not an audience there. So a little bit of mental preparation for this will go a long way, because you don't want to have everything planned out like it's not a live gig. It is different than a live gig.

gig, of course, but you want it to have that spontaneity, that creativity, that certain, you know, joyful, playfulness that you get on a live jazz gig, you want that to be recorded. Yes, you want a little bit more precision with what you're doing and to be able to really execute things in a thought-out way, but you have to kind of, I don't know, almost like act like you're just on a regular gig, still concentrating, interacting, but acting like there's an audience there, even though there isn't one there. Yeah, I think it's really important. I hear in experience people in the studio all the time.

They try to be very, very safe when they're in there, you know, and it comes off sounding a little weak. Generic, a little generic, a little weak. And I always try to, you know, come out of the gate doing something adventurous or taking risks like I would on a gig. You know, even if it doesn't work the first time, it kind of gets you out of that space. Yep, yeah. And it just, that sort of takes some time and experience, but I do think you can accelerate.

I mean, I remember the first few recording sessions I was in. I was so careful with the way that I played because I was actually thinking about how is this going to sound? What do I want to be on this recording? And that's like the total opposite of what you want to do. So it's hard to get out of that, but the sooner you start,

the sooner you'll get to the promised land. That's right. So number four, and this is a really, after years of experience of this, this is a very important practical tip. Try not to do more than five takes of the same song in a row. You know, for me, I don't usually do more than three,

and then I'll move on to something else because, honestly, after take three, nothing good's happening. That's right, that's right. I mean, I would almost say take two. I mean, like three, you've got to do some work. Like, we're talking about complete takes. You know, sometimes on the third take,

if you have to do it, you really have to manufacture that first or second take kind of feel. You know, so that usually means you're not even that well prepared or there's something wrong with the arrangement or something. Right. Now, we're not talking about, I believe, you know, like false start, and like little sections. Sometimes, you know, I almost think it's better, like, if you start out and it's not happening,

some people will say, well, go ahead and finish the take. I don't really believe that because I think that if it's a situation where you really feel like you can get a full take without any editing or inserts or anything, it's better to kind of save that energy and that spontaneity. Just pull back if something gets screwed up towards the beginning of the take and see if you can nail it the next time. You know, and in some situations, you may not feel like you have the time to not go for more and more takes to try to get what you want.

But I'm telling you, it's diminished returns and you're going to end up wasting more time than you're saving. Absolutely. And, I mean, after you get five takes or even three, I would say just abandon it and come back another day or at least another time of the session. Absolutely. And then number five of our five tips for performing in a recording session

is to recognize your surroundings. Now, I know we said before is like play in a way that you're on a gig, but that's really for the sake of, you know, still having it energetic and spontaneous. When you're in the recording session, there's actually some advantages over when you're in a live situation. You can generally, if you took our early advice as far as really listening and getting your headphones right, you can actually hear better and with more precision and more clarity and more detail than you can on most live gigs.

So take advantage of that. Really listen closely in terms of your own playing, in terms of interaction with the other musicians, if there's other people on there, and use that for your advantage to make an even more inspired performance. A good recording situation is almost like the perfect situation. So it's going to amplify the good parts of your playing. Unfortunately, it'll also amplify the inferior parts of you're playing. So try to really just be aware of your surroundings, take advantage of that great listening environment,

and have a great time and lay down some fat tracks, pH. Yeah, because, you know, you'll hear it. And then we'll hear it. That's right. Everyone will hear it. Thanks for listening to this episode of the You'll Hear It podcast. If you liked what you heard, please leave a rating or review. Yeah, I liked what I heard.

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