Thoughts on soloing
Its the end of the weekend, and I finally have a chance to take some time and record the trumpet parts for this song. I did have some space yesterday and worked up some parts, and even quoted "the Work Song" in part of what I thought I would do.
It was great - but I didn't use any of it. Naturally.
I started tonight with the bridge section, and what a freaking pain it was! I played thru it many times, and even did a test recording, and then said - what the hell is wrong, why am I playing so flat? Turns out that yesterday I had noticed the tuning slide was quite tight and greased it - and you can guess the rest.
OK that is fixed and now I turn to the acutal recording. It seems no matter how many times I do this, I don't ever really get to the point where it is totally mindless and I can sit back and play. Close maybe, but not in cruise control. One thing is certain, its much more difficult to do all the recording yourself than paying the bucks and going into a studio that has all the amenities, including someone else to run takes. Of course the up side is that there is no clock, and that is invaluable.
In this case, I found a nice riff for the second eight of the refrain, but gad it took a long ass time to get it right! Have you ever noticed how there is a fuck up mechanism built into every microphone? That is, you can play the riff perfectly right up to the time you point at the large diaphragm demon, and then bang - fuck up! I really think its worse on wind instruments, but in this particular case it is really because I don't have great trumpet chops. Over and over I go, until I finally get a take I can live with.
Then I have to find something for the first eight - that takes a little longer, and involves much cutting of mistakes, and in one case just getting that right two notes. But its important to me to make it sound real, and in any case, I can now go back and practice the solo before I make it out live, or at least the bones of the solo.
So I am almost there, with much trouble and toil. The trumpet valves are beginning to stick, which makes no sense whatsoever, as they normally get looser as I play - go figure!
I decide that I will have the trumpet ride out on the refrains at the end, so I first copy the pseudo-vibe refrain riff, and then do another take of a solo, and finally one more take, which I keep. Its amazing to me that this last bit, where I am playing for like 24 or 36 measues goes down the easiest of anything this night - this in spite of the fact that my lip is going south a bit.
It is interesting to note that when I am just practicing my horn, my lip dies off way quicker than when I am just playing, but maybe that is the price of trying to be disiplined when I am doing the scales, and not just blowing.
This song is - da ta! - almost done now except for recording the real vocals and doing the to me tedious job of recording all the synth parts and doing the mixing and mastering. But I think its a damn nice song, and so its well worth the effort.