and lastly

i spent a fascinating time this weekend recording a track for some cd i'm on. for reasons i can't quite explain, it appears i've never been in a proper recording studio before. it was great fun!

of course i nailed my recording but i did find that standing up, using a music stand worked well for me. after that i got to listen to the others doing their thing. not only did i find that i could listen far more closely to the technicalities of their language than i would say in a reading, but i was also aware that i was far more conscious of the voice (elizabeth alexander and her knockers take note!)

because we were with musicians we had a really good exchange about the difference between speaking and singing, the thought processes that go into spoken word as opposed to lyric and playing. much was said about rhyme and metre as well as word choice. it was great!

not only that, i was introduced to the arcane world of studio talk. i have no idea what the differences are between mikes, only that it does indeed make a difference. and where myself and the musicians talked about rhythm, intonation, delivery the studio people had a vocabulary so different i can't even recall it (no notebook!) - sound envelopes, dynamics etc.

what a difference it makes, to put yourself in a space where there's people working in different media, with different approaches to yourself. as adam smith says (because i;m still on the smith thing)

Society and conversation.... are the most powerful remedies for restoring the mind to its tranquillity