Crazy early start today (for us) with Tess the cellist. She was only available today as she is going out of town for the rest of the time we are working on this project and we had quite a bit to get through that needed cello (what doesn’t need cello?). Start time wouldn’t be considered early by normal humans, but for us getting up at 8.15 after weeks in the studio and 12-14 hour days that have us mostly home at midnight, this felt early. But it’s worth it just to work with Tess and that amazing instrument she plays.
We recorded until 3.15 PM, including one song where Tess and I played live together. At one point we had engineer John in the room with us shaking a drumstick to keep us in time in a part where there were stops but no rhythm. Tess hobbled out with her bad knee and we changed the microphone position as Olivia was next to play. The string players have to be so precise, no frets, and they tune by ear. When Olivia and I play together she says give me a Dm, then a Gm, and then an Am and that’s it, she’s tuned.
I walked out of the studio into a beautiful, warm, breezy afternoon. There was nothing left of the bitter cold, the idea that there had been ice and snow seemed impossible, no one would have believed you if you’d told them that two days earlier it had been -12°C. It reminds me of the time that I was talking to a crew of aliens about music, no one believed me (mysterious). Mysterious visitations aside, the dome above was pure blue and the sun so yellow it almost looked like IKEA in the sky. I was contemplating mosquito eggs, as you do, and was thinking that the big freeze might have wiped out the coming spring and summer invaders. Oddly, Texan mosquitos are rather small but bite like gas-guzzling pick-ups, you know, the ones with jacked-up chassis, wide wheels and gun racks. Sometimes the mosquitos drive up in these vehicles and snarl, waiting for us to venture outside from the safety of the studio.
We finished today’s recording around 11 PM and drove back to Sarah’s where at the front door I told everybody that I felt weird and was going straight to bed without opening my computer, no tea, no music, just put my teeth in the jar by the door and went straight to sleep.
Music today has been Scott 3 because it often comes up when we are working on string arrangements, as does the sixties Bee Gees Best Of. I love these albums with their sweeping, evocative string arrangements, both released in 1969.