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Magical Moment 461, "Take Two, I Mean Twenty-Two"

There is an episode of the comedy TV show, 30 Rock, that I find has become quite relevant to me when recording for my album. The finished product of a song is flawless, perfect, smooth. But the road getting to that outcome is a very different story. 

In this episode, Jack Donaghy (Alec Baldwin), records a business presentation. His staff watches the segment and is impressed with his impeccable deliverance of the lines, his eye contact, and his overall demeanor. They praise him as a "natural" on camera and ask him to make a guest appearance on their live TV show, to which he agrees. However, they get a hold of the outtakes from his recording session and are immediately terrified of how he will do on live TV. Click here for the hilarious clip of before and after.

There are days when I've had to record one word of one lyric a half dozen times or more, just to get the pronunciation right, or the pitch just perfect, or the timing right on. But you'd never know it listening to the final outcome. Oh, the beauty of recorded music! Sorry to all the recording artists out there who want the world to think they sing the song through one time, start to finish, and wa-lah! Perfection! Cat's out of the bag. Truth is, we'd be a mess without the magic of software, the hard work of producers, and the luxury of recording take, after take, after take. (Let's just hope the world doesn't get a hold of my outtakes, yikes!).







Here are posts as I chronicle my album recording with Modern Vintage Recordings:

Comments

The video link didn't work for me, but once again I'm impressed to learn all that goes into the recording of a song. Most interesting.
Busy Bee Suz said…
What? The songs are not sung beginning to finish for a record???? You have blown my mind.
Best of luck on finishing...
Suz
MaggieGem said…
Wow, you are certainly working very hard on this album... Hooray for you! All the best, psst... I won't tell anyone. ;-)
Yes we are not perfect, so your outtakes should be fine :)
Unknown said…
I tried to watch your video, but it looks like the content has been blocked. Recording is a long and painstaking process, if you want to achieve excellence. Hang in there.
Rick said…
Another myth exposed !

Next you're going to tell us there's no tooth fairy !

;-)
Hilary said…
Too bad the video is down because I don't believe I've seen that episode of 30 Rock. My son dabbles in missing music so I'm not unaware of the work that goes into making a perfect piece. It's not unlike photography. A decent photograph can be enhanced afterward to become a great photograph. Thank goodness for this age of technology where we can perfect our arts by ourselves.

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