Anatomy of a Recording Session

Yesterday I drove in to Staten Island for a recording session: Continuity of Struggle was invited to provide a recording to be posted onto the NYC Anarchist Book Fair’s homepage.

We’ve been performing the piece to be recorded, @City, by Seth Tobocman, for a few months—the group has been improvising music to accompany Seth’s comix slideshow and declaimed vocals.

Continuity of Struggle’s musical director is Eric Blitz, percussionist. Also in the band are Marc Sloan on bass, Doug Principato on guitar, Jenny Gonzalez-Blitz on vocals, and me on winds. For @City, I play flute.

Over the course of the past year, we’ve been performing on the second Wednesday of most months at P.I.T. Bookstore (that’s “Property Is Theft”), 411 South 5th Street, in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. Seth Tobocman began to draw @City nearly a year ago, and each month, he’s been adding a couple more pictures to the slideshow. So, the band’s musical accompaniment has been stretching out.

When we perform live, what we play, exactly, is unpredictable—we do not know what slides Seth will have added, and we don’t plan what any of us will play. We also don’t know how the audience will react to the piece (for instance, if people will shout or scream or clap). We’re improvising, in the moment—we channel the energy in the room.

Making a recording in the attic studio of Doug’s house in Staten Island is not at all the same as performing live for fifty enthusiastic people jammed into P.I.T.

For me, recording is always a confusing process anyway, because as an improviser, I take it for granted that my music is identified with the moment of its creation.

My theory of time is that moments are eternal. I think that time extends outward into a parallel dimension. That’s the meaning of a phrase like, “love goes on forever.”

So, I’m not concerned to make recordings of my improvisations. Such documents are meaningless. 

While I do often record my playing onto my phone or my computer, I rarely listen to these audio files. These documents aren’t the same as the moment of the group’s improvisation. They can capture none of the electricity, the immediacy.

So, when I do record, one of the things I do not want to do is concoct a planned, canned piece of music, that “sounds like me.”

Instead, I want to defy my own cliches or habits and—as I always strive to do—find inspiration in the moment. For me, it’s much more difficult to carry this off in a recording session. There’s a paradox which cannot be overcome.

As I mentioned, our guitar player Doug Principato has a recording studio in his attic. It’s a luxury to have a bandmate who can offer his own recording set-up to the group, in this way.

I hadn’t been to Doug’s studio before, and all I knew about it was, that it was in his attic—and we’d have to get up there by climbing a ladder.

So that was an adventure—and, there it all was, crammed in under the sloping roof-eaves. A lot of equipment!

All five of us were able to fit, no problem, into the two small rooms.

We recorded the piece—@City is about ten minutes long—and I felt like I hadn’t played well.

So, I was relieved that the others were happy with how the playback sounded, but that they also thought we should do a second take.

I forgot to mention: one reason I’d been pretty anxious before this recording session was that three weeks ago, I started having symptoms with my eyes—they were really itchy and watery. I assumed I was having a bad allergy season. But I also noticed that my lips felt slightly numb, in a patchy way. It felt like I couldn’t control my mouth quite right. After several days of complaining that my eyes were tearing up and watery, my wife Gaia took a hard look at me and told me that my right eye was not blinking when my left eye blinked. It was stuck, open.

This I hadn’t realized.

Gaia googled my eye and lip symptoms and the computer said, I’d either had a stroke, or, I had Bell’s Palsy.

Since it could be a stroke, I should immediately go to the emergency room.

This googling happened at 11:30pm on a Friday night.

I was annoyed that Gaia and google were taking it so seriously, but—I did not want to die overnight from my possible stroke, so, we drove to the Hecktown Oaks LVHN emergency room. There, over the next few hours, I was diagnosed with Bell’s Palsy, prescribed steroids and anti-virals, and sent home.

Facial paralysis, on the right side of my face, meant—I realized—that I might not be able to play my flute at the upcoming recording session.

I tested myself the next morning and indeed, I could not play the flute. Oy. Later I tried saxophone and I couldn’t seal my mouth around the mouthpiece. Distressing.

I didn’t know whether to tell my bandmates that I needed to cancel our upcoming recording session. The doctor had said that some Bell’s Palsy sufferers recover more rapidly than others. I decided to try playing flute every day and see if I could figure out a way to play out of the side of my mouth, instead of blowing directly.

By the time of the recording session, I’d figured out how to play pretty well.

Still, I wasn’t fully capable.

So—that was why I was concerned, after the first take, that I might not be able to make a good recording, after all.

We did a second take, and I made an effort to be more aware of exactly how I was sounding, instead of using my habitual approach of remaining entirely and un-self-consciously in the moment.

After the second take, we listened to the playback, and my bandmates were excited with how good we had sounded, but I felt that once again, I hadn’t played well.

The group decided to do another take. We started again—then we had to stop—then we started from the beginning again, and we played an entire third take.

During the third take, I tried to be completely aware of exactly how I was sounding, and to try play in a way that seemed totally fitting with the style the group seemed to be trying to execute.

We listened to all the various takes again. I had definitely sounded best on the third take.

Eric and Doug however felt that the second take had been by far the best.

Seth and I felt that on the third take, we had each sounded our best.

The conversation went on for a while, and finally I announced that I had to drive home to Pennsylvania please, because it was 11:30pm.

Doug said he’d send us all the three recordings, by email, and we could listen to them and then tell each other what we thought.

He has sent them. I have not listened to them. Seth however sent this email a few hours ago:

Dear Continuity,

You guys are great musicians and you did a great job last night. I would be lucky to have a single take and I'm more lucky to have 3 to choose from. 

Listening to them today, my feelings are very much the same as they were last night.

TAKE1) There is some really good playing on this but it does not work as a dramatic presentation. It is slow moving and sort of wanders. I don't want to use this one. So NO.

TAKE 2) This one is tight, fast moving and even sounds like people could dance to it. It is closest to the original intent of the piece, to sound like a New Orleans brass band and 2nd line dancing down the street. I can go with this one. So YES!

TAKE 3) is good in a completely different way. There is more empty space in it. It feels more like a dramatic reading and less like a dance or march. The interaction of my voice with Andy's flute was interesting and completely unexpected. I think this is also one of the few times I liked my own performance. I could also go with this one. So YES!

I WOULD LIKE TO HEAR FROM ALL OF YOU AS TO WHICH TAKES YOU PREFER.

Seth Tobocman

As for me, I can only say that I am not going to participate in deciding which take we use.

What I told everyone last night was that in my opinion the slideshow and the text and the vocals are what’s key to making this a great piece, and the exact character of the musical accompaniment is secondary.

I’m glad others were happy with what we played, and I’m happy to support the decisions of my bandmates.

I hope my Bell’s Palsy goes completely away, soon!