First Professional Recording!

So, I’ve been having quite the adventure. Through a series of online submissions I found myself in contact with THE Philip Springer, composer of “Santa Baby”–a song I have grown-up singing every Christmas Eve at the neighborhood luminary night–and hired to record an original composition of his!

After a couple rehearsals, some time exploring the lyrics at home (he made me practice singing to my boyfriend to help me get the emotion of the song just right!), and even a heated political debate with the composer himself (that’s a story I’m saving for my grandkids), I met with him and his sound engineer for a recording session.

If I’m honest, it was my first time recording something that wasn’t on my home set-up “blue Yeti” mic. It was incredible. How I had to adjust my singing voice for the recording set-up reminded me of how I’m learning to adjust my acting for the screen. The live performances I’m use to encourage a wide range of dynamics–the audience is along for the ride as you glide from a pianissimo extreme to a fortissimo, or as you build enough emotional energy to fill a theatre. But in a recording environment, you have to focus and condense the extremes into a smaller dynamic space (like how you learn to contain the emotions for a more intense and focused performance on camera). It was quite the growth experience, and I’m finding myself very much drawn to new works and recording studios! Hopefully, this may just be the beginning chapter in more work through music.

Next up: coffee with local voice instructors and performers to get some advice on segueing into more work with my voice! I’m still training operatically, but I’m open to a variety of next steps…