First Recording Session

Saturday, 24 January 2009, was officially the first day of recording. I began with the appropriately titled song "We Don't Want the Glory". This is probably going to open my "Songs from the Sanctuary: In the Congregation" CD because I feel as though it so clearly captures what worship is all about. It's a song that gives the right perspective of God and of us ... which is where any true worship must begin.

I spent about 3 hours on Saturday and about another 2 on Sunday and am starting to get what I like on that song. Recording the songs the way I am creates a couple unique challenges though: Firstly, I'm the only instrumentalist. This wouldn't be my first choice, but for what I have right now, that's just the way it has to be. Hopefully I'll be able to get more musicians when I do this in the future, but for right now, I'm just trying to get the songs down and that requires me doing it when I have the time. That forces me to use what I have available ... a couple guitars (all acoustic ;-), my keyboard and the multiple loops and midi sounds found on my Acid Studio 7 recording software.

This means that I have to record what I can audio-wise and then try and find drum loops and various electric guitar and synth loops that are going to fit. Once I found those for this song, I discovered that the acoustic guitar didn't quite fit with the drum beats and had to re-record that. I was also disappointed to find that, unlike with Garage Band, I can't just make my acoustic guitar sound electric so that's going to create some interesting isses when so much of what I want to do has electric guitar elements to it.

Well, it's a challenge, but that's what I'm up for. I loved the time spent recording over the last couple of days and I think these challenges are going to force me to be more creative. I'm really beginning to think of recording as a new form of composition ... working with what you have and creating something beautiful and artistic out of it. There's a little bit more work that I'd like to do on this song before I post it for initial thoughts (if anyone even reads this blog) and we'll see where we go from there.