11/18...I pull off the freeway just as Dorset Perception was getting underway. Heading over Signal Hill down Orange, I pay my daily homage to those lying in their final resting place to my right. Today is meeting day, but there is ample parking as I pull to the side next to the auto body shop. Vehicle stationed, I unlock the passenger doors and pull my tom cases out and set them on the ground to make sure that I have all of my belongings on my person and head to the rehearsal room to meet Sieron.
Sieron and I meet up to discuss the day's goals: work on the bones of the song skeleton until they're calcified, not worrying about a full song performance and only focused on one part until that part has been played to perfection. We've ironed this strategy over our smoke breaks on countless occasions, so now it's time to employ it. Inside I begin to reassign my drum shells to their original arrangement as we discuss the finer points of rock music production. When I'm about ready to warm up, he grabs his personalized folding chair, and I grab my discount/bargain drum throne and sticks set behind the kit, plugging my earbuds into the headphone extender that protrudes from the recording unit.
However, like the knucklehead I am, I warm up to playing to the workstation metronome to the point where I'm going from one part to the next part to the next without really indicating whether a part was achieved or not. about 20-25 minutes into the recording session, I've exhausted myself for the time being, and feel that I've earned myself a beer. Sieron looks up from his project and starts to inquire into the status of the material that was just collected. As we listen back, I start to save markers to the time where interesting things in the drum recording session happened. As Sieron and I go over the concepts, we find that some of the beats that were tracked missed a few notes that go with the guitar parts he's written.
"Hey, uh, do you think you could try something else. Watch, check this out: "Du, du-cah, du-cah-du-du-cah-du-du-cah-du-du-cah-cah" What do you think?
What do I think? I think that that's exactly what I play every other time. I have that wry look on my face as I try to convince myself to just go along with it, because it'd be just as good as anything that I would come up with. Also, I've been on that side of the fence, the one of the songwriter conveying the idea to the percussionist about the way the song was written in my head.
Through this method, Sieron got me playing some things that I've got to force myself to work through. Pretty good! Though grueling as all hell and really trying on my patience! Regardless, we're both happy with how the music will turn out and I'm even happy with how it'll make me play at some point.
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