I just want to plug in some mics and start recording.  I haven’t hit the record button in over a year since I took down my studio in NYC.  Without my own personal studio, I feel like I’m stranded on a deserted island.  Does that feeling seem familiar?  I just want to be able to sing well?  I just want to be performing now?  Believe me, I get it.

Over a year ago I packed up my studio in NYC, moved to Nashville, put the studio in storage and started on the journey of building a house with studio in it.  I was planning on remodeling a little house I bought and building something out back for the recording studio.  Well……the house was just too far gone, so I knocked it down and started over.  How hard could it be?  It’s a pretty intense project, I’m here to say.  A house that was supposed to take less than 5 months to build took almost a year.  So I got very far behind my goals.

I put in an incredible amount of time and energy, not to mention life’s savings, just getting the house finished.  So, what did that leave me when I could finally move in?  I had an empty studio space.  What to do then?  I have to tell ya, it was all I could do to stop myself from just grabbing my gear and sound treatment materials out of storage, throw everything up in a couple weeks and just get to work recording, writing and teaching.

And the rewards would have been immediate.  But the results?  Well lets just say, they would have been less than I know they could be, and far less the kind of quality I’m shooting for.  After having four different studios in NYC over 11 years, I know a lot of the pitfalls with a recording environment.  They say “God’s in the details,” and that is so often true.

So here I am, over three months since I moved into the house, and I’m still working on the studio construction and assembly.  My gear is still in storage, and I’m just trying to get the tracking and control rooms built correctly before I tackle the the huge job of getting my equipment and re-wiring for this space.  I’m hoping I can remember how to plug in all those whacky interfaces that are involved in a serious recording rig these days.

So yes, I’m now way behind schedule.  And I’m very, very tired.  Weeks go by and all I do is build things and install things and wonder if I’ll ever get this thing done.  But in the back of my mind I know something that rings true.  I’m bringing all of the experience I have from the previous four studios I had in NYC and infusing that into this space.  I’m spending the extra time on the front end, so that this wonderful space will be as great as it can be, and I’ll love the work I do in it.  I know enough to know that If I’d just listened to my tired voice, and thrown everything together when I first moved in, that I’d end up being very frustrated with a lot of the results.  Because I’m solving so many issues ahead of time, my focus can be spent in more creative ways with far better results than from a mediocre recording space.

What does this have to do with building a voice?  Or anything else?  It’s exactly the same thing.  The time you spend assembling things correctly on the front end will save you years of frustration in the future.  Remember “The Art of Body Singing” credo:  The voice is an instrument, assembly required.  For those extra 100 miles in the beginning, you’ll get years of service.

So remember, when something seems horribly tedious and requires a lot of inner strength, you might just be in the right place.  Please share some comments with us about some grueling task in singing (or otherwise), that you feel really paid off.

So…..I’m off to build stuff.

Until next time,

Breck