there was a qoute (that I cant find now) from Lee Ranaldo that I saw on MTV once that went:
there is no such thing as a wrong note, only a new one
which, not surprisingly, has stuck with me for a number of years. I used to draw a lot when I was younger and would frequently turn stray pencil marks into new spaceships or aliens, never just erasing the stray mark. this was mainly due to the fact that erasing the mark would often ruin the drawing more than working around it.
while recording I am equally sloppy. I am usually in a hurry to get something in my head out onto the harddrive. so I forget to do things like close other running programs, unplug noisy external drives or make sure all my gear is securely connected. this usually results in something popping up in the recording that shouldn’t have. in my most recent release there are many mistakes. I knew it when I released it, but I felt happy with the way i worked them into the piece that i was mostly happy with the outcome (i am never completely happy with anything i release but i force myself to let go at some point).
so it has been interesting to read the responses to that release. one that really made my day was from a twitter friend @jkn
what might be flaws elsewhere on a different album – are perfection here.
that is really nice. it shows that he is actively listening and finding what i didn’t like about the recording. or maybe he is finding new bits that I missed that i could learn from. i would probably be less happy if he just said “its great, no problems here”.
tons of things wrong with this. its my first attempt at bowing a guitar with a violin bow. my technique is crude at best. its also recorded using microphones and amps in my “office” (ie small spare bedroom in our apt that we have our computers, its SUPER echoey). i cant really turn the amps up loud but i like they way it sounds in the room so i thought i could try to capture that with close placed mic’s. because the amps are not at “concert volume” (because i dont want to get evicted) i have the gain on the mics set kinda high thus picking up every pedal click and general hiss. (for contrast the Public spaces release above was guitar directly into computer, allowing for a very clean sound) i love the sound of my amps and would love to capture that on recording.
but in the end i am happy and if i can keep up the momentum this idea could hopefully become atleast an EP in length (or maybe even a full 60min release…) we’ll see…mistakes and all.