Balance – What’s Gone Missing on Your Way to the Studio?

So I am sitting there in the lushness of an SSL control room in a major studio here in NYC. Happy.

Happy to be engineering and producing a project for a very cool young trio of musicians from an African nation. Creative energy literally making me high, motivated to do my very best and fortunate to have been given another opportunity to help and outdo my own work.

The vocalist has an angelic voice filled with expression and power. Bassist and drummer play simply, but in the pocket, bubbling through rhythms that we from the West can only imitate…poorly at best.

They have a rhythm guitar player…ornamenting the groove with not so much chordal harmony as suggestions that weave through the music, supporting the vocalist and providing a foil and counterpoint to the rhythm section and melody.

The studio is clean, everything works. I am fully in the zone, in the moment and aware; grateful to be in this situation.

Never Stop Improving

I’ve been engineering at this or that level since 1979. That is 35 years in studios. I adore it. Either as an engineer or a producer, I have been able to help folks realize their musical dreams, help take their expression and communication to the highest level I can…and even contribute to the playing or arrangement when the song or project obviously need it.

My benchmark has always been high, and has always been changing…as I get better, I aim higher. But I never got into this altruistically. I began my interest in engineering out of an intense curiosity; needing to know “how” recordings were made and how I could make my at-home experiments sound better…sound like others…sound good.

And I imagine that so many of you guys and gals reading this have similar backgrounds and goals – I don’t profess to be so different or “special” in what I do. But I am really good at it. And passionate about improving with every session.

Hopefully, you are, too. It’s been said that there is a relationship between physical and “mental” evolution. Darwinian in fact. If a “prey” finds a way to successfully combat or entirely avoid the predator, the predator must evolve (read: invent) a way to alter or improve the attack.

If not, the predator will either starve or be forced to identify another food source. Evolution of brain, not only body. Put that thinking into your engineering gig or ANY job for that matter. There will always be a need to improve and evolve…if you want to survive. Pretty sure we agree on that.

So let’s move left a little here.

What’s My Motivation?

I got into this engineering thing as a musician. I did not study it in a school or university.

From a very early age, I was one of those kids that had a great voice (no longer!); I sang in choruses and solo at recitals, churches, Broadway and at age 8, Carnegie Hall.

Music was imprinted before that…my life has always been about music and being a musician. My self expression, joy, frustration and life’s path are fully tangled up in matters musical. My chosen instrument is guitar for performance, but I also play bass, piano, percussion, some flute…whatever is at hand. Whatever helps me express what I am hearing; what I am feeling.

And once again, this is common. To reiterate, I don’t profess to be so different or “special” in what I do. But I am really good at it. And passionate about improving.

Hopefully you are too! Right? 🙂

Somewhere along the way, the engineering and producing thing took over. My abilities and assets as a musician moved me into another avenue of similar expression, using the recording studio as my “instrument.”

Microphones, preamps, and many techniques used in the studio became my vibrato, my note bending technique, dexterous use of timbre or other techniques of musical expression as applied to an instrument. My “chops.”

But I still kept playing and occasionally, when I could get a break from working on other people’s music, performing.

To be clear, playing, performing, writing and being in a real “group” started me in music and has always been the strongest motivation in all that I do. Communication with other musicians in the moment, striving for common goals, sharing the adventure of a gig…and expressing myself in sound; these are my loves. It is not more or less important than engineering or producing; it exists always, in my heart and soul.

So what happens to that “performing and playing musician” part when in the studio, working on a client’s project? If you’re a musician/engineer like me that can actually play your instrument at a high level, how do you prevent one love being eclipsed by another? Can they both participate on a studio date when you are working on another client’s music and dream?

Be Honest

How much do you miss “doing it yourself?” Being that there is a time and a place for everything, so often the ego and one’s own desire to “play that part” or do it better than the session player must be controlled or fully shut down.

Unexpected choices can appear for the devoted audio engineer.

Are you actually happy, having moved your path into this or that direction so completely?

There are obvious answers that address your (my) personal “path” in life and career, what brings you that happiness, and what brings in the rent, how old you are, how good you believe yourself to be.

Do you at some point need to choose between one and the other? Can you find a healthy and satisfying balance between the two disciplines? MUST you forgo one in favor of the other? And, why am I asking so many questions?

Well, because I find myself at this crossroads yet again. At 54, with a good 100 productions behind me, a couple of albums of my own music, and the obvious scarcity of the most important commodity of all, time; I have to refocus my own path. I have to find a more fulfilling and satisfying balance for this next “X” number of years.

Something is missing, something is there. Some amount of one has to be substituted with some amount of the other. Regret is not an option. It’s exciting, daunting, energizing and challenging…and necessary. And I am wrestling with it.

In Search Of…

So…I draw only observations. The recognition that balance always changes and must be pursued. One should not lose the original motivation that launched your career and path.

Let me expand this thinking to other disciplines – other arts and pursuits. Perhaps you started your life’s path as a part-timer in a kennel, helping for a summer job to make enough bread to support your passion for painting portraits – and before you knew it, we start veterinary school: portraits still in the paint tubes.

Or perhaps your earliest desire was to fly as a commercial pilot, but you became a flight instructor because the prospect of steady income sobered you up!

Or were you once just living to be an actor? But seeing how many were without health insurance, you began working at The Actors Fund to help others with their plans?

What happens to us when we lose, or get bumped off, the path? Choices. Decisions. Circumstances. I submit that we must not lose our passion.

Occasionally it is very constructive to step back and perhaps see that you’ve fallen off the path.

And you need to get back on it.

I invite discussion and your experiences and input – it would help me and so many others gain perspective from your adventures and experiences! Thanks for tuning in!

— George Walker Petit, http://www.petitjazz.com

George Walker Petit is currently refocusing his own path with a Kickstarter campaign, aimed at relaunching his own playing and performing career. Take part in “Emergence” by visiting George here.

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