Uku-laying Down Tracks

After a bustling week you can believe that I was more than ready for a restful Saturday - but this was not to be. I was busy as a bee today buzzing from one thing to another with barely a breather in between.

I began my day with another rehearsal for the show that was canceled last month - basically picking up where we had left off from last month. Some of the players had changed, but my role of Bride remained the same. Yay! I'm really excited for this show tomorrow night!

I had to leave the rehearsal early because today was the day that we were laying down the tracks for the ukulele music video that I was asked to be a part of at the NYMF Meet & Greet! I would have liked to have had a bit more time to rehearse my part - but thankfully I managed to get by okay. I even got to play a $300 Gibson soprano uke. I like the sound of my uke just as well, but the Gibson's strings were a little softer and easier to manipulate. Perhaps I'll look into getting softer nylon strings for mine.

I was really impressed with how quickly we were able to get everything done today. We met up around 2:30 at the Sound Engine recording studio down town and ran through the tune a few times before getting set to record. It was an incredibly simple setup with all five of us crowding around a single mic in the middle of a sound-proof room. We played the tune and sang at the same time - a method of recording which for the most part has gone the way of the Dodo. Most recording artists lay down the music track first and then dub the vocals on top afterwards.

I didn't mind it though, we made several recordings inside of the two hours that they had the studio and once we had a few in the can, the director (who apparently shot Madonna's first music video) came in and had his DP get a bunch of raw footage of us singing and playing our ukes. The shots will all be interspersed throughout the video that we're going to be shooting around Manhattan next Saturday. They're going to have a make-up artist and everything! Should be fun!