After a very long hiatus, I am back at the keyboard today. It has been a very full summer with lots to do. Maybe I'll write about some of that another time, but I wanted to focus on one thing in particular today. So, in answer to the age-old essay question, “What did you do this summer?,” here is my response.
Some who read this will know I am a member of a group called the Kittanning Firemen's Band. I have played in the band for (gulp) twenty years - more than half my life. It is an all-men's amateur band that has been around for almost sixty years. We have a great time playing together, but we have just as much fun on bus trips to performances and even just in rehearsal. It constantly reminds me of why I started playing the trumpet in the first place: because it is fun. I won't lie: it is an amateur group and I sometimes get a bit frustrated with the level of musicianship, and more so, with things I perceive as a lack of commitment to the group. I'm a perfectionist about the things I do - and this extends to the things I do with others as well. But, on the whole, I thoroughly enjoy playing with this great bunch of guys, and I would miss the band terribly if I didn't have it anymore.
For years - even back to the time when I directed the band (in the late 1990s) - there has been talk of making a recording of the band. I always played the idea down, because making a recording is a monumental task, and I felt we needed a more consistently-high level of performance by the musicians to ensure a good result. It was decided at the outset of this season that (come heck or high water) the band would, in fact, make a recording this summer. Again, I was not the most positive voice on the subject, but I resolved to do all I personally could in an effort to make it as successful a venture as possible.
The band met at Kittanning High School on June 7th for what would be a six-hour marathon recording session. It was very much a fly-by-the-seat-of-your-pants thing. A friend of the band brought his digital recording equipment to be used along with some microphones and other equipment we rented, and we set to work.
There were frustrating moments early on, and I was getting worried we might not make it work. Right away, we noticed the stage lights buzzed at somewhere around the same decibel level as a 747 jet (maybe a slight exaggeration). They had to be turned off. So some of the guys brought in some portable emergency lights from one of the fire stations, and we played the session on a dim stage with long shadows cascading down the stage. Worse yet, a bit later, we found we had lost a lot of the material we recorded because of a technical glitch. But we soldiered on through the day.
...For those who have not done recording before, I should mention that it is a very arduous process for the performing musicians. It is not as simple as sitting down and playing through all the material you’ve prepared. It is extremely physically, mentally and emotionally draining - much more so than a rehearsal or performance. The pressure to “get everything right” is great, and the result of that pressure is that it is even harder to “get everything right.” In all my experience, I have never left a recording session not feeling completely drained...
Halfway through the day, we got a chance to hear a couple of the things we had recorded, and it sounded pretty darned good. Everyone was reinvigorated, and we completed the session in high spirits, with fourteen tunes recorded.
A couple of weeks later, the director of the band, Jason Krecota, and I got together to begin listening to the tracks and choosing the material which would ultimately be edited together to make the final versions of the tunes. We met at the home of my oldest friend (we met in third grade), Manny Wolfe, who served as recording engineer.
...For those who’ve not been involved with recording before, following a recording session, you have multiple takes of each tune you recorded at the session. Usually, for every minute of music utilized in the final product, you’ll have as much as five or even ten minutes of recorded music to sift through. Producers go through and select the material to be used, and then recording engineers work with the digital waveforms on a computer to assemble the various takes into a finished product. Some tunes only require one or two different takes, but some can require many, many takes to be digitally spliced together into the final version. Later the engineer does things to “sweeten up” the tracks: adding reverb and bolstering the sound in such a way as to make it sound as robust as possible - called “mastering”...
Jason and I met in Manny’s basement several times over the course of two weeks or so, and then Manny set to work piecing everything together. It was a grueling process for him, but for the most part, it went smoothly, and as time went on, I began to believe we would have a pretty nice recording after all.
We ended up having to jettison two of the tracks that didn’t pass muster, but happened - very much by chance - on a vinyl record of the Kittanning Firemen’s Band from 1963 (as far as we know, the earliest recording of the group). It was decided that we include that recording (digitally enhanced) as a bonus track on the recording, and so the final count is thirteen songs.
A friend of mine, Todd Pascuzzi, is an excellent graphic designer who specializes in this sort of thing, so he worked with us to create a really good-looking compact disc. The band made recordings in the 1970s, 80s and 90s which were black, blue and white respectively, so the plan was the call this recording the “Red album.” And is it ever!... It looks fantastic, in my opinion. I think Todd did an amazing job with the art.
Today is supposed to be the delivery date for the CDs. Everyone is excited about it. I’m just waiting for a phone call to go pick up my copy of Engine KFB.
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