The Ugly Fight to Make a Beautiful Album

This past spring I was invited to write an all-original, solo piano score to Tennessee Williams’ classical play, The Glass Menagerie, for a production of it here in Scranton. Ever since I read Philip Glass’ autobiography, I’ve dreamed of scoring a straight play and this gave me my first opportunity. Over the course of the final couple weeks of rehearsals, I busted out a score for the entire thing and performed it live with the cast. It was a surreal experience, a career highlight, and a catalog of music I’m deeply proud of. So I decided to record it, which is what I’ve been actively working on recently.

However, the process of producing this album has been a slog, as these kinds of projects, the kind where you push yourself further than you’ve ever gone before, always do. My vision for this album isn’t just an archive of the music but a beautiful experience for the listener. I want the music to feel nostalgic and fragile. It’s one thing to write music that does this and another to make a recording that does it. It’s the art of music production. Endeavoring to accomplish this feat has taken me hours of experimentation in mic placement, preamp settings, DAW and plugin choices, piano preparation, and adjustment and troubleshooting as things (constantly!) don’t go according to plan. Even now, now that I’ve gotten the right sound, I just discovered noise in one of my preamps and a buzzing sound in the piano, neither of which I’m optimistic I can fix. That’s what I’ll be working on today.

I also want really good video of a few of the songs. This will give me assets I can use to promote the music online. As you all know, I hate this part of the process, but I’m coming to terms with it (sort of). For this project I’ve decided that if I need video for schlepping, I’ll at least make it beautiful. I’m no videographer, I’ve spent exactly zero minutes of my life learning this craft, but I know what good video looks like when I see it. And I have a super talented and generous filmmaking friend, Aaron Huie, who helped me buy a big boy camera and guided me through the, again, hours spent dialing in camera settings, lighting, angles, and set pieces. I finally have a picture I’m happy with. Alas, it requires my filming at night, which is a lot harder than it used to be.

No part of this is easy or convenient, certainly not sexy like most people tend to think being a full time musician is. It’s work continually beset by distractions and obstructions: random machines kicking on at night and reverberating through the building’s structure, contractors that randomly decide when they’re gonna work, sweating profusely because the AC makes noise, work deadlines that don’t go away simply because you’re making an album, kids home from school that need entertaining (not all distractions are bad). It’s the experience had by anyone, not just artists, who go that extra mile to do things with excellence, who push themselves well beyond the boundaries of their knowledge and skill. It’s what artists do because comfortable art is meaningless and comfortably-made art isn’t worth the silicon that stores it.

Even if the end product is just a simple solo piano album with a few nice videos, these kinds of projects are always difficult because they’re more than just effort, they’re war with insecurity, impatience, and fear of getting stuck. There have been moments for me already of real terror that a lot of time and money, more than I can afford, were wasted. I’ve wanted to put my fist through the wall on a few occasions. But there have also been (and will continue to be) moments of magic, of breakthrough where I’m just so fucking proud of myself and, for a moment, can see how it will all be worth it. Moments like these are always motivating though they are shortlived. Really, what keeps me going is a drive that I feel deep in my bones. I have to do this. It’s not a question of it being worth it or not; it’s a calling. But I know it will eventually be worth it because great art is the product of its process. And the best trophies are the hardest won.

Here’s a taste of what’s coming. It’s the raw video of one of the songs, unedited. The audio is from the camera’s mic. And, no, no one else was there. I talk to myself like this while I work because I’m…normal.