Recording Music and More

Most of our scripts are musicals — musical comedies, to be exact. We love music. We like fun. Kids like both, and so does most everyone else.

Part of getting our scripts packaged for sale — and we’re working on it — is recording the music for the demo CD — the CD that shows you how each song sounds, while you get the melody (sometimes harmony), chords, and words on a “lead sheet.”

The CD helps the musician(s) learn the songs and can be duplicated for the cast members to use to learn and practice the music.

Being in launch mode and not flush with all sorts of funds on hand, we have to start small and save money on initial production. (That also saves you money.) Your writer/director used to sit down with the guitar and a cheap cassette recorder and make a quick tape of that play’s songs for the cast. One of the regular cast members happened to have a cassette duplicating machine. Now we have digital recording, very fast computers, and very affordable CDs. What a world!

Not being grooved in of late to the music-recording scene, I happened to be perusing the website of one of DFW’s leading camera stores — Competitive Cameras (they are wonderful!) — and saw a small digital recorder for an affordable price. It was a Zoom H4n Handy Recorder, the latest and greatest version of an amazing piece of technology. Yep, went right down and bought it.

This baby4-channels and multi-tracks. It has a built-in, XY configured, stereo microphone set-up that will allow you to get eyebrow-raising quality with a simple point-and-click recording of a live session. Being a “noob” (that’s a newbie who knows virtually nothing), I’ve been studying and watching YouTube videos and other tutorials to learn how to put this incredible little tool through its paces. The basic point-and-click stereo recording is fairly easy to learn. The rest requires knowledge and experience or a pursuit of education and experimentation.

We have one song of the seven in A Shakespearean Tale recorded. (Point and click.) We’re working on getting the rest done. (Multi-track!) Then it will be on to the songs for A Pirates’ Tale, and so forth.

We’ll be blogging more on what we learn for any of you other newbies who want to do some of your own audio recording of songs, plays, rehearsals, speech-and-debate tournies, interviews, YouTube tracks, whatever. Stay tuned!