Saturday, December 20, 2003

A Record of the Recording

I just got home from a recording session. Wait.. let me warn you first! I’m not a recording artist (I guess now I am). What I mean is I don’t get paid for this; this is all for a purpose – a mission, actually. For those of you who don’t know yet, I think we’re going to Germany, yes guys, you heard me right. “Huh! Why Germany?” you ask. Hmmm…(fingers tapping on the mouse button) well, WHY NOT! It’s where God is leading us. But I’ll tell you about that some other time.

Back to the recording story… I just got home from a recording session. I’m so tired! I collapsed on the sofa and just stared at the TV. My mom kept asking me “tapos na recording nyo?” I think I just answered with a two-syllable muffled sound that came from my sinuses. She understood. Then she offered me food that my Dad cooked. My Dad is a great cook. After what seems like hours ( actually it was just minutes) I decided to eat. One ritual in our family is that you will tell whoever is eating with you the events that happened during the day. Most of the time its my Mom who gets all the stories. She’s the one who waits for me everyday when I come home late from work or from wherever. But this time my Dad was there watching TV and at the same time listening to my tales. Well, anyway, here’s what I told them:

After some confusion due to last-minute changes on where we’re suppose to practice, we ended up practicing at ASCM. I was 30 minutes late and I still have to get some work done. I have to print some fundraising materials for the school; while I’m doing that I have to finalize some details and finish printing our solicitation letters; while I’m doing that I have to plan on what angles and shots I have to take for our video; while I’m doing that I have to remember all my alto parts; while I’m doing that I have to prepare all the equipment that I’m suppose to bring for the shoot, making sure the batteries are all charged and all the cables are there; while I’m doing that I’m wondering how the heck am I suppose to shoot us while we are singing in the studio; while I’m doing that I’m missing our prayer time and Ma’am Roce’s inspiring words; while I’m doing that… aaargh!.. enough! My mind hurts already! And its just 9:30 a.m.

After I finished all of that, I hurried up to the fourth floor where everybody’s practicing. When I got there I found out I have a part in our song. I’m supposed to sing (shout) “dito sa Asya!” This freaked me out! “Asya!” to me sounded like a kick boxer delivering his death blow.. “Eeiiaaghh! Asyah!” or a superhero calling upon the source of his powers. “Asyaaah!” Vavoom! Whooosh! Bang! Bang! and finally.. Kaboooom! To my relief, they decided to make one person sing it, whew!

After practice we headed out to the studio, we boarded a jeep to the MRT station, rode the train and got off at Cubao. Sobrang daming tao! While walking to Ali Mall a song kept ringing in my head.. “limang dipang taong nagtutulakan sa avenida la la la…

When we got to the studio we found out that they can record using only two tracks (it will take 10 paragraphs to explain why we don’t like this) this is a major bummer! Well, we can’t do anything about that. They decided to do it! They set everything up while I watched in amazement at all these equipment. It was a small room with carpets and instruments and wires snaking everywhere. We can have something like this at ASCM. After a few minutes we were ready and they handed us the mics. “1.. 2.. 3.. 4.. ” Ooops! Again.. “1.. 2.. 3.. 4.. ” Ooops.. Then Paul our audiotech person opened the door and said “Practice muna kayo.” Okay, wala kaming masabi.. okay.

To those who have never witnessed a recording before, well, it’s a very difficult and tiring and process. You have to hook up everything, instruments and microphones to the control room where all the audio equipment is located. Its behind a big glass window (some of you may have seen this on tv) Then you have to record the band first so afterwards the singers can just sing in. We sang our song about six million times before everybody was contented. While all this is happening, an angel came down from heaven named Bong filmed and photographed the event. Thank you! Somebody up there really loves me.

And so we finished recording, ate some food to regain our strength decided to go home. While we were all walking “in a hurry”if I might say, to the MRT station, we saw these lights from arcoss the street. It’s a carnival! Yippee! I don’t know who said “Tara, sakay tayo!” but that person read my mind and took the words out of my mouth!

So we rode this mild version of a roller coaster and some took delight in the bump cars. Some of the girls bought some stuff from a tiangge nearby. Then we strolled around Araneta center and took pictures of ourselves with a giant Christmas tree in the background. So much for getting home right away, hah!

We were all tired after the recording, mentally, physically and laryngically.. we deserve a break! And we got it! It was a great day! Ang saya!