Tuesday night I packed up the studio (French Excellence) and drove up to Lakeview to record Elizabeth from Canasta, who was kind enough to agree to play on “The Shape of the Machinery,” one of the trio songs. Almost from the moment I came up with the chords for that thing, I’ve pictured a stabbing, dramatic violin part on top. Anyway, this was the first time I’ve ever taken a portable studio anywhere. The setup certainly packed down well, as you can see here:
Yeah, Deans, I Stole from Ya.
And then it fit well onto Liz’s kitchen table, like so:
Mini-Mission Control
It was an easy operation from a technical standpoint, so I was kind of left wondering why I didn’t (don’t) do this more often. I mean, duh, this is what laptops are for, right? And Elizabeth made the session just fly by. She’d not only learned the melody and harmony for the part I’d sent her — she threw in a lower harmony AND an octave-up from the original part. That’s right, I got QUAD FIDDLE on this piece! I might not stack all of them for each passage…but we’ll see.
I rang the buzzer at 7:30, and was walking back to my car at 8:28. That’s what I call pro-fessional. Thanks much to E.L. for her good spirits and excellent playing!
