Our first day of recording! Woohoo! We all arrived at the church in Bloomfield at approximately nine o’clock, ready to crank out some notes. We spent time in devotions, conversing about heretical hymn writers, wearing matching aqua t-shirts, and warming up our voices. After our preliminary efforts were complete, we jumped right into recording. Kendrick and Julian had created a golden ribbon mic specifically for use in our recording sessions! Combined with three other microphones, it worked beautifully. That’s why the recordings you will be hearing will sound so nice. 😉
Recording is hard work. Singing in front of a live audience is one thing, but singing into a microphone produces a different feeling altogether. In a live concert, many small mistakes will go unnoticed much of the time. Not so in a recording. Every misplaced consonant, misspoken word, and squeaky floor board is far more noticeable when projected into a microphone. This makes it easy to become stiff and tense while recording because we are doing our best to make no mistakes. Obviously, stiffness and tension is counterproductive to singing well. Also, singing to a live audience makes it easier to deliver the song’s message from the heart because we can see the congregation taking in the music in real time. In a recording session, our only feedback is an empty church and a few microphones staring into our souls. This means we simply had to work harder. And work harder we did—especially Dan and Kendrick (hats off to them).
Our hard work was pleasantly interrupted by a lunch break at a Mexican restaurant. Julian and Corey, however, chose Dairy Queen, which surprised some of the girls. “Julian doesn’t seem like a DQ guy,” they said. Julian didn’t understand this sentiment, as he was perfectly happy with his poor health choices.
With the day’s work now over, after many takes, retakes, blood, sweat, and tears, we headed to Olen and Juanita’s (Ruth’s parents) home for a delicious supper.
Several of us stayed long into the evening and chatted, while others expended what little energy they had left playing volleyball. We wrapped up the day with some much-needed rest, readying ourselves for day two.
P.S. If you’re reading this before 4:00pm on Sunday afternoon, we would appreciate prayers for our final program at the Anabaptist Discipleship Center in Elnora! Thank you.
– Written by Seth Yoder