A Life of Grace

I know, I know, the phrase “Big Time” probably belongs to Tom Waits, but today I finally went “into the studio”.

I’ve been singing on and off (mostly off) with my brother in law, Aaron, for what feels like a really long time. I guess maybe for 9 or 10 years? Anyway, he’s a fantastic song writer and since our big Tacoma move we’ve been able to work together quite a bit more. We try and set aside at least one chunk of time a week to get together and work on writing and practicing–which isn’t nearly enough–but it’s been really good for me to start exercising my music muscle again.

He is finally putting together a record and today was spent working on adding my vocals. Even though I’ve done some demo-quality stuff here and there, it’s been at least 4 years since I’ve done “real” recording. Despite feeling a little shaky and still sporting my early morning, non cool sounding voice, I pretty much got one song done.

There’s a lot of work ahead of us to get this thing finished! I’m feeling good, though. I think in the past I’ve always had a hard time with my ego and my unyielding stage fright. These days I feel so much more unflappable. Maybe it’s another side effect of having had kids? Maybe it’s part of me finally growing up and gaining confidence, or maybe I have come to care less about what other people think of me. Whatever it is, it’s nice to not have sweaty palms.

I also learned an exciting fact today: Amy Grant (a link to a hilarious web site) used to eat a big handful of ruffled potato chips before she recorded herself so she could sound all rocked out and scratchy. I, on the other hand, just felt hungry after my first handful, and didn’t get a rocked out voice. I also did not look “sleek and sinful” (seriously, click on the link).

We’re going to be playing a little acoustic show this next Friday–our first in over a year–over at the Northern Pacific Coffee Company, but I’ll post later once I know more of the details.