Collaboration: I have a new definition for Nicola ( www.a-n.co.uk/p/641894/ ) if she’s interested…
How about…
“Stealing someone else’s talent and expertise to make you look/sound better than you are” ?
I’ve had an amazing day with Dan Whitehouse (www.dan-whitehouse.com) who I feel privileged to call my friend. We’ve been recording my lullaby.
The words I had written, I was moderately pleased with. But now they have been given bones to help them to stand up. I’ve been attempting to explain to Dan in very un-musical terms, punctuated with ums and ers, how I’d like this lullaby to feel: lilting, low, a little sinister perhaps.
I started the day with a mixture of trepidation and excitement, wobbly knees and probably a wobbly voice. Dan encouraged, telling me which bits were good, ignoring the mistakes, just suggesting I sing it again. (I’m not sure he knows how good a teacher he is) By the end of the afternoon he was able to say (and more to the point I felt able to take it) “No, you can do that better, do it again (brutal!)
I have learned (and that will no doubt continue as I absorb the details of the day) so much from this process – not least a new found respect for the minutiae of the recording process, and the accuracy demanded.
Dan has taken my ill-expressed thoughts and projected them back to me with his guitar and his voice. My words have become a song. Not a pretend one, a real one!
The process is akin to collage: Do the bits that are the same, or similar at the same time, put them down, add to them, step back and look at it. Re-do bits, stick it together, accentuate parts, fade bits back, bring other bits forward, re-draw the lines, paint in a counterpoint, check the light and dark tones, add texture. In many ways it is the same. In many ways it is totally different.
So thank you Dan, for your time, your talent and skill. It was a great, creative day in the middle of Birmingham city centre, springing out after the destruction of the last few days.
It feels good to be an artist.
