literature

Freewrite -- Recording

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"We need you in the recording booth in five minutes, Em."

"Yeah, sure..." I wasn't typically the sort of person who got nervous before recording a part, even all the way back as a fledgling voice actor whose characters didn't even have real names, I always considered the process kind of cool rather than nerve-wracking. But I wasn't there to do my normal thing, I was there because the producer decided one day he wanted one of the voice actresses to sing the song behind the show's opening title sequence. Why he picked me I'll never know; I may be halfway decent at voice overs, but I don't sing. Well, maybe a little, back in high school when my friends coerced me into joining their garage band, but that had all been covers of rock songs, this was going to be some stupid teenybopper pop affair, the kind that made me cringe whenever I happened to hear it. But I was nothing if not professional, so I sucked it up and made my way down the hall to the sound booth with my usual cocky swagger. I still thought this wasn't going to end anywhere near 'well,' but as a great author once said, "If you must mount the gallows, give a jest to the crowd, a coin to the hangman, and make the drop with a smile on your lips."

"Oh good, you're here." The director said, glancing up as I took my place in front of a mic. "There's been some last minute changes to the backing track we're going to use, so I want you to just listen through it once or twice, to get a feel for what's different, and we'll go ahead and record once you're ready."

I nodded my consent, waiting to see what they could've possibly done to make this song even worse, but to my surprise they'd apparently decided to go in a different direction. The drums were louder than they had been, and the synthesized string section seemed to have been replaced with a guitar. There was still a trumpet/trombone/saxophone ensemble hitting accents and backup parts, but thanks to the altered instrumentation and an increased tempo, they ended up giving the track an almost ska-ish feel to it. It still wasn't quite in my wheelhouse, but I could definitely work with this. The second time through I followed along with the lyrics, making note of how I'd have to adapt the vocal part to the new music, a longer pause between parts here, a different rhythm there, it seemed simple enough. The song came to a close and I looked over to the director and gave him a thumbs up, signalling I was ready to record.

After a little bit of stumbling, I had a clean run on the third take. The producer who'd come up with this whole scheme had stopped in partway through recording, and when I walked out of the booth he greeted me with a wide grin on his face. "I knew this would work, you sounded awesome in there." I thanked him as graciously as I could, still feeling awkward about having the whole thing sprung on me but pleased enough with my own performance that I was willing to let it go for today. "I got the new backing track from a friend of mine who owns a small-time music studio and owes me a favor. Once he hears how the finished song sounds, he might invite you over to do some guest vocals for some of the groups he records."

"Oh," I said flatly, feeling more than a little exasperated at once again being signed up as a singer without being asked ahead of time. "That sounds...Great..."
This is just a random little "start writing and see where it goes" thing I did this morning. The basic jumping off point was, as it almost always is for me, something I noticed in MegaTokyo; Kimiko is a voiceactress who one day is told "we're gonna have you do the song for the ending credits too." So I started there and this is what you get from it. Could've been worse, I think.
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