I really enjoy giving tours of the Library, especially to those who have never stepped foot in a recording studio. One of the most common questions I get from people is; “So, how long have you been recording?” I used to begin by saying that I got my first four-track cassette recorder in high school, but I have since realized that my start was much earlier than that.
My parents inherited a piano when I was 5 or 6 years old and I remember the first time my mom sat down to play some songs she learned when she was a child. I also remember being stunned that my mother was able to keep such a skill hidden from me for my whole life. I thought playing an instrument was only something professionals do, so watching my own mother playing piano for the first time, may very well have been the moment that started me down the path of being a full-time musician. Just about every day I sat at that old piano and played for hours and hours on end, figuring out that; these three notes together sounded “happy” (major triad) and these three notes together sounded “sad” (minor triad). Being too young to take lessons, I certainly didn’t know how to read music, so I just made up my own parts and songs. It was thrilling.
A couple years later I received my first boom-box, a personal stereo system that had built in speakers, a tape deck and built in stereo microphones. I loved recording myself on that thing. I loved hearing the playback of the funny voices I would talk and sing in. I also really loved recording my piano songs and even started playing along with them, often times figuring out a vocal harmony or secondary piano part to what was coming from the speakers. One day I had an astonishing revelation; I borrowed my sister’s boom-box to play back a song that I had just recorded. Simultaneously, I hit record on my own, which allowed me to play and sing along with what I had just recorded. There were several attempts to rewind that tape to play and record a third and fourth part, however the tape degradation was just terrible, causing the first part I had recorded to get lost in a sea of tape hiss and background noise. I had no idea, but at the age of 8 years old I was actually doing multi-track recording!
Never underestimate the power of a young, impressionable mind. I believe this path was laid out for me long before I really knew what it even was.
