Finding Life in the Bigger Story
Fear and Faith
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Closer to Free
June 17, 2019 November 19, 2017 by Christine Dente
"Finding Freedom To Be"
I remember the day I became a slave to my face.
I was nine and taking some visiting kids on a tour of my elementary school. I don't remember the occasion. All I know is that a teacher chose responsible me to lead and I was up for the job. At the end of the quick trip around the school, I stopped the small group of kids about my age outside the cafeteria.
"Any questions," I asked.
"Yeah," said the closest boy, "are you a boy or a girl?"
I was mortified. His question knocked me off-balance, challenging how I saw myself. And how others saw me. So began my journey of asking mirrors to tell me who I was and who I should be.
Old Polaroids
To solidify my new bondage to image, the series of shocking photos came next:
school pictures featuring my incongruous teeth and hair which reared their ugly heads year after year
the snapshot of my belly bulging in its bikini sandwich
the polaroid my dad took where I felt so beautiful in my pink night gown, only to disappoint again as my image materialized as not-so-pretty me
I struggled with my complexion for most of my life. Hormones and stress were my enemies. Even in my thirties and forties I leaned into mirrors, picking at the blemishes embedded in my skin. "Not better, only redder" was my ineffective mantra.
Getting older has its advantages: fifty-something skin and less stress have freed me from some of my mirror-gazing slavery.
Deeper Than the Skin
But the freedom I'm seeking is deeper than the skin. It's farther in where heart meets soul.
Freedom from judgements: my own and those of others.
Freedom to be the real me is the center I seek.
I taste that freedom whenever I'm untethered to my image or my productivity or my critics. No lackey to fashion, no vassal of shame. No bondage to beauty as defined by me and my culture.
To me, real freedom feels like sliding along a river, body buoyant, no friction in the flow. Crank the self-conscious volume knob back to zero, I'm on a roll.
Have you ever tried to recreate yourself? I tried once in college.
In the fall of 1982, I drove to Carnegie-Mellon University, 5 hours away from home for the first time in my life. I thought about becoming whomever I wanted to be. No one in this college town would know if I was naturally sassy or sweet, gregarious or aloof. I could present myself as the person I chose to be.
Trouble is, it is hard to stray from who we are at heart. I tried to gather my energies and garner new friends by behaving like a party girl, carefree and easy. But I didn't have her in me. I couldn't stick to the part and stay late in my party clothes. I just wanted to go home.
I recently wrote a song called, "Closer to Free." The initial inspiration came as I perused the Free People clothing catalogue. At first, I thought it funny that a company would make such a statement about a line of clothing. Those hippie-esque styles in strange layers and pairings said, "be adventurous and creative and don't worry if it doesn't match." The wispy indifferent models propped in languid poses declared, "we wear what we want wherever we dare."
They began to draw me in, these Free People. I've never had much sense of style. I have always admired girls and women who seemed to throw on any old thing and make it look good. Sometimes it was their sheer confidence and caution-to-the-wind that made them so attractive. Freedom from caring about what others would think seemed to set them free to flow in their clothing and throughout their lives. Like a river.
I was hooked. Sold! to the woman in earth tones and sneakers. Maybe now my inner critic will nap because I'm wrapped in these fabulous fabrics. Oh, the glorious freedom of not giving a crap.
But there's a catch. It's there, squeezed between the freeze-frames. If we stretch it out to see the real-life spaces where we live our lives, it gets a little messy. Suddenly we see the props and pins that keep it all in place for the shot. A make-up artist and a clothing wrangler rush in to fix the blemishes and slips. These clips and vignettes, I sometimes forget, are only old polaroids of curated unconcern. We are all truly, sadly, very concerned.
We are a thirsty people and there's no sating. We are hungry for love and acceptance. We hide our shame and insecurity behind snapshots and complicated layers. We buy the lie of self-re-creation.
Yes, we can dress for success and wear our truth to some extent. But freedom, true freedom from what we don't want to be, implies a freedom toward something. If I am free from my naturally fearful, insecure and angry self, than what am I free to become?
Back to center. In pulling focus, I discover a door to another room: a place called Acceptance.
What if I believed God loves me and accepts me as I am? What if I accepted myself 'as is'?
We are told that's what Jesus does: "Come to me and I'll give you rest. Yoke yourself to me."
If I am tied side by side to Jesus, I'm free from any other slaveries. I suddenly become free to be who I am, the girl He made me to be. Being tied to Him is a burden but it's easy and light compared to all those other slave-drivers out there. I am Becoming, what I once was, the girl in the mirror of His love. I am becoming. His love becomes me.
Every once in a while, I see through the facades of photos and mirror images. Like floating down a river, these moments of clarity, of sweet release, are the times when I know I am closer to free
Listen to this song here!
You say you're one of the free people
Nobody tells you how to live
You splash your face across the page
And spread yourself so thin
Yeah, you look like one of those free people
Embrace the world and make it spin
But even you can only take so much
Til something's got to give
Come closer to free
Come know your poverty
Feel your thirst and recognize your need
Your clothes don't cover up the heart of you
And freedom's deeper than the skin
You think you're shining like a star
But we see the shape you're in
Yeah you could be one of the free people
No need to re-create yourself
The beauty you want to so much comes
From being loved so well
Come know a sweet release
Can you feel your thirst and recognize your need
Come know the love you really need
When you feel the hunger and it grows you know
You're closer to free You could be one of the free people
Categories Finding Freedom, Growing Older Tags new music, songwriting, storytelling 16 Comments
5 New Songs: Closer to Free!
September 25, 2018 July 22, 2017 by Christine Dente
New Music Means Room to Grow
I am always so excited to be in the process of recording new music. Unrecorded songs seem small and shapeless in their infancy. When I handed these 5 new songs of mine, just tiny demo recordings on my phone, to my producer, I recalled t his process from years gone by.
Every record that Scott and I worked on together, whether as Out of the Grey or my solo projects, began in this way. Baby songs ready to be born and begin to grow up. What fun when players and producers and engineers join the mix. It was exciting to see what my babies would grow up to be. They just need some extra love and attention to make them grow.
Perils of Vulnerability and Creativity
Songwriting is fraught with the perils of vulnerability and creativity. The hardest part of the process is the initial sharing what I've done with others. Others who have their opinions and judgements and their own creative ideas. In song meetings with the record labels, I felt like I was lining up my children for scrutiny. Do you like this one? Isn't this other one amazing? No, you want to move on to the next one already? The producer would then have his say on how best to dress the chosen ones before launching them into the world. It was exciting and exhausting too. I have a chapter in my book Lifelines all about the recording process.
New Music With a New Producer
This time the situation is a bit different. I do not have a record label. What I do have is a new producer with lots of new ideas.
I know him as Julian Dente.
He is my firstborn and he grew up in the studio, on the road, and at home making music. These days he's a young man recording his own new songs and adding brilliant touches of creativity to the world.
I decided to hire him before he gets too busy to work with me. He co-wrote and produced 3 songs on the most recent Out of the Grey recording called A Little Light Left. I love his sonic style and I think you will too. The tracks are done and the music is exclusively digital. You can download them here or find all 5 on Spotify and Google music.
~Christine
P.S. Julian definitely has his opinions and judgements and suggestions for making my songs better. How can I stop being Mom and let him tell me what to do for once? This is getting a bit tricky!
Categories Family Matters, Telling Stories Tags Julian Dente, new music, songwriting, YØUTH 4 Comments
The Recording Process #2: Comping the Lead Vocals
September 27, 2018 April 27, 2017 by Christine Dente
Comping Lead Vocals: The Studio Magic
I take a quick photo with my producer, Julian Dente, during vocal recording.
Have you ever wondered how the finished vocals that you hear on a recording can sound so flawless?
Do you stand amazed at the perfect pitch most singers seem to have these days compared to, say, recordings from the '60's and '70's when the singer occasionally went sharp or flat?
Maybe you've already heard about tuning the vocals and other tricks toward perfection, thanks to the age of digital recording.
There's another tool for optimal finished vocals that I have used when recording my songs. It's called vocal comping and I want to describe how it works. But first, a few definitions:
Lead vocals: the recording of the singer singing the song several times, usually toward the end of the recording process.
Takes: the individual recorded vocal tracks, saved digitally for later use
Tracks: separate recordings of instruments and voices saved digitally
Tape: the old medium for recording our first Out of the Grey records in which sound did actually 'go to tape' that could hold multiple and separate tracks of recorded information. Now recording is mostly digital/computer-based.
Tuning: auto-tune is computer software that can correct pitches digitally with minute precision. Sometimes this is used as an effect in itself, creating that robotic, digital vocal sound in pop music.
The Tracks
As I described in my previous blog about singing lead vocals, I usually sing the song from start to finish between 5 and 10 times, after my voice is warmed up. I will warm up somewhat before entering the vocal booth but mostly my voice hits its groove when I sing on the microphone as the engineer works on getting the best sound.
Recently, I recruited my son, Julian, to produce 5 new songs I've written. We started recording my lead vocals after he had created instrumental tracks for the songs. He did this by programming some parts using his computer and also by playing and recording keyboard and electric guitar parts. Putting this all together from the song demos I had given him, he made some beautiful music.
The Takes
sound waves show my vocal tracks on the computer screen
The photo above shows us after recording multiple takes of me singing the entire song along with his tracks. (Julian was both producer and recording engineer in this part of the process.)
In singing the leads, I usually perform the song in much the same way for the first several takes. After I feel I've gotten what I want from the song, I use the next takes for experimenting. I'll try changing up the rhythm of a word or phrase, knowing I might want an alternative to the way I initially sing it. Maybe I'll try a slight melodic change to add flavor and choices for the next phase of the process. Julian will suggest changes as well.
After this, we have a sense of whether or not we've recorded what we need for the lead. For example, I know I keep singing that word "things" flat and out of time. I'll sing it again and he'll punch me in on just that word, recording only that split second in the midst of the phrase.
As another example, he may tell me that a melody I'm singing doesn't seem to work with the guitar part. We may go back and try a slightly different melody a few times, finding one that fits. Here's a 24-second video of us listening in the Dente home studio.
The Tool
Vocal Comping means compiling all of the recorded vocal tracks to create the best lead vocal on one track. The final performance could come from mostly one track. It may have had a lot of good elements because the singer was in 'the zone' on that one particular take. Or the lead vocal could be created from bits and pieces of multiple takes, cut and pasted together with ease on the computer.
Listening through to 5 or more takes plus any extra verses and choruses can be tedious. However, there is usually gold buried in the layers and now it's time to dig it out. Sometimes the singer is happy to leave and leave the comping up to the producer and engineer. Julian and I decided to do the comping together right after we recorded all of the lead vocals on my song, Butterflies Inside. Listening to the takes line by line, we made quick decisions about whether or not it was a good performance.
Usually, I use a printed lyric sheet to mark up and keep track of what words and lines sounded good on the track we are listening to. This time, however, Julian and I each started with a blank page and blocked out the verses and choruses using columns for 4 or 5 takes in a very loose grid.
As you can see in exhibit A to the left, it's a shorthand way to listen and make quick decisions. I used X's to say, "no way, that sounded terrible!" and I used a √ to say, "hey, maybe…." I circled some words I thought were good in the midst of a phrase that was not a keeper.
Sometimes Julian and I agreed perfectly on which track had the best line in this or that part of the lyric. Other times he had an entirely different idea of what was good. He might choose a phrase that I thought less-than-perfect but he wanted to keep it for its tone or its texture.
Julian would cut and paste as we went through the song, comping our favorite performances together. For example, perhaps the first verse used most lines from track one with a few words pasted in from track 5. The chorus may be more pieced together because I sang it inconsistently. Verse 2 saw a good performance all the way through track 4 so that's a keeper.
He put it all together as we went, using software magic and engineering skills like cut-and-paste and crossfades. The finished lead vocal track became (almost) the polished performance that we hear in our stereo speakers. Next, come the background vocals. More about that later.
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READ NEXT: Singing Background Vocals, Part 1
Categories Family Matters, Telling Stories Tags Julian Dente, lead vocals, new music, recording studio, singing, the recording process, voice, YØUTH Leave a comment
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