"The dream of having your own rehearsal room"
Retrospective: two years in a band
✨ Intro
Hello friends, Thursdays are here, and it's usually a good time to remember all the things we've experienced through a new lens.
In my case, photos from years ago jumped out at me, when a friend from the neighborhood and I started getting together, oddly enough on Thursdays, to make music in his living room.
At the time, it was simply a few chairs, a guitar, and a computer. But there was the hope of being able to use a recently vacated room in the back of his parents' house.
And so, Danilo and I set about reclaiming that abandoned space, with the goal of making it as similar as possible to a home recording studio.
🎺
Total chaos
A little bit of order about the things we were going to donate and sell.
Starting to sand the walls and ceiling
Taking out more than 30 bags of garbage, old clothes, cardboard, broken electrical appliances, and shoes.
Moment of peace before the storm
🍀 Daydreaming
Some lessons learned in the two years since setting up our first home studio, which we called "El Tintero."
🎼 Weekly practices
The idea was to practice three times a week, which we were able to maintain for approximately the first half year. Then we moved to meeting twice a week. The following year, things fell off even further, and we only met on Tuesdays. That, too, eventually fell apart.
It takes a lot of commitment. And at that time, we didn't have it.
🎼 Monthly Common Fund
We all contributed the same amount of money to cover basic studio expenses, joint projects like buying microphones for live performances, and lights or streaming equipment, although in practice the fund was basically used to keep the fridge stocked with beer.
I'm not going to criticize us; we made mistakes, but we had a good time, too.
🎼 We recorded a lot of stuff but never released it
Making absolutely all the mistakes amateur bands make, we also recorded every session, and we didn't have a fixed criterion for sorting which takes to keep and which to immediately discard. As a result, within a few weeks we had thousands of files, hundreds of hours of listening time, and not a single finished track.
The editing, mixing, and mastering process is incredibly complex, long, and exhausting. We thought that as instrumental musicians, we could just get our hands on the software and edit our own music... The reality is that it requires tons of patience and complex studies, or at least many videos to learn from tutorials. It's a daunting task and requires adding more people to the project, which is another obstacle for now.
Well, that's enough for now. I don't want to bore you with continuing to list my mistakes 🥲
But in essence, it's learning from my own experience, and sharing it here helps me continue looking for ways.
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The process of learning is full of challenges, and also many rewards. The vibrations of the music calm my mind and make me happy. May all beings find an authentic way to express all their creativity.
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❤️ Thank you ❤️
💚 LOVE 💛
Hi, I'm Juan (a faun), a gardener and musician.