Aiko

Part 1

“Alright, Suki, let’s take it from the top again. Try to relax, just let the music flow.” A moment later, Suki takes a breath before giving it another shot. Before long though, I hear the stilted playing style again. Man, what is with this girl? The demos she sent were fine and now she chooses the studio to mess up? It must just be nerves or something. As I listen more closely, I hear the almost staccato beats on the piano as she plays. Not a wrong note in there, but it just didn’t flow, and the timing between them was inconsistent. I let it go for another minute before stopping it again.

“Hey, why don’t you come in here and listen for a minute?”

I see a deep sigh as Suki hangs her head over the keys, but to her credit, she gets up and comes into the mixing room. “I’m sorry, I know it sucks. I just…I can’t focus.”

“It happens, don’t worry. This is your first time recording in a studio, right?” I see her nod silently. “Are you nervous?”

“A bit, yeah.”

Okay, it’s pretty common to have nerves the first time you record, I’ve dealt with this before. “Let’s try something. Instead of playing it while I record, just play for me. Would that be alright?”

Suki sighs again. Poor girl, just needs to get her confidence up. “Alright, sure.”

“Cool, let’s head back in then.” Suki walked out first, just as I hoped she would. I hit the button to record and walk out there without another word. I don’t think she noticed. We walk over to the piano and she takes her seat again. “So what made you want to learn this song?”

“It was just in a thing that I read online. I liked the story and the music, so why not? It fits in well with the rest of the songs too, but I’m not ready to record those yet.”

Good, just relax. “Alright, that’s cool. Now, just go ahead and play the whole thing through for me. No pressure or anything.”

Wordlessly, Suki puts her hands back onto the keys and begins to play. This time though, she looks relaxed, and the music feels that way too. The notes flow off of her fingers as she silently starts to bob her head to the rhythm of the song.

I smile in spite of myself. I know it’s maybe not great to mislead people like this, but if it gets the song out, they always thank me in the end. After a couple minutes, her playing slows to a final chord and I see a smile creep onto her face as she finishes, but it’s soon replaced with an exasperated sigh. “Dammit, why can’t I play like that when it’s recording.”

I feel my smile grow and I start to laugh as she gives me a confused look.

Part 2

"Sorry, sorry!" I say while trying to stop laughing. "Sorry for misleading you like that, but I was recording it, so that should be a clean take. I hope you don't mind."

Suki looked at me for a second while she processed what I said and then hung her head and laughed along with me. "No, not at all. Thanks."

"Alright, let's go have a listen then."

We walked back into my mixing area and I stopped the recording before playing it back again. The time between my talking and her playing was a bit short, but that was easy enough to extend if she wanted a longer gap. I wordlessly listened, making sure we didn't capture any movement or anything else that wasn't intended. Meanwhile, Suki stood there with a growing smile on her face. After a couple minutes, it broke back into our talking and I stopped it.

"So, what do you think? Did it sound okay to you?" It sounded fine to me, but I also didn't know the song at all.

Suki chuckled "Yeah, that sounded good to me." She shook her head a bit. "Do you do that often?"

I blushed a bit, but laughed along with her. "More often than I thought I would the first time. Too bad it only works once though. But anyway, I guess the point is that you don't really have to stress about it, and I know that's easier said than done. Anyway, if you're happy with that, I'll get to trimming it and then we can tweak the levels a bit if you'd like. That's completely up to you though, some people just take the raw recording from the microphone."

Suki thought for a minute. "Okay, that sounds good. And...could you send me the full recording? The one with us talking? I don't know, I just thought it would be funny to listen to."

I smiled at this. "Yeah, sure."

A few minutes later and the trimming was done. I decided to extend the silence at the start a bit further, but otherwise it was just a simple cut that anyone could have done. I made a copy of both the music and the full recording for her after she said the levels were fine, and then she left with a smile on her face.

Another successful day. I looked over at the clock and saw it was closing time, so no more walk-ins should be arriving. I turned off all the equipment before walking back outside and locking up for the night.