The Swiss Project Management Journal
The Creative Project
Anybody can plan weird; that’s easy. What’s hard is to be as simple as Bach.
Making the simple, awesomely simple, that’s creativity.
CHARLES MINGUS
essential to find the right balance between letting them know very clearly what
I want and who I am musically, but also
giving them space to be creative and see
through their vision as well and let them
do their thing. It’s a very close teamwork
that is also brittle somehow, because
creative heads all are very sensitive and
that includes me as well. If my feedback/
criticism comes too early or is not understood it might ruin the day and since
studios and producers are expensive and I
am the one paying for it, I am aware of
that.
How long does it take to actually record a
CD and how much effort does it take?
This is very difficult to answer. For my solo
record I was travelling on and off for a year
meeting all kinds of different songwriters/
producers in their creative environments
to write songs together. I ended up having
about 30 demo songs I liked and many
rough or half ideas that were not quite
feeling right or finished so I just put them
away for later. I couldn’t do that like in one
month day to day, since well… for obvious
reasons I guess. Being creative is not really
something one, or at least I, can get up in
the morning and deciding to be it today.
So there is a lot of "trial and error - time"
included.
Of course you can hire professional songwriters and let them write eleven songs in
eleven days, having the latest winner of
„the voice of wherever“ recording them
and releasing it three months later, but…
well… not my world… and also very tight
to come up with a marketing plan. So I
tend to take my time…
The next step is to go to a studio with a
producer and make a song out of the
demo. I would say it takes about four days
to produce one song properly. Then the
mix takes about two days/song. Then the
mastering takes another day.
For my album which is 14 songs that
would make it a total of about three-four
months for production/mix/master (after
Project Management Institute
SWITZERLAND Chapter
songwriting) if you would do it all in one
go.
But nobody I know works like that. Every
good producer and mixing engineer tends
to take breaks because after a certain
amount of time the ears get tired and it
makes sense to let it rest and having
another listen a week later or so. Also
after that you need to fill out many many
forms to register songs with PPL, publishing company, etc etc send it all to the
manufacturing company - which is another headache of filling out forms - and
of course make the pictures for an artwork, shoot a video-clip or two, find a
graphic designer, find somebody for
writing your bio, setting up a website and
making sure you have all the social media
going etc. There-fore I am not sure how to
answer that question.
What is the most challenging part of
recording a CD?
I’d say the creative processes of songwriting and recording/producing because
you can’t be in control really. It’s also the
most fun though.
How many people are involved in recording a CD incl. your band?
For my solo record my producer Eliot
James ended up being my whole band. He
was recording all the instruments and
programming the loops etc. It was just the
two of us in a very small studio-room in
London.
But of course it depends on the studio
situation and whether it’s a band or an
orchestra or a solo artist and whether you
hire session-musicians. Oh I forgot - I had
James coming in for BVs (backing vocals)
and some ad-libs so we were three then!
Who is the most important person (apart
from yourself of course) in a CD recording
project?
For somebody like me - a solo artist - the
producer is definitely the most important
person, because he defines the whole
soundscape of the CD. So for a solo singer
it is essential to find the right producer,
that matches your ideas of how your
sound should be like and to be able to let
him know, you have to find it out yourself
at first. With a band sometimes the sound
Jaël in action
5
2016 Edition