Today I'm going to be doing some work with Emily, a fellow singer as she really wanted to do a duet with me however we couldn't find the time and I've now realized that I need to discover around three covers and I love the song she suggested so I thought we could do that at the gig. I was very excited as I have wanted to collaborate with a female artist on country music but especially for a performance and this is the perfect opportunity for that to happen. We wanted to play a song by a artist I had been researching called Sam Barber, he did a duet with Avery on the song "Indigo". I would also like to talk to my session musicians and my producer about rehearsal and studio time as we are very pressed and need some time to get in the studios and record my music. 

After this, we went to the rehearsal session and tried to figure out the song we started of by listening to the whole song together all the way through so we new the key each of us had to be in and how it works. We then tried singing along with a soundtrack and we learnt that my part was extremely low so I struggled to add volume due to this fact but we agreed when we have a microphone we can turn it up. We sang through the song together practicing the harmony's on the choruses as we wanted though to be perfect and we enjoyed it all in the process. Emily had to teach me how to harmonies as I didn't know how as I hadn't really sang with someone else properly before. After a few attempts it was really coming along and we were very happy with the result. We then thought we would try it with piano and see what would happen if we played a easier and simplified version of the songs as the chords used aren't actually very complicated but the way they played is. After giving Emily a bit of time to practice she told me she wanted to have a go and we tried after this we then focused on the build up as that is specifically piano and also lead by the piano so would be the most important part of Emily playing and would have to be the greatest part and extremely tight so we practiced that for about 10 minutes to make sure it was completely finished. We then did some takes of the song to try to have it memorized so when we then go to practicing it with Billy on guitar and George on drums we are completely ready. We played together for  30 - 45 minutes and were able to be ready with one song which is extremely impressive and meant that we saved a huge amount of time and means as a group e only have two songs we need to rehearse for he event. 

Today was extremely helpful for the performance I have coming up on the 7th may due to the fact that I was able to get another song down for the performance as I have to get 30 minutes worth of music when I only have three songs that probably would take up half of that time so I need some covers. It was also really successful as after we rehearsed we were able to get a nearly ready version of the song and only have to add guitar which means there isn't to much to do for that song left so we can focus on other work. I was also able to collaborate with another musician which means I am meeting more people which is really good when it comes to trying to get my name out there and for the gig it means that she might bring more people which is good for me and billy. For example i'll have a better crowd for my songs so more people can find it and Billy will get more ticket sales for hs event so it's a win win situation. However i would also like to say if i was going to do today again and change anything I would have contacted billy o see if he could have come to that rehearsal session and practiced with us as that way we would have been ready to perform it and not rehearse it much before the performance.

Today, what I did was I went into the studio to talk to Harry to figure out a plan while we waited for Billy to get to the studio as we did spring it on him so he needed some time to get there. We said that we could save time if I recorded vocals in the recording room and Billy recorded in the booth even though we weren't recording together it meant that when one was recording the other one could be practicing there part and that way we didn't take long switching between recording guitar and vocals. We started of by setting up the vocal mic as the person before us was using it so we asked him not to set it up and we changed it to my height and decided to use a pop shield to soften sibilance which I needed as I use a lot of exaggerated syllables down to the fact I'm singing country music which has a twangy vocal style and due to this, it means I have to really pronounce my words which can become quite overpowering and will affect the recording and mixing as Harry while be changing the gain throughout the song. The microphone also has to be placed just above mouth level as this way I’m able to get the best recording and the microphone can pick up my voice easier this way than if it was at any other height level. After setting this up in the recording room, I was able to talk to Billy and we started getting him set up in the studio booth. Due to the fact that he is playing a fast acoustic guitar part I wanted to give him a large amount of practice before recording so he was very prepared and hopefully doesn't take to many takes. We started of by telling Harry while he was setting up the mics what the metronome time is which after talking to George Lingard before the rehearsal session and he informed me that the BPM is 130 BPM. I then helped Harry set up his mics while Billy played the song to the metronome as this way we could multitask and save time as we had a lot to do in the two hour session and didn't know how long me and Billy would take especially with the parts we were playing being extremely fast and quite complicated when it comes to staying in time. We started of by recording the vocals for my first song called Left and right. 

We then finished the song till I was happy and I asked Harry honestly how he felt and he fault it was great and was extremely happy with it. When then created a new logic project for Billy and the second song called cold beer buzz. I wanted one song to be up beat and a little bit of fun and I came up with the name of the song from a family friend saying whiskeys to strong and wines too sweet and that's why I drink beer so I thought I would make a song about that concept and fought a lot of people for example male listeners would enjoy it and it might gain popularity. The guitar are very classic blue grass country with sat picking style which a lot of guitarists I spoke to struggled with so after hearing this information wanted to have all of the equipment ready for when he was going to record to save time so he wasn't stressed and then struggle to record the song as I really wanted the guitar finished in this recording session. We used a overhead microphone two dynamic mics one at ever end of the guitar to capture the strumming and the picking style, We then faced a SM57 towards the whole of the guitar to capture the general sound. We didn't use a room mic as the booth in this studio as you will see in the pictures aren't actually large so wasn't going to be much ambient sounds coming from that room. As we were set up we were able to just start the song and be ready to record. We gave him one take as a practice as to save time while he did this, Harry got the levels of the microphones to make sure they were recording the correct thing and then make them all the correct levels. Billy then took his first take and due to the fact that while I was recording he was practicing it mean't that he felt extremely confident. As he struggled with the structure I stood up to the window and mothed to him the next section and put my hand up counting down the bars as that way he knew exactly when to change. He then got the rhythm section finished in one take and it was very accurate with the metronome. After this me and Harry and all of us in the studio were really happy with Billy as this meant that we could do some additional parts to the song we thought we wouldn't be able to due to the fact we were going to be short on time however after this we were extremely ahead of schedule. I explained to Billy the kind of lead guitar I wanted by showing him a video of him playing it to refresh his memory and I also showed him some examples of songs that I wanted a similar style. I explained I wanted it over the choruses to bring some more emphases on the fact it is the chorus as you cant really tell otherwise. After having a few practiced points he started recording. Before hand I said the first two takes we will record and I wanted him to improvise and if I find something I really like ill tell him to do that and we would go from there. After telling Billy this he used his imagination and was extremely creative and came up with some awesome ideas and after about ten minutes we had some cool parts and we had recorded the choruses and I was extremely happy with them. All he had to do then was his instrumental outro. This he was really struggling to get right however he was persistent and finally got it recorded and we then finished the guitar for song 2 and we were very happy as we still had over a hour in the studios for me to record the vocals.