roisin whyte

I am going to record my debut EP. For once, this appears to not be a drill. I have some recording dates booked in. I have (willingly) signed my life away to the Arts Council of Northern Ireland. Whilst I don’t imagine they’d send the boys around, I suspect I’d be in receipt of some strongly-worded-letters were I not to make good on my promise to them.

I don’t deal well with strongly-worded-letters.

So in a bid to keep me on some sort of track of what’s useful/important I’m going full list from the start.

• Be prepared. Know the songs. Like I could play them in my sleep kind of know. Any expression or nice surprises that may come in the recording studio, can only come from a mind not completely occupied with just trying to play darn thing right.
• Take notes, make observations, record any and all feelings you have during the process in as organised a way as possible; (not being funny but you’re not very good at keeping things in one place, Róis)….(also, not blowin smoke up your ass, but the one genuine talent I think you have, is a very good instinct for peoples’ character/situations. Trust it.
• Understand that you have no experience of the recording process as it pertains to you having your own music recorded in a professional studio by someone else. You will likely only learn the true extent of your ignorance when you begin. That may not feel fine, but it is. Like it or not that’s how we learn. Your job is to know the songs/instruments/arrangements well, and then give yourself a chance.
• Understand too, that the other people working with you have done this many, times. You chose them on that basis and of course, on the basis that you like what they have done before. Go along with them for the ride if/when they suggest a short-cuts/scenic routes.
• Finally, for now, and most importantly…….We know you will start, and not just because of strongly-worded-letters. There are dates booked and good people on board. But Jesus, Mary and Joseph and the wee Donkey, finish. That’s often been a struggle for you. You start something that doesn’t get completed. There are a number of pieces of work and interesting ideas that you have begun to look at but haven’t pursued. I am not chastising you. For some reason, these things are not linear and straightforward for you. You have thought that the nature of your life means that other things have priority and that you must wait for a better time. The wait becomes grows heavy. A dead weight.

Perhaps we all have to live a bit to fully understand that there is no better time.

Do not let this venture be the Wait you Carry.