I just might need to set up a little recording room in my house, garage or shed.
The other day, I was sitting at the kitchen table with my recorder, wearing a set of headphones and holding my guitar. I pushed the record button and instantly I could hear everything with a lot of clarity. That is the value of wearing the headphones – you can hear your voice and guitar so well and as a result, sing and play better.
So, I began strumming away and started yodelling up a storm. But I was distracted by this weird scratching and scrabbling noise in the background.
I thought, as I sang, “What the heck is that?”
I stopped recording. The noises stopped. I started up again and so did the scratching.
I looked out the window. It sounded like there was a hailstorm in the backyard. There was not. I started again, so did these annoying sounds. I stopped. They stopped.
I took off the phones and looked around, then started playing guitar again.
It was then I realized that the eight gerbils who live in four aquariums in our living room came alive when the music did. They jumped in their little ferris wheels and ran up and down and in and out of their coconuts, looking for all the world like the happy feet crowd at a teen dance.
When I stopped playing, they slowed down and stopped.
I put the headphones back on and started recording again and thought, well, maybe it’s not so bad. It just sounds like some percussion in the background.
So I sang away until our dog, lying on top of the couch and looking out the window, started barking his head off at the mailman.
“Shaddapp!!!” I yelled at him, in the middle of my song. This was clearly not working out. The recording of a sensitive song interspersed with gerbil scrabbling, dog barking and Shaddapp!!! was obviously flawed.
Oh, and the furnace came on now and then, adding yet another delightful little element.
I finally gave up, went out into the garaqe and accomplished my mission. The only ambient sounds that intruded were those made by the occasional passing car in the street.
I don’t know. I might have missed my chance. The gerbils and I did sound pretty good together.
Could we make an act out of it? James and the Jurbils? Jimmy and the Jerbys? Maybe we could figure out a way of working the poodle into the ensemble.
I’ve been told for years, after all, that my music has been going to the dogs.
©2013 Jim Hagarty
