A Kenyan Recording Studio!!?

I had a wild idea. It started when Rachel Vreeman, one of the pediatricians here, contacted me about her parents' visit to Eldoret. Her mom, Jacki is a professional pianist and Rachel asked if she could shadow me and help out at the places where I'm providing Music Therapy services since it'd be right up her alley. Sounds great! After further thought, I had my crazy idea: Why don't we also give a recital together? I figured, if she's a professional pianist, I could have my oh-so-helpful parents scan music for her to practice before she gets here, I could get my voice into shape, and we could give a joint classical recital somewhere in Eldoret.  I also thought of including some of the kids I've been working with. It just so happens that my Aunt Sue had heard a choral arrangement of "What a friend we have in Jesus," in both English and Kiswahili, and had sent the sheet music over with my parents in December. What a perfect time to use it, thanks Aunt Sue! Jacki was a great sport, and agreed to give a recital of mixed voice and piano solos before we had even met.

Finding a place to practice was hard. I don't have a lot of privacy here, and even in my small servant's quarters (things are so dang colonial around here...did I mention that?) everything echos. Not ideal for someone who needed hardcore practice time and lots of lip trills to take my voice from "Old McDonald" back to Italian art songs, German lied, and a bit of vocal jazz. Dang. My voice felt like an elephant that just would not MOVE. I reminded myself that it takes time to get back into shape, but I swear, if you don't use it you lose it. I'd say it was comparable to trying to run a marathon after not having run in close to a year. Ouch.

I began teaching the girls at Amani Shelter the choral arrangement the week before Jacki arrived, and that was also a challenge. I have no experience teaching a group of American kids a 2-part choral piece, let alone teaching Kenyan swahili-speaking children who don't read music. We did everything by rote, in a call and response manner, and after a couple of days I felt like we were beginning to get somewhere.  This was quite the accomplishment for me actually, I was really proud of them and of our progress together. When we were in unison, the kids could sing the notes. When the piece divided into two parts however, we had some difficulties.  Which ever of the two parts I wasn't singing fell apart. This is where crazy idea number 2 came in. I realized I needed a way to record myself singing both parts separately, and then together so that the kids could hear how it all fit. I called Javan and told him my dilemma, and he of course, had a solution: he'd pick me up on Saturday and we'd go to a recording studio to make practice tracks to leave at the shelter.  Yesssssssssss a Kenyan recording studio!

One thing that I've learned in my time here is to make no assumptions. For instance, I realized that I should not assume that there would be an in-tune piano at the studio from which to get a starting pitch.  While brian-storming about how to come up with a tuning fork or another way to make sure I was singing in tune, my friend Chrissie, a physical therapist said, "Hey! I have a tuning fork that you can borrow!" Turns out PT's use the vibrations from a tuning fork to determine the degree of sensation loss in various patients. When she came down stairs with the tuning fork though, I burst into laughter. If you're a fellow musician you'll love the below picture of Chrissie's HUGE knobby tuning fork. Not quite the same as a musical tuning fork!




Anyway, we went to the studio, met the people, and they agreed to let me do some a capella voice recording.  I went in a tiny room that had one microphone (imagine the "Dreamgirls" mic from the 50's that all three girls stood around, then also imagine it being held together with duct tape....). It definitely was not sound proof either, but there were cardboard egg cartons lining the ceiling to provide some extra insulation. Thank goodness for the egg cartons. I'm bout to wail. We did some minimal sound checking, then we just started recording. We ran into trouble when I wanted to go back to a certain measure and do another take. The producer on the other side of the glass asked where I wanted to start, and I looked at my music and said, "Measure 42." This was greeted with blank stares....no one reads music.  So they asked again where I wanted to start and I just sang the place that I wanted. Between my horrendous swahili and their broken english, it was quite difficult.  I decided to do one take per track, and nothing fancy. I'm used to doing Gold Company recordings with some of the best musicians in town. And the producers are ALSO some of the best musicians in town, and it's a given that everyone reads music and communicates using technical, music-dork language. So this was definitely a cultural experience.  I spent  2 hours there and made three practice tracks: 1.) the English "A" section, 2.) the Swahili "B" section, 3.) the two-part combined section.  When it came time to pay, they gave me a ridiculous price, no doubt because I'm a mzungu. White skin around here means money. Thankfully, Javan knew this would happen (as did I) and he stuck around to defend me and argue for a fair price, which we finally got. Such a fun experience!!

More to come soon about the recital!