[HANASHIR:9430] recording budgets, home recording, and hear my music for free

[Ethan Leigh Bueno de Mesquita <mesquita...>]

Hi folks,

I liked Andy's point, regarding home recording, very much. But, I'm going
to take it even one step further. It seems to me, in the Jewish-music
world, we are too album focused. Everyone seems to want to get an album
out. And, I assume, this is primarily because we want to share our music.
This creates a couple of problems, however. First, as I'm sure many of you
have also noticed, the vast majority of Jewish CDs are not so great. They
tend to have one or two really nice songs on them, and then a bunch of
songs that you could do without, but which are needed to make it a full
album. People don't always wait until they've got 12 first-rate songs,
because they want to get the album out. This is always dissapointing.
Second, it is expesive. $20,000! That is a lot of money. And then it is
expensive to buy the CDs, making it more annoying when there are only a
couple of good songs. Since Andy touched on it, I will leave aside the
massive overproduction of many Jewish albums.

So, I suggest an alternative. I have, of late, been home recording my own
music on a four-track (Tascam 424 mk III) which I bought for a few hundred
dollars. Granted, this is easy for me since my music is just guitar,
vocal, and harmony, but this is all the Beatles had, so you can do a lot
with it.  I then mix it down to my computer and post it on my web site
along with chord and lyric sheets. My purpose is to share my music. The
recordings are not brilliant. But they are good enough for someone who is
interested to learn the song. It seems to me, the Jewish music world would
benefit from fewer professionally released albums and more free sharing of
our music using the amazing resource that is the internet.

Anyone interested in hearing my music, there are four or five songs posted
now, and another 10 or so to come in the next month or two, can check out
the website. The url is

http://www.people.fas.harvard.edu/~mesquita/music.html


Enjoy, and I'd love to hear your feedback,

Ethan

*******************************
Ethan Bueno de Mesquita
Ph.D. Candidate

mesquita (at) fas(dot)harvard(dot)edu
www.fas.harvard.edu/~mesquita

Department of Government
Littauer Center, North Yard
Harvard University
Cambridge, MA  02138
(617) 384-7303 (office)

"Can lack of bias ever compensate for absence of insight?"
        -Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel


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