Recording - August 2017 - 59

Continued from page 56
When I got to college, I had the opportunity to
take yet another recording MIDI class, and I put it
off for a while; I put it off, I think, for one or two
years. I was still stuck in that idea of "I want to be
the songwriter; I want to be the performer; I don't
want to mess with all that." Eventually, I caved and
I got in there, because, again, for my senior project
I wanted to make an album.
I really fell in love with the studio in college. I don't
do it conventionally, I've been told by my former
professor-who's here-and by other people. And
like I said, I'm not a technical person in those
things, but I love music and I'm determined to get
out there, determined that this goes somewhere.
To me, that was just a necessary thing that had to
be done, and now I love being in that studio more
than performing, more than sitting down and writing lyrics. There is something magical that
happens in there for me, that's like my therapy.

asked them; I said, "Someone just emailed me,
Rob Chiarelli." And the guy says, "That's one of the
big ones. You better call him back." So I looked
him up, and I was like, "Ooh, OK, not a scammer."
And I called him and he just wanted to know who
wrote the song, who sang it, and who produced it.
He was very impressed that I would've done it all.
It was not a perfect piece-it wasn't-but it moved
him. It had been tweaked enough and it had been
cared for enough, with that kind of careful attention of someone who really wants to get out there.
I think that he saw that.
So we started working together, started trying to
see if there's someone I could work with. And now
I'm on his label and we just created an album
together. Of course, he's producing it now, and it's

a different level. It's a level I can't get it to on my
own. But if it had never gotten to the level it did,
with sheer persistence of someone who still doesn't know the commands on my Mac, you know, it
wouldn't have gotten where it is.
I really want to encourage persistence in any area
for anyone here who is feeling that bit of, "It's
never gonna quite take..." Really, you've probably
heard it all weekend, but the people who make it,
just stick in there the longest and fight the hardest.
So I just want to leave you with that. Keep going
for it.
Great story! [applause]
Read part 2 in next month's Insider!

So that's sort of my story up to this point. That
album I was pitching to TAXI like mad; I was a
chronic pitching, listing person. My husband was
like, "We can't afford this. You've got to keep it
down a little bit." I had a budget for each week,
and I was not getting forwarded for a very long
time. It was very frustrating. But the thing about
pitching a lot is you get feedback and you start
seeing patterns. I've heard so many of my fellow
TAXI members say, "Oh, that's one person's opinion." Yes, that person is educated, and sometimes
there are discrepancies, but if you're pitching that
same song to similar listings, getting the same
comments, it's probably true! TAXI really helped
my songwriting, more than probably any individual person, any individual influence. Just having
that multitude of opinions to be able to look at all
the time. And I think that sometimes we get so
caught up in feeling personally connected to our
songs that we're not open to that-especially with
some of the comments on production. That's
something that we need to look at. A lot of times,
songwriters and artists kind of skip that-"Ok,
the production, but what about the song? That's
what really sells." But if you don't polish it, it will
never see the light of day. Those comments you've
got to take to heart. We've got to have that humility as artists and songwriters and producers.
So I completed this album for my senior project,
was pitching a song, started getting Forwards
from TAXI; then I started getting more Forwards
than returns; and then I started only getting forwards for the most part. It was really great, but
nothing was hitting, though. Nothing, over and
over and over. Fourth of July weekend, I believe of
2014, I got an email from Rob Chiarelli. I went,
hmmm, who is this? I thought this must be
another scammer or something. I called TAXI and
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