Once you ve been around the block a few times and tasted what success sounds and f eels

like, you ll want to record your own CD. People are drawn to make recordings for many different reasons. Sometimes it's to advance (or start) a career. Somet imes it's to give life to new songs or share the music with a wider audience. On a personal level, it can be a memorable creative experience. Choosing what to record is not the same as selecting music to perform on stage. Your stage how is as much a matter of style and taste as it is image and directi on. Concerts are about entertainment and exposing your music. It s about rapport a nd applause, giving and taking; building an audience you hope will one day becom e a following. Concerts promote your music. Recording is different. A CD is a musical painting. Without the visual benefit o f live performance, it comes to matters of hearing and listening. Technology mak es it possible to record and market your music at an affordable cost especially if you decide to self-produce your recordings. That can work, up to a point. The production process and studio you select must live up to your expectations and those of your fans. I ve had more than a few recording experiences. My first encounter was with a jazz -blues-rock group called Celebration. We couldn t afford to record but we were wri ting original material and our fans were asking us to record. In desperation I s uppose - better to do something than nothing - we set up a two track recording s ystem in an old church. The acoustics were incredible and the atmosphere was ter rific. Looking back, we looking for and expecting a miracle. We were finished i n a few hours. Delivering the master tape to an independent record pressing fact ory, a month later, we sold out the first 500 copies overnight. The sound was aw ful but somehow we managed to capture the spirit and intent of the band. There w asn t a single complaint. Still, for obvious reasons, we didn t make any more copies . It s a commonly held belief that all you need is a computer with a sound card and a 'multimedia microphone' to record at home. In a sense that s true. A home studio can be as simple as a cassette deck and an inexpensive microphone set up in the corner of your basement. Roland, Korg and Yamaha offer all-in-one combination d igital mixer/hard disk recorder/effects units that are as close to a true 'studi o-in-a-box' as you can get. You may not be entirely satisfied with the results a ny more than we were with Celebrations first effort.. Moving up in the world, a few years later we recorded at the old Masters Worksho p studio on a four track. The sound was a little better. The difference was that I had few expectations. The recording was a demo to be played for a Capitol rec ords A & R man. The quality didn t have to be there or so I thought. Regrettably, I was wrong. He failed to be impressed by what he considered to be an unprofessi onal effort. The session was over in thirty seconds; a missed opportunity to imp ress someone who could have done wonders in launching my career. There were other experiences and good lessons learned. Don t expect too much from a home recording. If you want a professional CD good enough to get radio air pla y or to sell in stores, you're probably better off making a professional studio recording. The only problem with that is studio time is expensive, unless you ha ve money to burn, you re going to have to live with the final recording for a long time. It s a tough decision to make; certainly food for thought. On a bad day you can t see the stars. Clouds cover the sun. The air is tough to b reathe. Everything seems to go wrong. Nothing feels right. You ll need all the hel p you can get. You ve got nothing to lose. You ll be ready to try anything. The hott est new Britney Spears recording will sell off the shelf in no time flat. You wo n t find it that easy. Music industry dumpsters are filled to overflowing with mus ic that failed to sell. You ll take what you can get; even a recording contract if it might give you the chance of getting anywhere.

On a good day, the birds sing. The flowers bloom. Everything seems right. It s a j oy to be alive. Nothing can harm you. You re strong and bold and beautiful. You be lieve in yourself and know without a doubt that you can t lose. You ll do your best to go it alone. Mass merchandising is a fools game. Sometimes it seems that the only ones who ma ke any money are retailers. Even they make very little in spite of high volume o f cash and merchandise changing hands. There are no shortcuts. You ll need to sell your CD one at a time. If you re like me, you live in a real world with real prob lems and real opportunities; a world that doesn t care. Whether you succeed or fai l is of no consequence to anyone but you. Today is the first day of the rest of your life. Only you can decide what kind of day you re going to have. As your market grows geographically, covering more and more territory, you ll find more than a few independent music and book stores will sell your CD. It will ge t a little easier all the time. Who knows, maybe some day a major label will dis cover you and make a offer you can t refuse to record the music you ve been playing all along. Dennis Walsh ZZZZZZ