Back on May 12th 2008,   I made a News entry (here) regarding my efforts to record "Fear the Silence."   Since then I have returned to the recording studio not once but twice,   so,   it's time for an update...

In the evening of Monday July 21st '08 I returned to Blackwood Recording to make a second attempt at recording a vocal track for "Fear the Silence."   I recall being more calm and more confident on this day as compared to the prior studio session,   and in this follow-up session I did manage to record a complete vocal track which I felt I could share with others.

Subsequent feedback was,   however,   overwhelmingly negative.   My vocal performance was criticized as being boring,   as having poor tone,   and as sounding insincere.   On that final point,   one listener offered up this rather deep and insightful critique:   (paraphrasing)   The voice sounds as if it is absolutely pleading,   but the lyrics sound like those of a man who has figured out,   and moved past,   the subject matter of the song.

Wow...   that was some constructive feedback.   On reflection,   I decided that perhaps in my second session I had in fact tried too hard to sound like a wounded man,   in the process sounding not only insincere,   but also perhaps causing my vocal tone to suffer.   As to the "boring" comment,   I concluded that the relative lack of melody in the tune was probably a major contributor to listener boredom.

So I set out to do two things.   First,   I began to practice the song with a more relaxed delivery,   to counter the "insincere" criticism,   and to address the tone criticism.   Second,   I sat down and wrote a new and distinct chorus melody,   with much more activity in it,   figuring that a more active melody would be more interesting and further would differentiate the chorus better from the verse,   in turn reducing listener boredom.

On Tuesday August 26th 2008 I returned to Blackwood Recording to put down a third vocal track,   this time using the more relaxed delivery and the new chorus melody.   Despite some considerable allergy-induced difficulty earlier that day,   my studio session went better than expected,   and I did manage to put down not only a complete main vocal track,   but also some harmony vocals as well.

Along with re-recording the vocals,   I also had the studio make some edits to reduce the overall song length;   at my suggestion,   the acoustic guitar intro,   and the final section of the guitar interlude,   were deleted.   Jamie suggested,   and I agreed to,   a further edit,   that of cutting in half one of the remaining sections of the guitar interlude.   The three edits cut the overall song length down from just over five (5) minutes to just over four (4) minutes.

I left the studio that day feeling confident that the resulting version of Fear the Silence,   while still likely not the final version,   was at the very least the best yet version.   Since that session,   most listeners have agreed with that assessment.

What is left to do with this song?   Plenty,   LOL.   But for better or worse today I have posted the most recent version of the song up on my MySpace page,   at http://www.myspace.com/paulsehnen.