Making the EP: Letting Go of Vocal Perfectionism

After recording piano successfully for my EP, the next task was to record the vocals.

I don’t know about you, but when I hear my recorded singing, I tend to cringe a lot. I am hyperaware of my shortcomings. Every slightly flat or sharp note screams out at me I am RONG. U R BAD AT THIS. !!! sadkjfa; k! ! !!!!

My self-criticism used to be so intense that I refused to share any of my recorded singing with anyone else. I’d take a casual video, consider posting it on Instagram, and… never mind. Delete. It didn’t matter how many years of vocal training I’d undergone, nor how many people had expressed genuine praise and enthusiasm. Nope. Maybe I’d be finally good enough to share my voice… some distant day in the future.

In the fall of 2023, I sat in my room, scrolling social media feeds that broadcasted the genocide happening in Gaza. The thousands upon thousands of deaths. I felt echoes of despair and rage and helplessness. I needed to free the energy. I got up and sat at my piano keyboard, and played and sang “Somewhere Over the Rainbow.” It was then that I finally was able to feel the full extent of my grief and cry.

I thought that if my singing did that for me, maybe it could do that for someone else. So I recorded a video, and shared it online as a prayer. My self-doubt - my ego - felt so trivial in comparison to this - just sharing my real, vulnerable expression in hopes of awakening that in others.

After that, I started sharing more. And in the meantime, I moved to the Bay Area, where self-expression of all kinds is celebrated for its own sake. That was a huge breath of fresh air compared to the cutthroat creative careerist mentality in LA. So I started singing way more - jamming with housemates, improvising at open mics with friends, recording songs with people I’d just met in their home studios because why not?

At the same time, I was grateful for my time training in LA. I got to learn from voice teachers who taught professional singers, and my study went deep, much deeper than most people I’ve met up here in the Bay who like to sing. Up here, I feel more confidence in my ability than I did back in SoCal. And I receive a lot more affirmation from others here as well.

So I was excited to record the vocals. The day before, I walked through my South Berkeley neighborhood and sang the three songs I’d be tracking to myself. I united my voice with the wind, and with my swaying body, and reconnected to the prayers of the lyrics.

In a 5-hour session with

Lish Grooves

, I managed to get all the vocals done fairly easily. I marveled at how far I’ve come - when I tracked harmonies with my old band in LA four years ago, I had to record 10, 20, 30 takes of a line because it was so technically challenging for me. Now I could get them in 3, 2, sometimes 1 try. But these are also my songs, written for my voice, so it makes sense that recording them would be easier.

The next day, I listened back to the songs. I felt both hyperaware of my shortcomings and appreciative of my sound. I felt proud more than I felt cringey. I wrote down notes about which notes were sharp and where the timing felt off. Then Lish and I revisited the songs. He has a very powerful software that pitch-corrects individual notes in one’s singing. We started making edits to my voice - lowering the end of that phrase just a smidge. I felt giddy with the knowing that I could finally achieve pitch perfection with this software. I started listening to the recordings with even more hyperawareness so that I could correct everything that was even the slightest bit off.

“What about that part? Let the spirit move through me. ‘Spi’ is flat. I think. Right?” I said.

Lish pointed out that the imperfection was sometimes where the beauty and distinction came from. “When you start correcting everything, that’s how you wind up in AI and robot land.”

Oh. Yeah. Duh.

For a second there, I forgot that my goal with this EP was actually not to autotune my voice til wasn’t not me anymore. It’s not about achieving technical perfection. It’s about sharing my real, raw self-expression with the hopes of moving others with it, and inspiring them to share theirs too. As my musician friend Blair says, you don’t want perfect, you want real.

So we stopped pitch-correcting after that. And the next day, I listened to the updated tracks. I could still hear my imperfections. Part of me itched to re-record some of the parts. But I’m practicing loosening my tight grip. And re-focusing on the energy and emotions of the songs, rather than the technicalities. Coming back, once more, to the sacred.

Thanks for reading,

Akemi

PS: A hugeee thank you to everyone who has contributed to my EP Indiegogo fundraiser so far <3 If you feel moved to support this project, there’s still time to do so, and any level of support is so appreciated. There are also lots of cool art and music perks to choose from if you so desire them.