One of my favorite internet forums is gearslutz.com. Filled with professional recording engineers, producers, and a reasonable number of musicians, it’s a great resource for reading about the technology, techniques, and aspirations of making great recordings. One of the posts to kick off the new year asked about discipline, and I particularly appreciated the response by Fletcher, one of the more colorful commentators on the list.
He begins by saying:
To me… discipline is making sure the documentation is 1000% correct at every minute of every session… that microphone selections and placements are made quickly, efficiently… and changed when they’re not working to the desired result. The discipline of determining and the balls of saying “well this isn’t working… let’s change _____” when you have musicians that are chomping at the bit to get going.
and ends with:
… but the absolute show of lack of discipline is incomplete or inaccurate documentation. It shows an absolute disrespect for the craft, for the process, for the artist, for the project. “Recording the Beatles” is a very lovely book… how come nobody takes notes like that anymore?
As a happy owner of Recording The Beatles, I have to say RIGHT ON!
I will close with this thought:
Part of the tragedy is of the artist is that there is no real goal in
achieving what you are naturally good at. The real satisfaction lies in
the things you accomplish by practice and effort.— Joris van den Berg, commenting on the death of H. Cartier Bresson
Thus, it is discipline that leads to satisfaction.