Note: I suggest that if you haven’t yet read Miracle Of Faith – Part 1or 2, you start there.  This way you’ll get the whole story.

Installment 3B

Then came the day of our first rehearsal.  I had no music for him to read and it turned out that he did not read music anyway, which I liked.  I’m more of an ear guy anyway and like to teach a song away from the written music.  Sheet music can often be too literal and confining a medium – but that’s another story …

Within an hour I was convinced that the Good Lord wanted this project to succeed, because we had found our boy.  Not only did we have a superb talent developed far beyond his years, but, at age 12, his voice had not yet changed and so he sang with a wondrous and charming youth that was just perfect for the song.  Not only that, but I knew that with hard work and several rehearsals, he’d be able to perform the song on a high caliber.

We met once a week for a month for a couple of hours at a time.  He worked with guide piano tracks that I gave him, with and without the melody, and learned the song from a typed lyric and from the MP3s.  He had no help at home; his parents are tremendously supportive, but not particularly musical.  He learned the song on his own and I would check his progress and fix little things each rehearsal.  We established a key early on and that enabled me to begin the orchestration of the song that ran well over seven minutes.

In the course of our rehearsals it became clear to me that he had never recorded in a professional studio, so for our last two rehearsals I put him in the vocal booth and taught him the fundamentals of vocal production in the studio – how to sing on a studio mic, how to prepare, headphone techniques, placement, etc.

Noah’s ability to ingest information was quite special.  His concentration beat many of the adults that I work with.  His work ethic was superb.  I gave him his homework and he came back each rehearsal with everything fully learned.  His ability to decipher information was far beyond his years.  His ability to take direction was both humble and totally productive.

The experience that I had working with Noah in rehearsal was simply professional.  That, by the way, is my highest compliment.  Professional.  Totally unexpected from a 12-year old boy.

But best was the character of the lad.  Here was an ebullient talent packaged in the graceful character of a fine person.  Here was a kid whose career had already achieved more that most performers dream of at age 12, but still a great regular kid with no apparent ego, willing and eager to learn and simply a joy to be with.  We became pals, and that was very special to me.

I must also give credit to his parents, Michael and Dana, for the qualities of the child reflect the exceptional qualities of the home and family – and, of course, the parents.  Noah is obviously a product of his very cool parents.

And so finally he was ready to record.  I’ll leave that experience to Part 4 of this post.

Stay tuned.