Sway

Ambience

Dreams are real, and no, you don't just stop dreaming when you hit adulthood. I'm telling you this because, I'm currently dreaming. I mean, I must be because, she's staring at me. Those huge blue orbs are piercing into my soul, she's strumming that Martin D-28... it must've cost a fortune. She's smi -

"Wake up bone head!" The sound of Phineous's voice and the pain of a pillow being swung at my head repeatedly, tore away my dream.

I swatted at the flying pillow, my eyes still closed. "What the hell! Phin, I'm sleepy."

He started jumping on his queen sized bed that we shared, "No, you're not. You were having a dream, about that girl at the bar."

My body swiveled so that I was on my back looking up at him, "Wha- what makes you say that?" The headache I had was nothing compared to the embarrassment I suddenly felt.

"You were narrating your own dream dumbo!" He laughed at me before smashing my face with the pillow again. This time I wasn't taking it, I stood to my feet and almost fell back down because of how uncoordinated I was. It didn't matter though, I needed revenge. He knew what was coming when I picked up my own pillow and narrowed my eyes. "Whoa now Talia, don't be upset with me because you're horny and desperate for a bar singer!" At this I screamed and stormed across the bed towards him, he jumped to his feet and ran out of the bedroom. We both swung our pillows back and forth, trying to dodge painful face hits. This went on until we'd destroyed the living room and were out of breath.

"Damn, it's not like it was when we were in high school." I said while plopping down on the sofa.

He travelled to the fridge and grabbed two bottles of water, he also opened a cabinet and took out some Ibuprofen. When he sat beside me, he reached out the medicine, "You must have some sort of hangover, I had to force you to stop drinking last night," I laughed and swallowed the pill.

"You're the one that insisted I needed to relax."

"Yeah, relax, not fall in love with a performer." He chuckled with a smug grin.

I rolled my eyes, "I did not fall in love with her! She had a great voice," I gave him a 'duh' look, "that's it!"

He looked like he had more to say but decided against it. "Well, in other news, Benny heard you were in town and he wants to run some sounds by you."

"By 'run some sounds by me', do you mean have me re-write the entire track?"

"You know Benny, his last real hit was when you helped him make that song!" Benny was one of Phineous's friends that I met about three years ago. We've also gotten pretty close but, mostly because Benny does what I'd love to do. He's an aspiring music producer with an internship at JDRecords. Some might say that I'm the reason he has the internship. The third year I visited NY, Phineous, Benny, and I all decided to chill and play around with some sounds. Benny told us about the JDRecords internship opportunity, and about how he was struggling to come up with a song for the admission. That whole night I worked with him to put together an amazing pop track that was streamed over 1.2 million times in the past year. He got the internship, but hasn't produced any hits since our collaboration.

"Look, if Benny wants to be a producer, he's gonna have to learn to produce his own hits." I wasn't exactly sure why I felt pissed off all of a sudden, maybe I was jealous. He was doing what I wanted to do, living the life I wanted to live. It should've been me going into the decked out JDRecords studio, it should've been me meeting with talented artists and coming up with the perfect tracks.

Phineous must've noticed my mood shift, "C'mon Tal, you don't have to make any changes to the music. It's Saturday. Let's just go to the studio, see Benny's new beard, and chill for awhile."

I thought about it and realized that's exactly what I wanted to do, even if I was envious of Benny's job. I hadn't been in the studio in ages, "Fine, let's go!"

He clapped his hands quickly and jumped up from the couch, "I'm getting the shower first bitch!"

"Oh hell no!" I almost spilled my open water by rushing to my feet and damn near trampling Phineous to the ground. The battle for the shower was always one for the books.

🎧

Ambience.

In most cases, Ambience refers to the 'atmosphere' of a certain place. In recording, Ambience refers to the part of the sound that comes from the surrounding environment, rather than directly from the sound source.

Sound a little confusing? It's really not, here's an example. Pretend you hear someone playing the cello, the sound waves coming into your ear from the cello being played are directly from the source. But the sound coming to you after bouncing off the back wall is known as, Ambient sound.

Alright, I'm done discussing unimportant music terminology. The only reason I thought of Ambience, is because of how much sound was probably bouncing around the walls in JDRecords.

Phineous and I had just arrived after taking an Uber. The ride was about half an hour and it was probably just reaching noon. The building was obnoxiously huge — it wasn't exactly a skyscraper, but it had several floors and a security guard standing out front. You couldn't get in unless an employee gave the okay.

We stood on the sidewalk outside of the building, "I'll text him." Phineous spoke while pulling out his phone and typing some stuff.

I looked around the area, it was nothing like where Phineous lived. It was much higher end - people were driving expensive cars, carrying name brand purses, talking on $1,000 phones. Those were the kinds of people my parents adored, the ones who lived on the upper east side.

"He's on his way down!" Phineous's voice pulled my eyes away from the wealthy area. I didn't want to think about the fact that I'd have to finish 3 more years of school, just to achieve a goal my parents wanted. Especially not while I was standing outside of a major Record label.

Moments passed before Benny showed up at the entrance, he let the security guard know that we were cleared and held the door open for us. He was an average looking guy — probably somewhere around 5'10, not as skinny as Phineous but not super round either. His beard had grown out and his head was always covered by a baseball cap.

"What up my fam!?" He shouted and pulled both of us into a hug.

"What up," Phineous said when Benny let us go.

He led us down one of the many hallways in the building, which was just as huge on the inside as it was on the outside. It was decorated with colorful wallpapers, huge neon rugs, and these random chandeliers hung from the ceiling.

"So what's been good Tal? You don't answer my messages!" Benny stopped in front of an elevator after pressing the 'up' button.

"You know... law school and such." I scratched my head trying to look less guilty, when in reality, I didn't really care.

The doors to the elevator parted and we all went inside, "Well, I'm glad you're here! I've got this loop going and I want your opinion."

Phineous caught my look and jumped into the conversation, "Benny, Talia and I were hoping to just chill out for a bit. You know, there's always time to work."

Benny looked disappointed, but the elevator stopped and we all had to get out. This was the fifth floor, the music production floor. The walls were a bright red with pictures of famous artists that were signed to the label. There were offices with glass walls, revealing lavish looking desks and couches. I took everything in as we continued to follow Benny. Eventually he led us to a room with regular walls, probably because it needed sound proofing. When he opened the door, the first thing I saw were the acoustic panels that completely covered the walls. The next thing I saw was the monstrous production setup. There were massive studio monitors, diffusers to help with Ambience, midi controllers, a control surface, and so much more. If Benny had brought me to this room so that I could fall in love, it was working.