I woke up and had a chat with Zulfikar Ali Gopang sahib, the recording engineer at the Institute of Sindhology. I discussed where I was in the process for recording music. He was excited about the choice of singers. I discussed the recording question that had come up, and I was correct that in the setup at Sindhology, the recording would be live, so you really could not record verse by verse along with all the instrumental accompaniment and cut it together. I knew this. It bothers me a great deal that I have to expend all this energy to explain this to the singer, just to convince her that she needs to prepare for this piece appropriately. They wanted to record in in two days. I refused. They are not ready. I need to hear another rehearsal and then set a date for next week at best to invite other musicians who will accompany and make arrangements to record at Sindhology. I have to second guess other people’s decisions and statements regarding all too many things. That’s not how I like to work, but for certain things, I can’t go by other people’s choices.Choosing the singers for example was not something I could leave to anyone else. Everyone wants to include their friend, who may be a decent singer, but is not the sound I want. These are not arbitrary decisions. The music is the soul of this film. I don’t take it lightly. I have to push back on any collaborators who just seem to want to push things forward without doing the necessary prep work. In the end, however it is all recorded, I am the one that has to edit and mix it all together, so I need to make sure that I get what I need to tell the story.After lunch, I needed to head into Hyderabad to meet Rashid Haideri, a classical singer whom I had seen perform at the Lal Shahbaz Qalandar Urs concert. He was in town recording, and had agreed to meet me around 3pm. I was walking down the street to grab a shared rickshaw to the bus, when a motorcycle stopped a ways in front of me. I looked at the rider, and tried to make out if it was someone I knew, but his face was mostly obscured by his helmet. As I got closer, I recognized Khalid sahib from the Foreign Faculty Hostel I stayed at up the street when I came to Jamshoro a few months ago and taught at Sindh University.He thought he recognized me and wanted to make sure. We caught up a bit. He asked where I was going and I told him Hyderabad. I did not know which part, as I would need to call Rashid sahib at 3pm to find out. He was going home in that direction, and graciously gave me a ride. I felt really humbled as he expressed his appreciation for my efforts in my work. I had given him a Jogi CD/DVD before leaving last time and he had enjoyed both since. All I can say, is that I am deeply grateful for such kindness and friendship. He happened to have an errand to run in the direction of where I figured I could hang around in Hyderabad until it was time to call, so we grabbed a juice. By then it was 3pm and I had Rashid sahib explain where he was to Khalid sahib. I would have taken a rickshaw, but he kindly insisted that he would take me, as it was in the direction he would head back to after his errand.My journey was made easier. At the end of it, I met Rashid Haideri at the Sindhi Hotel, by the side of the highway. It was nice to sit down and chat for a bit. He was recording some new songs for a Sindhi movie nearby. Regarding the process for that, I asked if he had been rehearsing the pieces for a while. He had been, and it was a process to get ready before coming to do these actual recordings. That is what it takes to do a new piece. I told him about “Risalo” and then specifically about the portion I had in mind for him if he was interested.He took the script and kissed it out of respect for Shah Latif. He shared that Latif was his spiritual guide or murshid. It was a great honor for him to take part in this. Truly it is a great honor for me to work with these great musicians. I shared my thoughts on how this section could be handled musically, and he added a few thoughts of his own and I was happy with where he saw the piece going. I requested that he take a look at the piece and mull it over, then let me know his interest in participating. He graciously said yes to the project right away and gave me a timeline of where he could give this piece the time needed, in a couple of weeks, which fit well enough into my own timeline. Afterwards, he took his leave to continue with his recording sessions for the Sindhi movie. I grabbed a soda at the dhaba, then called Anb Jogi to keep him apprised.Sur Kalyan/Sur Yaman Kalyan were being reassigned. The previous singer had read the first verse on the first day I handed her the script, when we met weeks later, she read the same verse with the same mistakes again. Then after I paid to have them rehearse, she read back the same verse with the same mistakes again, though I was assured she could do the whole piece when it came to recording, though reading a single verse was awkward right now, forget about the rest of that page or any other. I could not leave the opening to this film like that. I did want a female voice to sing this sur, but I can’t throw more of my budget into that fire.We’ll see what the singers say. I told Ustad Anb Jogi I would let her keep the advance for the singing for whatever practice she may have done, and then we would let the other female singer just focus on Sur Sohni. We’ll give it our best. Each piece of this film is important and so I have taken a lot of care in planning it. The animatic gave me a good sense of how the film would play. Once that was polished, I was ready for puppets and music. The puppets look quite good. There are variations in designs, but the key points from my drawings are there, which is pretty good considering it had to be done over the phone and email.With, hopefully a strong script and animatic, it is mainly about creating and recording each element required to bring it to life. If the music is weak, the words lose their value and that entire chunk of the film fails. Anb happened to be going to a music program with the female singers tonight so he agreed to talk to them and get back to me later today.I checked in with one of the other singers, and he let me know that he has been rehearsing the script and is ready to record. That is fantastic news. I asked if the Urdu version was prepared too. He said he could not sing it in Urdu, but the Sindhi verses were ready. This presents a challenge. It is best not to try and force him to sing in another language. I really want him on board for his Sindhi, so now I am working with Anb to get an additional singer who could work under his guidance on the day of the recording and handle the Urdu version with some guidance. Phew! So many pieces to this seemingly impossible whole, but if it can be pulled together, these are some fantastic singers.All of this coordination and needing to second guess people makes the work a lot more difficult. There are many other behind the scenes challenges and dramas occurring that I don’t really bother writing about in the blog. All in all, it makes for a very uphill battle to put this project together. So when Khalid sahib or other friends give me a word or two of encouragement, I can’t take credit for this work as if I am solely responsible as many good people are sharing their efforts, but I can certainly appreciate the kind words and actions of those around me that make it possible for me to even try.Now I need to go through the script and create a phonetic Urdu version of the Sindhi script so I can double check pronunciation during the recording. Say what? Yup.