Reasoning behind Guerrilla Recording and Production

In my post, Rules of Guerrilla Recording and Production, I outlined a series of rules for for the production of a song. These rules differ from the norm, and I have yet to explain them on this blog.

This all started with a pair of new headphones; Bose headphones, to be specific. I was using these headphones to re-listen to all of the songs which I believe to be excellently produced. I closed my eyes and asked myself, "If I weren't listening to headphones, where would the bass player have to be for the bass to sound like that?"
The answer of course is, right next to my head. The process of production has almost never meant putting the microphone where our ears would be. One does not listen to a bass player by putting their head next to the strings. We hear them from the distance, and we hear the room they're in.

I began to feel that the environment in which something is recorded should be as important as the thing itself. I suddenly felt that by putting the microphone right next to the sound source for perfect reproduction removed a certain "poetry" that would otherwise be there.

The room that something is recorded in can add meaning to the recording, it can add a story, or a cultural sense. A banjo recorded in a studio is just a banjo. But a banjo recorded under a bridge is the banjo of a wanderer. A trumpet recorded in a subway station is the trumpet of a soul expressing himself in an oppressive concrete jungle.

Though I don't feel that all recordings need to be made with an emphasis on environment, I feel that at least some should be. That is why I created the rules.