MTF, Week 4, Discussion of Production

I felt that this week’s class was great as it further expanded the topics we discussed last week. What I especially liked were the questions Steve asked us and the responses that I heard during the lesson.

For example, while talking about matching producers to artists I was thinking about my own opinion, which was- regardless of whether or not both producer and artist are great, the most crucial aspects would be communication and team work. Even if you know all the best techniques to use, or you have the best recording voice, it’s a waste of time if you’re not able to put your point across to the other party.

I was so relieved to hear that I wasn’t the only person feeling a bit lost when it came to hearing the different techniques used in a track. As Steve mentioned, it’ll take time to develop our hearing memory and also fine tuning our critical listening skills (Fieldhouse 2007).

While I’m on the subject, I was getting a bit nervous last week as I was trying to hear a trademark sound in the music samples I had chosen for my presentation and for the life of me I just couldn’t get anything. I swear it was like hitting a brick wall! It could be due to the genre of music I’m listening to is different to the genre Steve presents in class?

In any case, I’ve decided to just go by instinct and just talk about what I perceive to be a “trademark” style. I mean, as Steve said, our ears aren’t as developed as his so I’ll just warn you to be prepared for some serious amateur-ish analysing!

Another question Steve asked was, “If you were stranded on an island and you had a choice of either one great song with average production or one average song with great production, which would you choose? I wasn’t thinking outside the square and chose the first selection as I thought I could listen to a great song I loved because I can’t actually tell the difference between a bad and good recording! Then after hearing what others had to say I realised they were right! Firstly, you’d get sick of the song quickly and secondly if you chose the latter, you’d learn to appreciate it eventually AND have the bonus of a great production (Fieldhouse 2007)!

I think particularly with this class I’m going to have to be patient since we’re dealing with topics that are related to production. Sometimes I assume it’s a skill we can learn overnight but at least I know I’m not by myself!

Reference List
Fieldhouse, Steve. 2007. “Introduction to Producers.” Lecture presented at University of Adelaide, 22 March .

MTF, Week 3, Introduction to Producers

This week’s class session on producers was quite insightful. I’m actually looking forward to the presentation on producers as I feel it will open up some career options for me from the research that I’m going to embark on.

I’m amazed that from all the producers Steve mentioned, there were no females! I actually did some research on female producers and found that only one female had ever won a Grammy Award for sound engineering! Her name is Trina Shoemaker who used to be an apprentice of Daniel Lanois, one of the producers Steve presented on Thursday. (Ulaby 2003)

I wonder why there aren’t many female producers that are as well known as the numerous amounts of male producers such as George Martin or Rick Rubin. Leslie Ann Jones, who produces jazz and classical music, once had hopes of becoming a producer in the rock ‘n’ roll genre. She felt there was “a lot of typecasting in our industry” (Ulaby 2003).

I’m glad Steve discussed what producers actually do as I wasn’t very sure, but he made some good points such as having excellent communication skills (Fieldhouse 2007). I think it is an essential part of everyday life that people in all careers should possess. Without communication skills you can’t expect a perfect product.

Through the various examples Steve showed us, I was able to understand what he meant by a producer’s distinctiveness. For example, Butch Vig’s soft beginning which then lead on to an unexpected volume increase. I can see I’ve a lot to learn from this type of music industry such as the old tricks of the trade like Butch Vig’s soft beginning or another favourite of his which was to include obscure sounds in the track to confuse people so they would turn up the volume and get shocked by the sudden loudness (Fieldhouse 2007)!

It seems so easy when we’re in class to identify such “techniques”, if that’s what you would call them, however when I’m at home listening to music it’s not so easy for some reason. Maybe it’s because in class we can actually visualise the music on ProTools so we can see for ourselves the different trademarks that distinguish the individual producer.

Reference List
Fieldhouse, Steve. 2007. “Introduction to Producers.” Lecture presented at University of Adelaide, 15 March .

Ulaby, Neda. 2003. “Women Music Producers.” National Public Radio. http://www.npr.org/programs/atc/features/2003/apr/producers/index.html 16/3 (16 March 2007).

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