MTF ‘Discussion Paper’ Week 6

For our presentation I chose to do mine on Barry Gibb. Many people might not have known that Barry is a producer as he is more commonly known for his singing and song writing. In fact, Barry is considered to be the second most successful producer (after George Martin) and also the most successful songwriter/ producer combination (Barry Gibb- The Producer).

To help my classmates visualise the information I was giving them, I used a PowerPoint show and handed out a sheet summing up the important facts about Barry. I also included pictures for each slide so that they might be able to identify with the different artists Barry had worked with. This was used as a tactic so that if my classmates were bored they could be entertained by the various 70’s/80’s photos I included!

The handout sheet I gave out included facts such as:
· His first studio experience
· When he first produced an album
· His influences
· The celebrities he’s worked with
· His distinctive styles

To elaborate briefly, Barry’s first studio experience was when he met a man named Ossie Byrne who owned the St. Clair Recording Studio. He allowed Barry and his brothers free access to his studio anytime they wanted (Bilyeu et al. 2000, p. 78)!

It was in 1965 that Barry produced his first album, sung by a young girl called Lori Balmer. This was done at the EMI Studios in Sydney where Barry was supervised by Ron Wills, the house producer (Bilyeu et al. 2000, p. 91-92).

Throughout Barry’s childhood he was influenced by Tommy Steele- Britain’s first rock ‘n’ roll singer/ guitarist (Bilyeu et al. 2000, p. 17), the Mills Brothers- their music was played on a regular basis in the Gibb family home (Bilyeu et al. 2000, p. 29) and of course the legendary Beatles (Bilyeu et al. 2000, p. 62).

During my presentation I talked about five artists Barry had worked with, they were: Barbra Streisand, Kenny Rogers and Dolly Parton, Dionne Warwick, Andy Gibb and Samantha Sang.

I drew up a table displaying the distinctive styles Barry had as a producer and related them back to the artists’ songs which are:
· Barbra Streisand and Barry Gibb: Guilty
· Kenny Rogers and Dolly Parton: Islands in the stream
· Dionne Warwick and the Bee Gees: Heartbreaker
· Andy Gibb: (Our love) don’t throw it all away
· Samantha Sang: Emotion
My main goal was to show how Barry frequently used them and thus illustrating his distinctive styles.

All of the songs I played are ballads and although it shows Barry’s not very versatile, for example, I don’t think he’s produced a heavy metal band, I believe it acts in his favour as it represents what his forte is. After all, in the music industry Barry is highly sought after because they know how good he can make a record sound, for that particular genre of music.

Next on the chart are ‘gentle and easy- going’. These two go hand in hand because they describe the overall feel for each song, which is calming, easy listening etc… I don’t know about you but when I listen to this music it makes me want to sit back and relax!

In the beginning of the four out of five songs, I could hear a synthesizer being played. I think it’s important to have them at the start as it sets the tone of the song almost immediately. This is evident especially in Andy Gibb’s ‘(Our love) don’t throw it all away’, where you can also hear and feel that ‘gentle and easy- going’ style I was talking about earlier on.

If you play the chorus of each song you’ll notice that there is a strong harmony present, now this could be due to the fact that Barry and in some cases his brothers, wrote the songs, and the Bee Gees are famous for their harmonies, in particular their three part harmony.

Keeping on the topic of the Bee Gees, my last distinctive style is titled ‘Bee Gees influence’. During the presentation I played two examples, which were Andy Gibb’s ‘(Our love) don’t throw it all away’ and Samantha Sang’s ‘Emotion’. Both examples showed the infamous falsetto vibrato that Barry frequently uses.

To show what I meant by the distinctive styles I played bits and pieces from various songs, which were mainly the beginning, chorus and the odd few bars where you could hear a familiar Bee Gees tone in it. This was just in case anyone didn’t understand what I was trying to describe about each style.

After watching others in my class do their presentation I realised that my own was so different to theirs in terms of identifying distinctive sounds. I don’t think I actually recognised proper techniques that a producer uses, for example, Brendan was talking about how Matt Bayles likes to layer instrumental parts and that he also likes to use a lot of drums in his productions. Whereas I was discussing more along the lines of how and what the music sounded like, which was on a totally different tangent.

I suspect the reason why I wasn’t able to correctly identify appropriate producer techniques was due to my undeveloped hearing memory and critical listening skills. I know that compared to others in my course I’ve probably had the least amount of experience in this type of area so while doing this assignment I based it on whatever I could hear.

I must admit though, I did have fun doing this assignment and in a few years time when my ears are more developed, I can promise you there’ll be no more of this amateur- like analysing of the great Barry Gibb!

Reference List
Bilyeu, M, Cook, H and Hughes, A.M. 2000. The Ultimate Biography of The Bee Gees: Tales of the Brothers Gibb. Omnibus Press, Wales.

“Barry Gibb – The Producer” barrygibb.com.
http://www.barrygibb.com/content.asp?PageID=9 (24 March 2007)