Week 4 - Essay work

This week we are going to focus on the Outcome 1 essay. By the end of the week you should have chosen two producers and written a good proportion of the 750 word count. You should be covering:

• Some background on the producer - i.e. how did they get into music production?
• What artists and records have they worked on/with?
• Does the producer have a signature sound?
• What approach do they take to music production - are they quite controlling or more laid back? Do they impose their sounds on the record or do they allow the musicians to control the musical direction?
• If you were in a band and about to go into the studio with one of the two producers, how do you imagine the sessions may differ ?

We will also continue developing our understanding of a music producer's role. Here are video's relating to producers Stephen Street and Butch Vig. And finally here is a podcast from the Word magazine interviewing producer Steve Lillywhite.

Lesson 3

Unfortunately I have to attend a professional development meeting in Dundee this week and therefore cannot make class... but all is not lost! This week your task is to do the first part of outcome 1. Here is a recap of outcome 1:

Outcome 1 is a research project where you will compare and contrast the styles and techniques of two different music producers operating in two different musical areas. You will produce a multimedia report by week 7. The report should be 750 words long and should be emailed to me (Colin.Dodds@perth.uhi.ac.uk)

This week you are to choose two music producers and write 300 words (in electronic form) on each of them. You could provide:

• Some background about the producer. You may wish to include information such as what era they worked in, how they got started, what artists they have worked with and what records they produced.
• Why you decided to study them amongst all the producers out there.
• Some information on their style of production. For instance are they a hands-on producer? Do they get involved musically, or do they let the band come up with all the ideas? Do their records have a signature sound? Why would bands hire them?
• Some examples of their work. e.g. listen to Phil Spector's "wall of sound" at 0:45 in this record. This is where you should include web links and images.

It's up to you to choose two producers to study, but they should operate in different musical areas. Tip: If you don't have two producers in mind you could investigate who produced some of your favourite records.

I will check and give you feedback on this work next week during class. This will leave you to compare and contrast the work of these two producers in later weeks in order to finish outcome 1.

Please read this article on the 20 most influential rock producers to help you get started with this task.

You may also find this article about the making of Radiohead's OK computer interesting (the producer is Nigel Godrich).

Please email me (Colin.Dodds@perth.uhi.ac.uk) with your 600 words from this task before next weeks class.

See you all next week when I will examine the work you have produced and also listen to some of the matching tunes you picked out for this week.

Lesson 2 - Song Analysis

This lesson draws from the book What is Music Production? By Russ Hepworth-Sawyer and Craig Golding.

A major part of a producers job involves analysing music and forming an opinion. These skills are very important when it comes to developing artists and placing them within a particular section of the market. We'll investigate critical analysis of music in this class. 


Critical analysis should cover not only music and its construction, but also the social and cultural aspects of the music (i.e. how the music reflects the time in which it was made, and the music's place within its genre).

It's natural to have an opinion regarding the music we listen to but we must be careful that our opinion is well informed (especially when musicians with fragile egos are around)! This emotional reaction, known as subjective opinion, must be balanced with objective opinion, which is about gathering the facts and reasoning out decisions. For example in a recording session a band might jam out an idea: if it feels good (subjective opinion) it is usual to run with this and keep working on it. But it is important to also think objectively about how this work will fit into current trends in the market place and let this influence the session also.

For example just think of the work of Duffy and Adele and hear the influence of Amy Winehouse. It is quite possible that the producer acknowledged a ready market for a product in the Winehouse mould.

Thinking objectively doesn't always have to revolve around creating a product for a waiting market - a lesson that not everyone remembers! Lots of the brilliant music produced has born little resembelance to the music that came before it, for example the Strokes debut album Is This It. Their initial attempts at making the album failed when working with a “big name” producer as perhaps he spent too much time thinking objectively and trying to push the bands sound towards a currently selling genre? Instead they worked with little known Gordon Raphael in his small and shabby studio.

What we need is a switch between thinking as a music fan, and thinking as a music professional, and remember music is a fashion based commodity. Keeping up with current trends is very important if your music is to prove popular.

Detachment

When listening to music, it can be difficult to detach yourself from the enjoyable aspect of the song you’re listening to. After all, this is the reason we’re doing what we're doing right?.. because we love music. To become more adept as a producer you must develop the ability to listen outside of that enjoyment bubble and start analyzing the piece objectivly assessing both the musics merits and flaws.

Types of Listening (Micro, Macro, Holistic)

Music producers can find it really usefully to consciously switch the focus of their listening to concentrate on different aspects of the record they are making.

Micro Listening: This is where you listen to and consider the tiny details of each part of the song. This could include what line the bass player is playing or what type of and how much reverb is applied to the vocal.

Macro Listening: This is considering the song as a whole. Does it have the appropriate vibe? Are the lyrics successful in conveying the songs message? Is the length appropriate or are there some dull sections that could use a rewrite?

  

Holistic Listening: This is listening to the record as a whole. Do all the songs work well together? Have we got enough variety and yet enough of a consistency? Is the flow between tracks good or should we arrange them in a different order?

Listening Framework

As you should have learned from the last section it can be really useful to put on different thinking caps at different times when considering a recording. I'll shortly introduce a listening framework as a way of organizing your analysis but first lets consider one element of the farmework, namely emotional content graphs.

An emotional content graph

Task: Draw emotional content graphs for Foo Fighter's Monkey Wrench and Nirvana's Smells Like Teen Spirit. How do these two graphs differ?

You should by now have the idea that song analysis is best performed by looking in turn at the parts that make up a song. Here is an example song analysis framework but you should probably make up your own. You can expand it over time as you come to understand what elements of a song are important to the listeners experience.

 

Task: Fill out a listening framework for Alanis Morissette's You Oughta Know.

Homework: Last week the tasks involved finding versions of a song performed by different artists. We used Light My Fire as an example with versions by The Doors, UB40, Stevie Wonder, Jose Feliciano and Will Young. This weeks task is a little different. Bearing in mind that music is cyclical (with production styles coming back into vogue every few decades) you must find a modern song that has drawn inspiration from an older song, and write a page of A4 about their similarities and differences. Remember you use the listening framework to help you with this task. We'll listen to these in class next week. An example of this would be the production of Temper Trap's Sweet Disposition which has drawn inspiration production wise from U2's Where the Streets Have No Name (although U2's song takes a little longer to kick in).

That's all for this week.

Lesson 1, week 1

This lesson will cover what you are going to be learning in these classes:

• We’ll look at the SQA unit specification’s for the Music Production unit
• I’ll relay what you will produce at the end of these classes as well how and when you will be assessed
• We’ll have a brief look at what a music producer is
• We’ll listen to an interview with John Leckie discussing the making of The Stone Roses debut album to give us an idea of what the role can entail.
• Finally we’ll listen to some music and consider differing production styles.

By the end of these classes you should be able to...

1. Analyse production styles
2. Apply production techniques to a piece of music

The unit is made up of two outcomes. Outcome 1 is a research project where you will compare and contrast the styles and techniques of two different music producers operating in two different musical areas. You will produce a multimedia report by week 7. The report should be 750 words long and should be emailed to me (Colin.Dodds@perth.uhi.ac.uk)  - I’ll have an exact hand-in date for you by next week. Your report should include links to examples of the producers work (on youtube, spotify, we7 etc) and where necessary the time in the song where the feature you are discussing occurs should be noted (e.g. listen to the "wall of sound" at 0:30 mins).


We will focus on this outcome during the first six weeks in room 511.



Outcome 2 is practical work where you will apply production techniques to a piece of music. You must produce music that is appropriate within a given musical and stylistic context. You must also take charge of a recording session by arrange musicians and resources. You must also communicate with and direct the musicians to achieve an appropriate piece of music.

So by the end of these classes you will have produced a report discussing the styles of two music producers, and you will have yourself produced a piece of music following a recording session involving several musicians and an engineer.

What is a music producer?

Take a minute to think about what a music producer is and what they do.


This term has changed a lot over the last 60 years or so and many different definitions exist. My own definition is that it’s someone who delivers recorded music into the public domain.



That's a very basic definition. We can shed a little more light on the subject by investigating their motivations. I would argue that people produce music for three reasons:

1. To return a profit for their employer (usually the record company)
2. To create art (which may be culturally significant)
3. For self expression

Many music producers are motivated by all of these factors to a greater or lesser extent, but in the old days the balance leaned towards returning a profit... It’s worth considering how this role has changed over the years.

• Pre-1950’s. Within a record company there was a well established chain of the people involved in making a record.  
• A&R managers found the acts
• The songs were created by professional songwriters.
• Publishing agents sold these songs to the A&R people
• Recordings were made in studios owned by the record company which were operated by staff engineers.
• Record producers also worked as staff for the record companies and oversaw the recordings. They would pay the musicians, arrangers and staff and may have choose the artists songs.
• Post-1950’s saw the emergance of independent record producers - so called as they weren’t tied to one record company. These producers took more control of the recording sessions, sometimes writing the songs, sometimes engineering the sessions, and sometimes working on the songs arrangement.
• The classic example of this type of producer is George Martin (famous for producing the Beatles). He worked for a record company as a staff producer before going solo. Much of the Beatles sound can be attributed to his influence.
• Modern day music producers may produce records for bands and artists or they may be the artists themselves (e.g. Moby who produced Sigur Rós albums and also produced his own work).
• With the lower cost and complexity of music making equipment more and more of the music we listen to is, at least in part, produced in a home environment. This is very common in the electronic and lo-fi music genres.

Here’s a video of producer John Leckie talking about the making of the Stone Roses debut album. It should hopefully give you some insight into the role of a music producer. The start also makes for a great story in it’s own right. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jp_0b7a8CUY



Professional music producers have a responsibility to deliver records that return a profit for the record company that employed them. Whilst they need to be able to get the best out of the artists they must also ensure that the record they create will be well received by the target demographic. One way of doing this is to ensure that the instrumentation and style of the record are appropriate. To give you some idea of the scope of this task lets listen to some versions of Light My Fire (The Doors, UB40, Jose Feliciano, Stevie Wonder and Will Young). 

• Consider which versions you like and don’t like and why.
• Would you buy any of these.
• Would you put them on your mp3 player?
• If you were tasked with making a contemporary version of this song what instrumentation would you like to use?

That's it for this week. Next week we'll start thinking about how to analyse production styles. We'll also hear the first five members of the class each playing two versions of a song and explaining what they like and dislike about these productions.