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.
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.
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.
