A Pro Musician Answers Your Questions About Professional Music

[smoothmoniker]

I never went to Berklee. I did an artist certificate program with them, but it was in LA - they brought their faculty out to Claremont for the summer, and we studied there.

[Undertoad]

Is there danger of being too good? Many people say they didn't like Steely Dan because it was too precise, for example, or that slick highly produced works are unauthentic or even worse, sterile.

My own example of this is the Hooters, who started with a *wonderful* 5 song local EP that everybody in Philly heard, it just rocked. And then we were all deeply disappointed when they did some of the same songs on their major debut. They had enough studio time to slick-ify their sound, which just ruined the songs, from our perspective.

Then there's, like, Ben Folds, who is clearly quite talented as a player and yet there's a certain lovely imprecision about how he plays. He tours with a grand piano, which must be a constant tuning nightmare, and yet he throws his stool at it at the end of the show.

[Shawnee123]

Originally Posted by smoothmoniker

I never went to Berklee. I did an artist certificate program with them, but it was in LA - they brought their faculty out to Claremont for the summer, and we studied there.

My ex went to Berklee. Piano player as well.

[Flint]

Originally Posted by Undertoad

Is there danger of being too good? Many people say they didn't like Steely Dan because it was too precise, for example, or that slick highly produced works are unauthentic or even worse, sterile.

My own example of this is the Hooters, who started with a *wonderful* 5 song local EP that everybody in Philly heard, it just rocked. And then we were all deeply disappointed when they did some of the same songs on their major debut. They had enough studio time to slick-ify their sound, which just ruined the songs, from our perspective.

Then there's, like, Ben Folds, who is clearly quite talented as a player and yet there's a certain lovely imprecision about how he plays. He tours with a grand piano, which must be a constant tuning nightmare, and yet he throws his stool at it at the end of the show.

Oh, God. I must remind myself that I have work to do and I can't take the time to compose a novella-length response to this. What a goldmine of discussion this opens up. I will be revisiting this topic as soon as possible. Edit: This is drivin' me crazy. I'd like to see everyone weigh in on this.

[classicman]

Are you really famous and we just don't know it?

[Skunks]

Dear Mr. P-M,

Two friends of mine wrote an EP's worth of material. I pulled some strings and put together enough equipment to get a clunky recording space set up (a basement; vocalist in the bathroom down the hall), and pulled 4 tracks with only a little bit of guitar bleedthrough on all of the mics, etc. I'm now gradually going about mixing it, after the fact, and trying to undo all the damage that a lack of experience did in two days of recording. They're across the country from me, now, and in a state of constant strife; recording more isn't really possible.

So, now that I have about 25 minutes of music that I'm quite fond of, in spite of it being very raw and unrefined and sometimes straight up crude, I'm not sure what to do with it. They're uninterested in commercial success, and my only absolute goal was to have something to set down as a semipermanent portrait of the music that they were making at the time.

Once the mix is done, what can I do on the low end of financial and emotional investment to get the music "out there"? Burn a few hundred copies and give them to friends?

[Flint]

Originally Posted by classicman

Are you really famous and we just don't know it?

Ask your mom.

[smoothmoniker]

Originally Posted by classicman

Are you really famous and we just don't know it?

Definitely not. I've probably played on a couple things you've heard on the radio, but no, nobody outside of this town knows my name.

[smoothmoniker]

Originally Posted by Skunks

Once the mix is done, what can I do on the low end of financial and emotional investment to get the music "out there"? Burn a few hundred copies and give them to friends?

Yeah, probably. You can submit it to iTunes using tunecore, and then email the link around to family and friends. You might recoup a little cash, and it'll at least be making the music public.

Get a release from the artists first. People who "don't care about the money" have a nasty way of becoming very care-about-the-money once there's some actual money to care about.

[smoothmoniker]

Originally Posted by Undertoad

Is there danger of being too good? Many people say they didn't like Steely Dan because it was too precise, for example, or that slick highly produced works are unauthentic or even worse, sterile.

My own example of this is the Hooters, who started with a *wonderful* 5 song local EP that everybody in Philly heard, it just rocked. And then we were all deeply disappointed when they did some of the same songs on their major debut. They had enough studio time to slick-ify their sound, which just ruined the songs, from our perspective.

Then there's, like, Ben Folds, who is clearly quite talented as a player and yet there's a certain lovely imprecision about how he plays. He tours with a grand piano, which must be a constant tuning nightmare, and yet he throws his stool at it at the end of the show.

Whew.

Like Flint, I could write a novel about this.

I think I come down on this side of the argument: the cases you've cited are not a problem of being "too good", they're an issue of being very bad at artistry, and overcompensating on something technical. That technical thing can be studio editing, use of error-correcting software, or just highly technical execution of difficult playing.

Artistry is the craft of knowing what matters, at least that's part of it. It's knowing that the thing that matters most is this passionate thing here, more than this technical thing here. That's not always the case - if the guitarist hits a very passionate clunker of a note, then the technical matters waaaaay more than the passion. Artistry is knowing the difference.

I almost came to blows with an artist on an album last summer. That never, ever happens, I'm a very low-key guy. I know this artist really well, and we have a long history, so I treat him a little differently in the studio. We were recording a song that was wide open, exposed fender rhodes and voice, and that's it. The rhodes was bleeding into the vocal mic, and there were all kinds of things that were technically bad on the song. But, in the middle of the verse, he sang this incredible, soul-wrenching vocal that had a crack right in the middle of it.

The crack was wrong (technically) but it was right, in every way, for the song. He wanted to trash it and start over. I fought to keep it exactly as it was. I was right. He was wrong. He was too close to the project to see it. Eventually, he kept it in, and everyone who hears the record just goes nuts over that song.

It's not an issue of being "too good", it's an issue of knowing what matters for a particular song. Which stuff is important changes based on genre, the mood, the instrumentation, the specific song, all of that has to come into consideration, but it's the job of the artist to be very, very good at picking out the thing that matters.

[ZenGum]

At least half the appeal of the liberty bell is the crack.

[dar512]

Originally Posted by ZenGum

At least half the appeal of the liberty bell is the crack.

Well that makes sense. I hear the area it's in is pretty run-down.

[classicman]

Thats a pretty good part of Philly, I believe. It was ok for a city the last time I was there. I guess it was mebbe 2 or 3 years ago (it was 5) .

[Scriveyn]

Some ten or more years ago, when I talked to a composer/bandleader friend, the production of an album was considered in the several $10k range and it was hard to find this kind of money. Meanwhile, they put out at least one album per year, while I don't see that funding has improved (on the contrary rather). - So my question is: Have prices come down over the past 10-15 years, perhaps due to the fact(?) that these days anyone can setup a production studio at a comparatively low cost?

[Undertoad]

Oh can I take a shot at this one and them you can correct or add as you see fit SM?! This seems like a semi-pro question and not a pro question...

I've known a few people at the semi-pro level who have recorded albums for $5k, often at studios charging $25/hour. This is mostly guitar/bass/simple drums stuff, which people have recorded for a long time, and many people know how to do it. The result is "good enough" in that the results are accurate, pleasant, and convey the artist's songs sufficiently.

That same amount of money, invested in recording gear, would get you enough stuff to do some semi-pro recording yourself, provided you know what you're doing and depending on what you're trying to record. This is the sea change, because to record 72 tracks 30 years ago took a dedicated facility with massive equipment (huge 2" tape machines with large motors and remote automation!) and a full-time engineer keeping things running. Now 90% of that gear can be replaced with a $1k computer and $1k of software... as much as would be spent just on special recording tape, 30 years ago.

It's the "know what you're doing" part that seems to separate the pro from the semi-pro, and to take something from 90% done to 100% done, sonically broadcast-ready and marketable, etc. Furthermore there are sonic "fashions" which we minions are rarely even aware of, which go in and out of style as fast as women's shoes.

Take it SM