babalini

“Colour is a power which directly influences the soul. Colour is the keyboard, the eyes are the hammers, the soul is the piano with many strings. The artist is the hand which plays, touching one key or another, to cause vibrations in the soul”. - Kandinsky (1977, p. 25).

Over the past four weeks, myself and five others from my course have formed a creative music-making, producing and engineering team. We've taken half a page of lyrics and turned them into a three-and-a-half minute song. ​

It was by no means a smooth process (just because of how difficult it is to function around six people creatively), but it was an extremely enjoyable, gratifying and educational one.

Something I’ve learnt that definitely stands out, is the need for a certain degree of roles within teams. Most prominently, the need for some sort of a creative leader – a head composer/creator and producer. Not that it isn't okay for everyone to work together and each have input, but a certain sense of order is maintained when the final decision rests on a single head.
It became a struggle when people wouldn’t take the reins, especially when others assumed they were. I’ve learnt not to expect – to set out tasks, in writing preferably, and all work on our specific allocations. It does depend on the people of course, maybe not everyone needs this, but our group, I realised, would have worked far better had we done this.

The technical roles are more easily spread, floated about, especially all being students, it’s good for us to move about. We did pick up these roles whenever we could (all attempting to learn the techniques involved) and jumped in when we felt. Here is a case of the more minds the better – working out steps and solutions to problems on the console and with the engineering.

We also didn’t have heavy contact throughout the off-days. I tried having mini-meetings at the end of sessions to delegate tasks, but having agreements only verbal didn’t do a lot because it's simple to skew from something un-written. A social platform really would have helped us, something like Trello (but that still does depend on everyone in the group using it).

It was quite a fluid process though, and there was much enjoyment in that. I did like that we were all pitching in, and on equal footing.
It’s more just for the organisation that structure within the team would have benefited us. Especially being that we had only 4 weeks for this entire activity! When you’re running tight on time your schedule has to be tight to cater.

My role was more clear (I did the Pro Tools work – the editing of the tracks and the arrangement), so I found I was able to focus on my task comfortably, and beyond that pitch in where I could with the production.
I enjoy Pro Tools so much now, I think there may be something wrong with me - I've grown a real fondness for the program! I really like working in-the-box; going at your own pace, trialling sounds, undo-ing, starting again, altering, editing, completing things to your satisfaction, and easily saving!

In the end, it did come together, and time-wise we didn’t do too badly!
Outside of the use of the outboard gear that is - I did find that more time for that would have been ideal - it would have been awesome to have been able to test out various compressors and reverbs before deciding on each (but in saying that, we did end up getting the sounds we wanted out of what we tried, so I guess it served its purpose). I just would have liked to survey the options a little more and get more experimental.

Overall I wish we had been more experimental, and taken more creative leaps in composing the track; adding more features, trying some electronic sounds, having greater variation throughout the track - just because this is a learning experience! Why not try as much as we can and carve out a song we’re proud of from that? We were a little timid in my opinion (which also comes from working within a group, it's hard to venture too far outside the box when everyone should be pleased). I would also tell anyone entering studio work (if they don’t already feel this way) to be extremely malleable and flexible - being tied down to ideas only stagnates growth. Our product is completely detached from our first ideas, and I like it that way. It was a more natural creative process for us - to build the song up, part by part, rather than 'tick off' each idea we originally had.

One of the most difficult aspects of this assignment being a group one, was the mixdown itself – it’s one thing to decide what goes in to a song, but a whole other to level the parts and resolve how the entire song will sound. Everyone has different taste when it comes to music and what, to them, sounds balanced – heavily dependent on the style of music we’re used to and what we’d aim to emulate – so it’s almost tiresome to try to work all of this together and for the song to become what each of us consider to be appropriate.

Balance and the mix are make or breaks for the track - all the elements of a good song can be present, but if they are not aesthetically balanced within the aural space, the song can lose the effect in its creative parts.
Levels really are everything, and one of the final hurdles in creating a quality piece of work.

If we were to have mixed this song individually, we would have created six different songs.
For interest’s sake, and simply because I want to practice the processes some more, I am going to make my own mix of the song, and hopefully a remix too (because I think there are gems of music within this song to work with).

Here is the track, as a creative amalgamation of the six people who worked on it: 

The more time I spend in studios - in recording spaces, with consoles, amongst musical minds and musicians - the more I am reminded of why I chose ‘music’ to study in the first place.

Throughout my course we’ve learned the practices of various areas within audio (including Electronic Music Production, editing sound, acoustics, Post-production work and all about the technology involved in sound), but it’s always in the making itself that I refer back to in my aspirations. Working with artists is what made me enter a course in Audio. It’s within the music, that I gain the greatest pleasure.

There’s really nothing like being around musicians, around artists, around like-minded people, creatively working together to make something. What I love about this activity is its evolving nature, that you begin not knowing exactly where it will go! Someone suggests something, someone adds something, parts are added, edited, mixed, changed… It’s a process. The nature of it is ever-developing and unpredictable… It’s organic.

Hearing a song come together over time, and being a part of its creation, is so satisfying. There really is no feeling like it! The composition of music, the way phrases and sounds come together and intertwine, with the inexhaustible possibilities of music as a craft - is truly stirring.

This has also made me think about what it would be like to be more a part of the creative side of music making, like producing or performing, rather than the technical, engineering side alone. I’d also be keen for the more inter-personal aspect of this; working with musicians creatively, and helping artists express their music, to propel it into a public sphere, where it can be heard and appreciated (and affect people’s lives)!

The great thing about the music industry is that it is possible to be all of those things - it’s a diverse industry, and it’s possible to be adaptable, and move around! The more people I speak to, the more I realise how few practitioners only ever partake in one area, or have only pursued the area they decided from the beginning that they would.
There are so many avenues to be involved in, all working within the same network of music.
It’s a variable trade. Which is what’s so exciting about it!

Every time I am in the studio however, I am reminded how difficult it is to work on a single product with several people. The more minds, the more complex. Sometimes many brains cannot cohesively create a product that pleases them all! (Actually, ‘mostly’ would be more fitting). At the same time though, more minds = more ideas - more variation, more imagination, more possibilities...

That is why it’s very special to find persons that one can work intuitively and naturally with; you’re on each other’s wavelength… I think any good music that has ever been released, and any successful band or duo, has relied to some extent on a positive relationship between minds. Even if the relationship is quite volatile, or divergent, it can still bear something positive, something beneficial - in mutual objectives, in respect between peers - that even if there are disagreements, these can collaboratively cultivate a better, more interesting creative product.

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Image Source: https-//au.pinterest.com/vilsonsa9/m%C3%BAsicos-the-beatles/

Image Source: http-//nightflight.com/r-i-p-george-martin-night-flight-remembers-a-day-in-the-life-of-the-celebrated-beatles-record-producer/

Image Source: http-//www.vintag.es/2016/03/17-beatles-great-hits-produced-by

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Image Source: http-//www.soundonsound.com/people/classic-tracks-velvet-underground-heroin

Simon & Garfunkel... Image Source: http-//societyofrock.com/simon-garfunkels-bridge-over-troubled-water-demo-is-a-masterpiece/

Mercury & May (and all of Queen, really)... Image Source: http-//supportbrianmay.tumblr.com/

​Strummer & Jones... Image Source: https://au.pinterest.com/foogirl/1/

Image Source: https-//historiadeunacancion.lamula.pe/2015/07/16/the-clash-tiene-frio-por-los-ojos/israelzarate/

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I’ve heard from many people, and agree myself, that music is very much reliant on who you know - the people you work with. So I hope I continue to meet people that inspire me, surprise me, believe in me, respect me, interest me, and mentally stimulate and challenge me… and I them.