Teaching the studio as instrument

Matthew D. Thibeault. Wisdom for Music Education From the Recording Studio. General Music Today, 20 October 2011.

Stuart Wise, Janinka Greenwood and Niki Davis. Teachers’ Use of Digital Technology in Secondary Music Education: Illustrations of Changing Classrooms. British Journal of Music Education, Volume 28, Issue 2, July 2011, pp 117 -­ 134.

Digital recording studios in schools are becoming more common as the price of the required hardware and software falls. Matthew Thibeault urges music teachers to think of the studio not just as a collection of gear that can be used to document the “real” performance, but as a musical instrument in its own right, carrying with it an entire philosophy of music-making. Digital studio techniques have collapsed composition, recording and editing into a single act. Since most of the music we encounter in the world is recorded, and most of that digitally, any music program needs to include the recording, sequencing and editing process as part of the core curriculum.

Recording-centric musicianship has a very different set of demands from traditional performance and composition. The studio diminishes the need for flawless virtuoso performances. It increases the need for creative sequencing,  editing and improvisation. Studio music also places more of an emphasis on sound itself, on mixing and timbre and stereo imaging. A recording needs meticulous attention to qualities of sound, whereas the physical performance itself can be quite casual. A tossed-off improvisation or playful throwing together of randomly chosen sounds can produce better recorded music than hours of sweating over a score.

Musicians without studio experience may find it shocking just how little involvement the instrumentalist or singer can have in a recording’s final form. Electronic dance music in all of its forms is based heavily on the idea of the decontextualized sample, where a vocal line or drum break or orchestral stab intended for one usage ends up in a musical setting undreamt of by the original performer or composer. Even in more traditional musical styles where you would expect more “concert realism,” for example classical or jazz, recordings are routinely spliced together from many performances, and musical ideas can be changed or created from scratch “in the box” long after the performers have left.

The studio has expanded to include any tool that reproduces sound, including those that were intended for very different purposes. Stuart Wise, Janinka Greenwood and Niki Davis present a study of teachers’ use of music technology in the classroom, and while they focus on a much more traditional pedagogy based around Sibelius, their findings nevertheless support Thibeault’s notion of the studio as instrument. Sibelius was created for the purposes of standard Western classical notation to be ultimately read by live performers. But students quickly discover its potential as a MIDI sequencer independent of eventual human performance. Wise, Greenwood and Davis describe one young student creating a series of complex arpeggios by means of simple copying and pasting, a compositional idea that almost certainly would not have come to fruition via pencil on paper. The resulting MIDI playback should be considered every bit as valid a form of musical expression as a violinist reading from the score.

There’s more to teaching the studio as instrument than just the technical aspects. There are equally important emotional aspects to studio work that need to be taught as well. While live music demands flawless, error-free performance, the studio is highly tolerant of mistakes, and unintended sounds are frequently the most valuable. But while the studio releases musicians from the anxiety of an audience, it creates an entirely different set of anxieties: the permanence of the recording, the clinical surroundings, the strangeness of hearing yourself from headphones instead of the room. It does music students a terrible disservice to prepare them for the stage, but not the studio.

Thibeault describes his own exposure to the studio as instrument:

I have now recorded myself harmonizing with my voice, recorded multiple takes on different instruments to overlap them, as Stevie Wonder did with his classic albums of the 1970s. For music educators who wish to create a recording studio, it’s worth remembering that the studio can create these pathways, taking students down roads that concerts never can. As students learn to use the studio as an instrument, it’s also possible for them to dream in new ways, imagining music that they would not be able to imagine without these different pathways in.

The studio expands the definition of the word “musician” beyond traditional performers and composers to include anyone with the patience and the will to learn the tools and explore their possibilities. Brian Eno, one of the most prominent musicians of his era, is at best a rudimentary keyboard player and singer; he earned his place in the history of music with his virtuoso playing the studio instrument. The world is full of bedroom producers with little or no formal musical training or instrumental mastery who nevertheless produce compelling recordings. Music education should be serving would-be Brian Enos, not just would-be Yo-Yo Mas and Wynton Marsalises. Traditional instrumentalists and composers believe they have a lot to teach the bedroom producers, and that may be true, but so is the reverse.

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