My newest music student is a gentleman named Rob Precht. As is increasingly the case with people I teach privately, Rob lives many time zones away, and he and I have never met face to face. Instead, we’ve been conducting lessons via a combination of Skype and Splice. It’s the first really practical remote music …
Category Archives: Recording
Music in a world of noise pollution
One of the great privileges of working at NYU is having access to the state-of-the-art Dolan Studio. Listening to music on top-end Lipinskis through an SSL console in a control room designed by Philippe Starck is the most exquisite audio experience I’ve ever had, and likely will ever have. Unfortunately, it’s also very far removed …
A history of pop production in three tracks
Earlier this spring, I subbed for Adam Bell‘s Music Technology 101 class at Montclair State. His sections were populated more exclusively with classical conservatory kids than mine, so for my one-shot lesson, I figured I’d talk them through some items from my illicit collection of multitrack stems, and give them a sense of the history …
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Were the Beatles great musicians?
Most of us agree that the Beatles made great music. But some people don’t believe the Beatles to have been especially good musicians. Quincy Jones famously called them “the worst musicians in the world.” He’s exaggerating, but he has a point. By modern standards, the playing on Beatles records is sloppy. The parts are interesting …
Modern classical techno
One of my Montclair State students recently did a class presentation on Venetian Snares, the stage name of highbrow electronica producer Aaron Funk. The track uses samples from the first movement of Béla Bartók’s fourth string quartet, accompanied by shuffled slices of the Amen break. It sounds to me like an EDM artist trying to …
Mobile music app recommendations
Phones and tablets have rich potential as musical instruments. Here’s my list of interesting music apps. The iOS apps are ones that I’ve personally used and enjoyed. I haven’t tried most of the Android ones, but they were recommended by people whose opinions I trust.
Why is there so much Auto-Tune on everything?
See also an explanation of how Auto-Tune works When we talk about Auto-Tune, we’re talking about two different things. There’s the intended use, which is to subtly correct pitch problems (and not just with vocalists; it’s extremely useful for horns and strings.) The ubiquity of pitch correction in the studio should be no great mystery; …
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Pop songwriting in the age of the Digital Audio Workstation
Bennett, J. (2011). Collaborative songwriting – the ontology of negotiated creativity in popular music studio practice. Journal on the Art of Record Production, (5), online. My professional life at the moment mostly consists of teaching classical and jazz musicians how to write pop songs. While every American is intuitively familiar with the norms of pop …
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The poetics of rock
I’m teaching at Montclair State University because of Adam Bell, a fellow self-taught rock and pop musician turned academic. Adam loves to quote The Poetics of Rock by Albin Zak, and rightly so. Zak’s major point is that rock is an art form about making records, and that the creativity in making records is only …
Mixing “Call Me Maybe”
Sound On Sound magazine ran this highly detailed account of mixing the inescapable summer jam of 2012. It’s the most thorough explanation of a contemporary pop song’s mix process that I’ve ever read. The specifics of the gear and the plugins are interesting, but the main takeaway is just how complex and nuanced the soundscape …