Archive for May, 2008
The technology to record music has become very easy to access and use. Years ago you needed to know someone who had a studio, fancy multi-track tape recorder, and expensive microphones to produce a record or CD. Now one can produce their own album with equipment just under $1000. The issue here is that since the software and recorders available can handle so many tracks, we can get easily carried away with the number of tracks and microphones in our recordings.
When recording first started almost 100 years ago, things were very simple. In fact, most studios did all recording with one microphone in the center of the room and the artists would be distanced from the microphone to produce the spacial feeling wanted. Take it, this was also in the days of mono recordings. As years past, recorders got better and the technology improved, but the accessibility still required knowing people. As recording matured, the ability to record and overdub on multiple tracks came into the forefront. With more tracks available, we are enticed to add more and more inputs. However, sometimes the best recordings are still accomplished with just the basics.
Whether it be a choral concert, instrumental concert, or band, we have the ability to over-mic. Some like to put a microphone on everything and others feel they can get the same result using 2 microphones in the room. What can be ironic is that some recordings done with two microphones end up sounding better than a recording with a whole cabinet full of microphones setup.
So, the next time you have a great song idea or a concert that should be recorded, remember to keep it simple and let the music be the focus, not the recording.
It has been happening for a while now. Studying the arts whether fine or performing has been deemphasized. Schools have been cutting funding for their arts programs along with the state governments cutting back on funding the arts. Does anyone realize what this action is doing to education in the long run?
Having a background in the performing arts, in particular, has its benefits that really only come out later in life. Studying music does several things to a human being. It improves their ability to analyze, it improves connections in the brain which does wonders for motor coordination. As an academic piece, it may seem senseless to study the different periods of music such as Renaissance, Classical, and Baroque, but the lessons learned in identifying music whether by genre or artist will be remembered throughout life unlike other things we learn in school and forget because their not practical in real life.
Even though higher powers that control what we learn have decided to reduce our exposure to the arts. We need to find ways outside of school education to make it know that an arts background is vital to life. Whether it be going to a local concert or show, there is something in live music and other performing arts that rewires our brains to do things that we are not aware are possible.
We thought vinyl records would be gone with the evolution of the CD in the eighties the same way that videos were thought to be the killer of the radio play. What is ironic now is that less CDs are being sold and the amount of vinyl records being sold has increased.
What is it about records that people would want this medium back over the clean sound of CD? Well, one has to look back at the way that music was recording when records were being produced. Unlike today where just about every new track and album is recorded digitally to computer, up until the mid 1990s all recording was done to analog tape. Even though we did not have the capabilities with tape that now can be done digitally, there was something with analog recording and that was the amount of sound that could be recorded. Sampling and thresholds were able to be pushed to allow for a more warmer sound; nothing in the recording was “lost”. Everything that was heard by the microphones was transferred to tape.
Once a master tape was made, it was sent off to the record plant for pressing. At the record plant, the master tape was played to a machine that would cut the acetate that would be used to create the “master”. What was and still is different is that everything gets transferred to the record as grooves. The deeper the grooves the more bass sound and the shallower the groove, the higher the pitch. Because of this concept, the amount of time had to be calculated into the mixing so that everything wanted could be fit onto the record. From the master plates, all the copies would be made.
So…Now that we’ve looked at the making of a record quickly, one can now look at the differences between CD and vinyl. Because of the fullness of the sound quality on records (Let’s forget about the pops, hiss, and other little characteristics that were part of records.), people have been picking up their records again and reliving what has been lost over two decades now. But not only did sound get compromised when we went to CD; we lost the great artwork that was part of the anticipation of going to the record store to buy the new album.
Since the CD came out, other developments have occurred as well. Digital music players have come into the market which has certainly made life easier. However, with digital music players even more is lost. We have lost more sound quality as frequencies are dropped in ripping, but we have also lost the artwork that was part of producing a CD. To a good musician and collector, the album art and insert information was very important.
So, digital was supposed to be the best thing since sliced bread or the record. What is ironic about this whole vinyl record rebirth is that the youth of America has taken to this format. Their parents were happy to see it go, but the new generation has found gold in basements and garages. They have found a sound that they are not used to and actually like, the fullness of the sound that they were deprived of due to their years of growing up.
Right now, there are only a handful of presses left in the United States. There are many more around the world, but in the US there are only a handful left in business and their business has gone up in the last few years. Some artists are actually, once again, releasing their new works on vinyl record and CD. Once artist, is actually putting bonus tracks on the vinyl version in order to boost the sales of the record. Are we in a rebound? We shall see.
If we look at music groups that are offered over the course of a life time, one will find that there are youth choirs, high school choirs, college choirs and…. adult choirs. Notice, the hesitation between college choirs and adult choirs. Most adult choirs consist of singers who are middle aged. Very few members are young adults just out of college and vivacious. There is a whole gap that could be filled with young adults that would be thrilled to be able to continue in choir.
A choir consisting of young adults needs to be established several reasons. Of course, the first reason is for the musical benefit. But, there are other reasons too. Generally speaking, musicians are their own breed of artist and have very unique personalities. Musicians and choristers, especially, tend to cling to their own kind. The problem at hand is that there are very few outlets for this group of individuals to turn to after college to find others similar to them. The last thing that a young adult choir would help to fulfill is the education factor. Since the members of the choir would consist of young families, having their parents in a choir would teach by example the importance of music and the arts in their lives.
Musicians definitely have their own social network and having a choir of young musicians would help build a very needed networking portal that is critical to the young adult just out of school. Musicians all know their is a secret fraternity among themselves. If there is something you need, guaranteed someone, whether an instrumentalist or vocalist, knows someone. Hence, word-of-mouth advertising goes along way in the music world. To say it succinctly, musicians all have people that know people and young musicians need to get to know more people like them.
Educationally, we can never learn enough about music. That is part of the fun of learning music. Whether we’ve never heard a piece or heard it hundreds of times, there is always something new that can be learned from the same piece. That concept is what needs to be taught informally to our young children and they will learn that lesson quickly through observation from their parents and other grown-ups. Therefore, a choir of young adults, would not only serve the young adult community, but would also create a community among the children of the members.
There are many more reasons that I can think a young adult choir would be beneficial to the society and I’ve only named a few. Hopefully, there are others who feel the same way, but have just never thought it out and noticed the void needed filling. Rome wasn’t built in a day, but together those of us who feel this way could bring musical solutions to the world.
Music along with art have to be appreciated first hand. Second hand exposure does not affect the human psyche as great as physically being there to experience it first hand. There is something about live music and performance that is different than seeing or hearing from a recording. Without getting into the technicalities of audio recording, there is more sound being created in a live environment than any other medium. Although, it’s not the greatest example to use, but it’s the most accustomed to, the feeling of being at a rock concert is different than being in your car listening to the concert from a CD or digital music player. The concert makes you feel alive. It just does something to you as a person. The same goes for attending a classical performance in a performing arts concert hall.
Since we can’t all go to the concert venue every day, we rely on the great invention of Thomas Edison, the sound recording. Sound recordings allow us to experience music over and over again from wherever we are, the only difference is we don’t have that “Live” experience. Recordings are second generation from the original. One looses the physical experience of being there and having the sound envelop them. Yes, a recording done of a live concert has more of the interactive feel since it was based on the interaction of the audience with the performers, but the feeling is no longer there. Studio recordings are different as they are “manufactured” by the assistance of people and equipment in sterile environments.
Lately, with digital music players, there is something even more important lost and that is sound quality. If we were to listen to a live concert, then a recording, followed by a compressed digital version of the same recording, we would begin to notice differences. Sound is lost in the transfer from one to the other. The recording of the live concert was the greatest, the live recording is almost like being there as only a little was lost sound wise, but the third, if we really trained our ears to listen, would certainly teach us a lesson about compromising quality.
Even though records were replaced by CDs for the pureness, there was something about a record in terms of sound quality that outperformed digital. Records had the ability to reproduce a fuller reproduction of the original sound. Therefore, the listening experience was closer to the real thing and making a tape copy was a close second for similar reasons.
Regardless of media, there is one thing that has been lost in the compromise of sound quality and that is that there are less audiophiles (people who are fanatic about sound). Most of us have come to accept less than great, thus affecting our music appreciation of live music.