Award Sounds

4a Fresh Pair of Ears

A producer should remain distant enough from the in-depth recording process to be able to bring a fresh opinion. Their view can suggest new directions or, at least, a validation of the current direction.

4b Motivation

Producing your own CD, DVD, whatever it is, can be a tiring and troublesome process. Many of us feel like giving up at various points in the journey. By using a producer, you can have someone else buoy up your own motivation. Beware of producers that suck your motivation.

4c Experience

A producer should have experience of other bands, other artists and/or other productions. This experience should come to bear on your production.

4d Critical Analysis

The producer shouldn't have the same level of personal involvement in the product that the artist does during the recording stages. So if you're the artist and you really like a certain part of a track, a producer should be able to work with you and guide you in an agreed direction, even if it means losing that part. You use a good producer so that they can constructively criticise the product without criticising you.

4e Contacts

A producer can bring in industry contacts. Want a musician, want a mastering engineer, then the producer may know someone who will fit the bill.

4f Events

By having a larger base of artists than the artist would themselves, the producer will have access to events. In this way, they may be treading on the roles of managers or agents, but if you don't have either of those, the producer may be an appropriate start.

4g Project Management

This is what I see as being the key role for producers. It's the management of the final deliverable. They ensure that from the start to the end, you focus only on the tasks necessary for the product. If you need something for the product, they will arrange it. If you need a certain instrument, they can source that. And so on. They're not gophers, nor are they band managers, but I'd always ask any aspiring producer what they actually do. How much of the legwork would your producer do? Obviously, the more experienced and the more successful the producer, the less mundane work they'd do.

5. Writing

Maybe I should have put this at number 1 considering this is part of a series on Musical Creativity.

5a Lyrics

I like to concentrate on writing music and effects, I'm useless at lyrics. So I partner with someone else to write my lyrics. It works well, especially if I can provide a hint or description for the song in question. There are plenty of none musical people out there, who still have rhythm and feel enough to write lyrics.

One question you'll have to figure out is whether you want them to write the melody for the lyrics as well. I've used both situations. It depends on how I feel I can move the song along better.

5b Reasons for writing

Collaborating with someone else often provides a reason for writing. For instance, you could be asked to write a specific song for them or they may provide a challenge for you to complete. By accepting something out of the ordinary, you find the motivation to experience writing in different musical styles. Recently, I was asked to write something with the same feel as another song but not the same. It didn't need to sound the same, nor even have the same chord structure or instruments. Just had to feel the same. That in itself was an interesting challenge.

You can also collaborate with other composers when they're stuck and need to move tracks on. It's great when it works. Maybe your suggestions won't work, nor will they be accepted, but the simple act of making them think differently sparks off their own ideas that do work for them. That ends up being a good result all round.

5c Composing synchronously

Now that a lot of the audio can be recorded and transferred digitally, the concept of collaborating with others around the globe becomes a lot more realistic. There are still issues; if you're going to do it in a synchronous manner where you both (or all) write and play at the same time, then a lot of the rules for organising and recording a live jam session still apply, e.g.:

• ensure you can hear what the others are playing - i.e. is your monitoring system sufficient?
• ensure you can hear what the others are playing when they play it - i.e. timelags are a big issue
• ensure you have a way of recording the complete music, not just one person's perspective
• ensure you know what you're going to play, although this could just be a rough outline of chord changes, verses, choruses, etc
• ensure you know who's leading
• ensure you can communicate with each other in real-time - also means you may need a separate microphone for conversations.

For two composers instead of playing musicians, you'll need a way to describe thoughts to each other, a shared notepad and diagramming tool (such as groupware whiteboards) are useful. Whether it is usually truly synchronous may be picking hairs - I suppose both composers would have to write different parts, then combine them back together - it's more sequential but allows for a much quicker bounce of ideas back and forth than from asynchronous routes.

5d Composing asynchronously

Collaborating asynchronously opens up more opportunities. It's the modern equivalent of the guitarist walking into a rehearsal with some new riffs. You can record the instrument tracks you want to, then share or send the project file and associated audio. The other composer can import the project file and work on that, then share or send it back. This allows for recording overdubs, adding new loops, writing new sections of music.

Cross-platform composition, tracking and mixing is one area where few if any of the DAW manufacturers have pushed the boundaries far enough. If you can keep it to midi files, you'll get a lot further. The OMF import and export functions can work, but are often flawed depending on how the original project file was saved.

6. Live

6a Jamming

Bouncing ideas off another musician and taking the music in a new direction is one of the best feelings coming from being a musician. The more you play with someone, the more you'll know how they play, not just what they play, but how they think when they're playing. For instance, you'll understand their ideas of chord progressions, melodies, phrasing, timing. If you share in that, then the whole can be greater that the sum of the parts. It's a good way to learn new basic song. Just beware of falling into the 12-bar blues progressions. Actually, even if you have to do 12-bar blues, use some of the variations.

6b Support

The traditional headline and support roles for gigs has been blurred for a long time, e.g. with gigs showing double headline acts or 4 supports, but the concept of an established band using a new band to keep the audience entertained and warm them up definitely still exists.

Want to expand your area for gigs, then get in touch with the manager of reasonably well-known, but still upcoming local band and suggest your band do a support slot for them. Make sure the musical styles and audiences of both bands are similar enough to work.

6c Recording

There will be other people starting out, trying to learn their trade. In many cases, they may be learning whether they want to continue or not. Some will be trying to branch out, so keep an eye out for people who are looking at recording gigs. A combination of inexperience, little knowledge and arrogance will often yield bad results whatever the industry, so look for someone who's actively learning and wanting to progress in recording.

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