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THE CROSS-GENRE BENEFITS OF CLASSICAL MUSIC INSTRUCTION IN THE COLLEGIATE MUSIC PRODUCTION AND ENGINEERING CLASSROOM

______

A Thesis

Presented to

The Honors Tutorial College

Ohio University

______

In Partial Fulfillment

of the Requirements for Graduation

from the Honors Tutorial College

with the degree of

Bachelor of Science in Communication

______

by

Elizabeth G. Coleman

May 2020

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This thesis has been approved by

The Honors Tutorial College and the School of Media Arts and Studies

______Josh Antonuccio Professor, Media Arts and Studies Thesis Adviser

______Beth Novak Director of Studies, Media Arts and Studies

______Dr. Donal Skinner Dean, Honors Tutorial Colleg

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CONTENTS Introduction…………………………………………………………………….………...4

Review of Literature………………………………………………………….….………..5

A Whole New Mind and Range……………………………………………….…16

Review of Survey Results………………………………………………………….…….17

The Cross-Genre Benefits of Classical Music………………………………….……..20

Music Proficiency > Tech Proficiency…………………………….…………………….21

Learning to Listen……………………………………………………………….……….26

Exposure Reduces Fear……………………………………………………..……………30

Cross-Genre Influences in the

Billboard Top 200 of 2019……………………………………..………………..31

Communication is Key…………………………………………………………………..36

Hypothetical Course Outline……………………………………….………………….38

Conclusion………………………………………………………………………………46

Works Cited…………………………………………………….……………………….49

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Introduction

About a year ago, I was sitting in the mastering studio during the lab section of my mixing and mastering class. My classmates and I were sharing the results of our first project, which had involved taking a session recorded in class during the previous semester and applying the mixing concepts we had just learned. As I listened to my classmates’ rock, punk, and funk sessions, I started to sweat—what were they going to think of my project, a short ragtime piece played by the School of Music’s graduate woodwind quintet? I had never noticed any of my classmates express interest in classical music, and I was worried that they would be put off by the genre, or think that I was trying too hard to stand out. I cringed through the 2.5 minutes of my recording and waited for the sighs and rolling eyes.

Instead what I got was bobbing heads, tapping feet, giggles at the humorous orchestration, and an overwhelmingly positive reaction at the end. I heard, “That was so cool!” and “Wow, I’ve never heard that kind of music before, I really liked it.” One of my classmates said, “That’s cool that you did a different kind of group. I would never know what to do with that kind of music in post-production.” Our next project asked that we trade sessions with someone in the class so that we could practice mixing other people’s work, and someone else told me jokingly, “I hope I don’t get yours. I’d be completely lost.”

While I was mostly feeling very gratified that they were able to connect to the music that I was sharing, I was also a little bit discouraged. How was it that my classmates, people that I knew had amazingly wide-ranging music tastes and some of whom were already plugged into the music industry, had never encountered an Coleman 5 instrumental ensemble before? I was glad that I had introduced to them to something that they enjoyed, but what if I hadn’t chosen to record a woodwind quintet for that project?

Would they still be continuing on unaware of an entire genre of music? What stuck with me the most were the words of the people who professed that they wouldn’t know what to do if they were given a product like mine to work on. I disliked the thought of my classmates losing out on opportunities because of a gap in their knowledge or confidence, or never finding their passions just due to a lack of exposure.

Several times leading up to that moment, and many times after, it occurred to me while in music production classes that the thing we were learning about in a popular example could just as easily have been illustrated using a classical example. A few other times, I thought that the topic at hand would have been better exemplified in classical music than in pop. Bringing classical music into the general college-level music production and engineering classroom benefits all students, even those who do not intend to work in the classical music industry. Doing so provides a multi-genre approach to the instruction and acquisition of necessary skills and takes advantage of classical music as a tool to build general music proficiency.

Review of Literature

Music proficiency is a pivotal skill for music production and engineering (P&E) students. Music proficiency lacks a single definition; it is an abstract idea with a multitude of applications. For the purposes of this paper, I am using the term in accordance with Bielmeier and Gordon, who define music proficiency as an overarching concept referring the knowledge of “tuning, intonation or pitch, key awareness (or lack of), rhythmic challenges, groove or playing in the pocket, improvisation, arranging or Coleman 6 composing on the spot, and language or musical slang” and the ability to address those things with musicians (Bielmeier and Gordon). This definition encompasses the need for both direct knowledge of musical concepts, such as tuning and pitch, as well are more general abilities like communication and critical listening.

Bielmeier and Gordon provide the only discussion of teaching musical proficiency in audio production program that is both thorough and reasonably up-to-date, having been published in 2017. In their article “A Musician’s Engineer: Best Practices

For Teaching Music Proficiency At Formal Audio Recording And Production Programs

In The USA,” the authors conducted a survey of twenty-five US Audio Recording and

Production (ARP) programs. They collected their data through direct communication with the educators involved with those programs in order to explore the idea that “a career in the commercial audio industry requires expert technical, musical, and artistic skills to gain competence in specialized areas that support a productive recording environment” (Bielmeier and Gordon). This is a statement made independent of genre or even professional focus, assuming that “commercial audio industry” encapsulates both production and engineering in any audio-oriented field; the authors argue that any

ARP/P&E must have a foundation of skills on which they can rely in any recording situation and on which they can build further skills and learning experiences.

The authors found that while the majority of educators believed it important for their students to be musically proficient, few programs specifically concentrated on building the skill in an explicit and specific manner. However, educators indicated that music proficiency was still fostered, as tenets of music proficiency were integrated into classroom exercises, learning-by-doing style: “the enhancement of musical and technical Coleman 7 skills was achieved by integrating musical elements, skills, and proficiencies within coursework and assignments.” The authors’ analysis of survey data and its meaning elaborates on this idea, honing in on the central idea of critical listening:

In lieu of music performance and theory classes, experiential learning environments are critical. While musical proficiency is not the focus for many institutions’ curricula in the USA, the importance of listening exercises with a “multi-dimensional” approach is key in both critical listening training and musical “perception” (Swanson, 2013). Critically listening to music allows students to develop comprehension, interpretation, assemble contexts, and focus on multiple levels (Corey, 2010). (Bielmeier and Gordon).

The article also emphasizes the relative lack of importance of genre when it comes to music proficiency, or rather, the situation of music proficiency above the specifications of genre:

The study of music genre and style awareness builds music proficiency (Reba, 2010). Students should engage in listening assignments, presentations, discussions, and lectures that draw from a variety of genre and style. Music proficiency includes being fluent in a variety of genre and styles that aid in the complex interactions between creative individuals (Ratterman, 2013). (Bielemeier and Gordon)

This touches on a few important ideas regarding the study of multiple genres: first, that it improves overall music proficiency, and second, that it assists navigation through situations that involve the influence of multiple genres.

Bielmeier and Gordon conclude that music proficiency is generally considered to be integral to an ARP/P&E curriculum, but that instruction in the topic is widely varied and there are no established standards or curriculum. They call for the creation of a specific resource to aid educators in the instruction of music proficiency, which would have the additional benefit of encouraging more programs to integrate music proficiency into their curriculum, which would in turn “aid in the development of well-rounded recording engineers seeking employment in the audio industry” (Bielmeier and Gordon). Coleman 8

Draper also addresses the acquisition of music proficiency as an ideal result of

“artistic research.” Draper examines the process of learning to be a producer as a process of artistic research, which includes a variety of learning outcomes, such as critical listening ability, handling the interaction between music and technology, and “the development of the self” through artistic and academic reflection. Draper presents a collection of case studies involving music producers who are in some way applying scientific research or measurement in order to further their skills. Whether they focused on a specific step of production or on the process as a whole, several common themes emerged, including “a quest for the development of musical self” and “fit for purpose critical listening schema.” Though Draper’s main point in the article is that music production education could benefit from the application of science-based practices similar to the one he just carried out, the common themes from the case studies also outline essential skills on which music production students should focus. Critical listening and development of the musical self contribute to a foundational identity and set of skills that allow a producer or engineer to approach future projects with confidence and drive (Draper).

After Bielmeier and Gordon and Draper, there is little other research on teaching music proficiency to P&E students. However, additional insight can be gained from the literature that concerns music proficiency in non-musicians in general.

A unique perspective on becoming musically proficient as a non-musician is provided by an article detailing “A superannuated physicist’s attempts to master music theory.” Author Page-Shipp, the physicist in question, and author van Niekerk, a music professor, embarked on an experiment involving Page-Shipp attending a third-year music Coleman 9 theory class at the University of Pretoria. In their discussion of what challenges Page-

Shipp might encounter as a “mature learner,” they address the idea of the “aging brain” and suggest that the loss of grey matter that this phrase refers to is not as important to learning as neuroplasticity. Operating under the assumption that neuroplasticity does not decrease as significantly with age as once thought, the authors assert that age would not actually be the cause of any struggle Page-Shipp might experience. They instead turn to the idea that an adult encounters a new learning experience with their “own individualised set of schemata that reflect both [their] experience and [their] worldview

(Merriam, Cafferella, & Baumgartner, 2007, p. 402)” (Page Shipp and van Niekerk 161).

This could serve as a disadvantage as pre-judgement and entrenched mental habits can hinder the acquisition of new knowledge and skills (Epstein 32-34). However, in this case, it was framed as an advantage, because the adult in question had accumulated

“schemata” that were borne of vast experience in learning new things: “mastering novel fields of knowledge was no new experience to him” (Page-Shipp and van Niekerk 161).

Whether or not it truly was an advantage is impossible to judge, since this article was only about a single person’s experience, and it turned out that the author still ended up experiencing a significant amount of struggle throughout the learning process. There were several components of music theory, such as the naming convention of intervals and the difference between treble clef and bass clef notation, that were un- or even counterintuitive to the author. He makes the observation that his classmates, who presumably had been studying music in some fashion since childhood, did not struggle with these concepts, “having had the detail filtered into their minds over a protracted period ‘parenthetically and contextually’” (Page-Shipp and van Niekerk). This Coleman 10 perspective is valuable in a discussion of how to teach music proficiency to non- musicians, even those who are not as “superannuated” as the author. Though they may be years younger, undergraduate music production students are still presumably in the final

25% of their academic career and so could also be described as “mature learners.”

Richard and Chin, in their examination of musical identity in “non-musicians,” found that the same musical sensibilities that musicians gain by playing or creating music can also be gained by deliberate listening to music:

Non-musicians, however, appear to make sense of music in a similar way as do trained musicians. They are able to efficiently discriminate, identify and predict key features and structures in music, categorize melodic sequences that are similar and different, apply segmentation rules to unfamiliar sequences, recall melodies on the basis of global features and identify intended emotions in a piece (Bigand, 2004; Bigand & Poulin-Charronnat, 2006; Deliege & El Ahmahdi, 1990; Krumhansl, 1995; Sloboda & Parker, 1985; Tillman, Bharucha, & Bigand, 2000). (Richard and Chin 292-293)

Richard and Chin define non-musicians as those who are not skilled producers1 of music.

They assert that music analysis skills such as identifying song structure and intended emotions—skills that paramount for working in record production-- are just as present in non-musicians who do a great deal of listening to music as they are in trained musicians.

This speaks to both the effectiveness and the importance of critical listening skills for music production students.

As this paper argues for an addition to collegiate P&E curriculum, an examination of the literature on current P&E educational practices was warranted, especially that literature which concerns instruction on the music aspect of music production and engineering (rather than the technical, technological, historical, or theoretical aspects). It

1 “producer” in this case being used in its literal sense as one who creates or brings into existence, not having to do with the action of recording an album Coleman 11 was found that even if music proficiency was not the focus of a particular source, the content of that source still contributed to the argument for music proficiency.

Literature that explicitly featured study of practices or best practices in P&E education was mainly focused on the importance of experiential learning for students aiming for practical careers in the industry. David Kopplin conducted a study in 2014-

2015 entitled “Best Practices in Music Industry Education.” Despite the broad title, the study is specifically focused on the efficacy and importance of experiential education in

US collegiate music industry programs. The conclusion of the study honed in on how hands-on experience as part of the curriculum was the common denominator between reputable music industry programs. In a study of UK music technology programs, Davis et al. focus on an almost identical issue of apprenticeship and gaining experience in real- world studios outside of the classroom. The Kopplin study also included a survey with a question about how a program defined success in its students. The question asked respondents to rank items in importance with regard to measuring the success of undergraduate students in their program, and, interestingly, the item “students have a solid musical foundation” ranked sixth out of seven items total (Kopplin). This is contradictory to the results found by Bielmeier and Gordon, who found that the majority of those surveyed did hold music proficiency in high priority. It is worth noting that

Bielmeier and Gordon also concluded that experiential learning could not be relied on to create successful P&E students: they cite current research which indicates that less than half of the programs surveyed required internships, and that “no consensus of length or location was displayed” (Bielmeier and Gordon). This lack of consistency of experiential learning requirements between institutions, as well as between the experiences Coleman 12 themselves, indicates that experiential learning should not be considered the end-all answer for P&E student success.

Brendan Anthony heads in a different direction in his discussion of his personal philosophy of teaching mixing as a performance, building on McIntyre’s arguments of teaching creativity in production and engineering. Anthony conceives of the action of mixing as a performance on a musical instrument, in both a physical and emotional sense.

He saw Chris Thomas at work in the studio and realized Thomas was playing the board like an instrument, with the same practiced familiarity and physical expression with which a seasoned musician would play their instrument2.

In terms of the emotional aspect of mixing, Anthony refers to the aesthetic, artistic facets of musical proficiency:

“As CLA states “Don’t try to figure out mixing, try to figure out the song” (Pensado’s Place: 2012). In this instance, the mixer requires more than a sonic understanding of the recorded material, perhaps a relationship to the song itself, its lyrical meaning, and the intended artistic, social or cultural goals” (Anthony).

In order to create a quality mix, it is necessary to be able to critically listen to understand the deeper structures of a song and how they are achieved. Together, the practiced physical actions, emotional investment and expression form “a creative process

… that satisfies the mixer’s musical and emotional connection to the song.” This is best achieved through absolute familiarity with physical set up and well-developed critical listening skills that allow the mixer to understand the music, not just the sounds, and make confident creative decisions.

2 as it happens, Chris Thomas was a classically trained violinist and pianist

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A significant portion of education-focused sources take the form of instructional materials aimed at students, or for instructors to wield for the benefit of students. Since music production is a practical subject, practical guides and how-to’s are necessary for its instruction. These materials provide a ready-made groundwork for incorporating classical music as a teaching tool. For example, an article in the MEIEA Journal, entitled

“Practical Production Analysis: Helping Students Produce Competitive Songs,” outlines the four areas that students must be able to analyze and manipulate in order to create a song that is competitive in its genre: “form, instrumentation, texture variation, and audio/production techniques” (Jones). The article uses commercial pop music for all of its examples, but it would be equally possible to use classical music to examine and illustrate those four core components.

Another article from Electronic Musician provides a set of guidelines for helping the reader make the notoriously difficult decision of whether or not their mix is finished.

Though the article is aimed at the magazine’s audience of people who work in electronic music, the eleven items it provides create a good starting point for evaluating a mix of any genre (Levin).

Though not issued in a specific step-by step fashion, the conclusions in David

Tough’s analysis on what makes a hit song provide a checklist of techniques intended for production students to follow. Although having a concrete list of actionable items can be a helpful learning tool, Tough’s approach is not ideal. Conclusions drawn from the surface level analysis that the author relied on expire quickly, because they are truly only analyzing trends of the time. This article was written about the Billboard Hot 100 of 2012 and is therefore mostly useless today. Teaching students to adhere to the superficial Coleman 14 trends of the current moment is not going to serve them well; it is a fundamental understanding of music that will equip students to navigate ever-changing trends.

Finally, are the sources that concern discussion of educational theory. In their

Journal on the Art of Record Production article, Thompson and McIntyre examine the practical meaning of creativity in the P&E classroom. In defining exactly what instructors intend when teaching creativity in the classroom, they came to the conclusion that rather than creating entirely original and unique content, the goal in teaching creativity is to have “students access, and build upon, previous works to create something ‘new’ within a recognisable tradition or context” (Thompson and McIntyre”). That is, in order for their creative work to be legitimate and successful, P&E students must understand the existing conventions of the genre in which they are working and of the recording industry as a whole. Creativity comes most easily and effectively to those who have a solid framework of knowledge on which to build new material. In the discussion of their findings, the authors then offer a practical follow-up, arguing that this framework is best built. through direct interaction with the industry via experiential learning. This not only allows students to learn about the industry, but also provides opportunity for mentorship, networking, and collaboration, which further foster creativity. Regardless of the specifics,

Thompson and McIntyre’s results overwhelmingly support the building of fundamental skills that transfer to any task.

Meanwhile, “A Focus on Robert Gagné's Instructional Theories: Application to

Teaching Audio Engineering, " also by David Tough, discusses Gagné’s instructional theories, including his theory of the nine events of instruction and his taxonomy and conditions of learning. Tough shares how he implements these theories using the example Coleman 15 of a lesson on mic techniques in a second-year audio engineering course. He goes on to recommend using Gagné’s theories as a framework for curriculum design, and argues that doing so would be especially beneficial for the ever-changing discipline of music production.

In a quest to find learning materials to suit the unique demands of production and engineering education, Toulson analyzes the existing research on this area of education and finds it lacking. He does his own examination of the issue, addressing “a unique area of pedagogy with respect to Audio and Music Technology by evaluating existing and well-known teaching strategies and applying those to the specific field.” Using progress through Bloom’s Cognitive Domain as a frame, Toulson introduces several basic educational principles, such as “learning from mistakes” and “learning by doing,” and illustrates how they can be effectively implemented in a P&E context. He also completes his own case study using an interactive DVD that allows students to watch and explore an orchestral recording session. The DVD allows students to observe “aspects of project management, entrepreneurialism and technical details” and also provides a critical listening exercise with three different stereo mic techniques. This media-based learning material is not meant to replace true hands-on learning, but is instead intended “to bring visualisation to the anticipated experiences and to reduce the ‘fear-factor’ for students engaging in advanced and large scale projects.” Indeed, “The results of this research and case study development have already encouraged students to engage in more challenging and valuable music production projects…” Toulson’s article has threefold significance: first, in its spotlight on the dearth of studies of P&E education, second, in its support of Coleman 16 experiential learning, and third, in its conclusion that simple exposure to new genres and experiences reduces fear and encourages later engagement.

A general perspective on education comes from the Pearson Global Learner survey, where an international sample set of learners share their experiences and opinions regarding higher education. Most important are two of the eight key trends that emerged in the 2019 edition: “The 40-year career is gone, replaced by life-long learning and diverse career paths,” and “Learners believe soft skills will give them the advantage over automation” (Pearson 5). Students are expecting to navigate a varied, far-ranging set of experiences during the course of their professional life, which necessitates a step back from specialized learning in favor of learning generalizable skills that can be easily transferred. Soft skills are therefore rising in priority, both as important foundational abilities and as areas in which humans have the advantage over artificial intelligence

(AI). “Critical thinking, problem solving, and creativity” are the talents that AI and other lesser forms of technology do not possess and in which students must become well- versed if they are to compete with automation (23). As Thompson and McIntyre argue, creativity and problem solving can only be exercised by those who have a thorough understanding of the foundations of their field. Music proficiency is paramount to the foundational knowledge of P&E students.

A Whole New Mind and Range

Two additional works provide contribution to the principles behind the argument of this paper. Daniel H. Pink’s A Whole New Mind poses a compelling argument: largely due to advancement in technology and the continued progression of capitalism, creative Coleman 17 and critical thinking skills are set to become more and more necessary. Human right- brained thinking will be essential to do the things that logic-based computers are not capable of (61). Though it is certainly a well-made argument, its context is hugely out-of- date. A Whole New Mind was written in 2005 and updated in 2006, and the fourteen following years have seen several new generations of technology. Luckily, Epstein’s

Range provides the perfect contemporary follow-up.

Range confirms the arguments made by Pink from a contemporary perspective.

Epstein delves deeper into how right brained thinking is nurtured by breadth of experience and discusses many of the things Pink predicted – many have come true or are in the process of doing so. Most importantly, he hones in on one specific facet of Pink’s premise: in today’s world, those with a breadth of knowledge excel, while those who hyper-specialize are more likely to fail. The book’s tagline, “Why generalists triumph in a specialized world,” speaks to the heart of the argument for music proficiency. As genre within popular music continues to splinter and evolve, those with a large sample of experience and knowledge that can rise above the specificities of genre are more likely to succeed. Building music proficiency using a multi-genre approach will result in a solid and transferrable foundational skill set: “Breadth of training predicts breadth of transfer.

That is, the more contexts in which something is learned, the more the learner creates abstract models, and the less they rely on any particular example” (Epstein 76). These are the same conclusions that emerge from the Pearson Global Learner Survey.

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Review of Survey Results

An anonymous online survey was done of students in the School of Media Arts and Studies at Ohio University. The survey received thirty responses from students who were either in the Music Production and Recording Industry (MPRI) major, or currently taking an MPRI class. The respondents ranged from first year to fifth year or above. The survey asked multiple-choice questions to gauge respondents’ relationship with classical music and to understand their experiences with classical music with regard to their MPRI education, such as “How would you rate yourself in terms of knowledgeability about classical music?” “Do you believe classical music is relevant to your field of study?” and

“Out of all of the MPRI classes you have taken and/or are currently taking, how many of them have included material on classical music?” There were also open-response questions to gain further insight into multiple-choice responses.

Overall, the results lacked significance. There was no relationship between any two sets of responses. However, this is a helpful indicator that there is no particular pattern or common experience between students with regard to classical music.

Furthermore, many students indicated uncertainty in their responses to both multiple- choice and open-response questions.

It is important to first establish that the majority of respondents rate themselves at a 1 on a 0-4 scale of knowledgeability of classical music, with 0 being “no knowledge” and 4 being “extremely knowledgeable.” This would indicate that the majority of respondents are answering questions that pertain to classical music with only a small amount of knowledge about the subject. However, this response is also important because Coleman 19 it displays a general lack of knowledge of a particular genre of music within the MPRI students being surveyed.

Although respondents rated themselves fairly low in terms of knowledgeability,

84% believe classical music is relevant to their field of study. Of the remaining 16%, only one respondent indicated that they did not think classical music was relevant to their field of study, while four respondents were unsure. The majority of respondents understood the relationship between classical music and music production.

Despite this, 44% of respondents, the majority, are unsure whether or not classical music instruction should be included in standard MPRI curriculum. The lack of consistency between the two sets of response shows that surveyed students are not entirely sure how classical music fits in with their area of study. Accordingly, the majority of respondents answered “no” to the question “Do you believe you have the skills necessary to work in the classical music industry?” When those who answered no were asked what necessary skills they believe they lack, answers included:

“Recording classical music seems a little more complicated than other genres of music and just understanding the complexity of it as a whole”

“Knowledge of classical music”

“Understanding of composition and best ways of recording”

“Mic techniques, mixing techniques, and how to communicate my vision with the musicians well.”

“Unsure. I am unsure about what the classical music industry includes.”

Although multiple responses mentioned ideas such as microphone techniques and prior experience with classical music, there were no major recurring themes in the responses to this question. Several responses were similar to the one stated above, indicating that the Coleman 20 students did not have enough knowledge of the subject to assess where the gaps in their knowledge existed.

At the end of the survey, the majority of respondents reported that they believe learning production engineering skills for classical music would benefit them both as a student and as a professional. I believe this is a good indicator that, despite uncertainty, students would be receptive to learning about other genres and understand the importance of doing so.

This survey was created to collect data for my original research question, which was concerned with promoting specialization in classical music to music production and engineering students. As the focus of my research changed to instead emphasize classical music as a foundational skill-builder rather than a career goal, I questioned whether or not the data from the survey would continue to be relevant. In my re-examination of the survey questions and of the results, I concluded that the data stated above did remain applicable. Answers to questions about knowledge of, skills in, and perceived relevance of classical music indicate lack of exposure to the genre. This means there is room for growth and additional benefit should students begin working with classical music.

The Cross-Genre Benefits of Classical Music

I spoke to six music industry professionals of various backgrounds about working with classical music and the skills the genre confers. Thom Moore, Erica Brenner, and

Elaine Martone, all Grammy winners, are also all past employees of Telarc International, each having started their recording career there after being recruited for their classical training in music performance. All now work as producers and editors at production Coleman 21 companies they helped found. Mary Mazurek, Grammy nominee and engineer and producer at Chicago’s classical music station WFMT, studied sound recording technology as a music major, but did not initially intend to make her career in classical music. It was not until she started at WFMT that she began working with classical music in a major capacity. Mark Donahue followed a winding path from clarinet performance to electrical engineering to sound recording, and is now mastering engineer at Soundmirror

Productions.

Liza Grossman is an industry expert on the other side of the microphone. She is the founder and conductor of the Contemporary Youth Orchestra (CYO), now in its twenty-fifth year, as well as a past faculty member at Interlochen Center for the Arts and the Rainey Institute. Grossman’s position as tour conductor for Styx as well as her annual collaboration with a pop musician for CYO’s Rock the Orchestra concert series means she often works in a space where classical music and popular music combine.

Music Proficiency > Tech Proficiency

The rapid rate of change in technology today means that the software in its current version we use in class very well may not be the software we use in our careers. Even user interface and functionality improvements can drastically alter a single program. Such changes can already be observed: take the digital audio workstation (DAW) Pro Tools for example, from its first launch in 1991 to present day. For just under six thousand dollars,

Pro Tools 1.0 boasted “integrated multitrack digital audio recording/editing, DSP and onscreen digital mixing” and supported up to sixteen I/O channels (Thornton) (see fig. 1).

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Fig. 1. A screenshot of Pro Tools 1.1 from Thornton, Mike. “The History of Pro Tools -

1984 to 1993: Pro Tools.” Production Expert, 25 Feb. 2018, www.pro-tools- expert.com/home-page/2018/2/19/the-history-of-pro-tools-1984-to-1993.

Today, after twelve major versions and dozens of iterations in between, we have

Pro Tools 2019.12 (see fig. 2). The accompanying advances in technology have made it possible to render thousands of dollars’ worth of hardware into a four-hundred-dollar piece of software that can be run on the average consumer-grade desktop computer. Even more budget-friendly DAWs, such as Apple Logic Pro, at two hundred dollars, and

Audacity, which can be downloaded for free, still offer a degree of functionality that was at one point only achievable through commercial-grade hardware, and the technology still continues to progress. With such rapid and pronounced change still occurring, spending significant time instructing students in one specific DAW or set of processing plugins is to their disadvantage. A P&E student should instead learn fundamental skills that enable Coleman 23 them to adapt to the many different pieces of software that they are bound to encounter on the job, some of which they will not have been able to encounter while in school.

Fig 2. A screenshot of Pro Tools 2019.12 from Ramsey, Colby. “Review: Pro Tools

2019.” Audio Media International, 12 Sept. 2019. https://www.audiomediainternational.com/2019/09/12/review-pro-tools-2019/.

This disparity between classroom and career is exacerbated by the inaccessibility of certain technology, with budget restrictions or particular hardware requirements making it difficult for universities to instruct in the use of every DAW and plugin that exists. As more people who have been Internet and computer-savvy from a young age begin higher education, I believe that teaching software basics will become less and less necessary. Coleman 24

Learning technology can be done fairly easily and quickly on the job. Take for example Moore, Brenner, and Martone, all of whom in the 1980s learned the technical aspects of recording after they were hired. Brenner, now a Grammy-winning producer and editor and head of Erica Brenner Productions says, “…when you’re in a music production business you know your ears are your main tool, like you can learn all the tools, all the technology, you know, sometimes later on the job. “And I mean and the technology changes a lot” (Brenner).

Moore concurs, and, as a Grammy-winning founder and leader of Five/Four

Productions, prioritizes music proficiency significantly above technological knowledge when it comes to hiring:

If I had a candidate in front of me who … for our company who was applying for a job or an internship, and one had…musical background and had some kind of training in performance and one didn’t, just came from strictly… learning the gear- I mean I’ve known so many people that can rattle off every model number of every microphone and every compressor and every limiter and everything like that, and that just does not impress me at all, cause guess who can’t do that? Me. … But the person who I would be more interested in is the one with the musical background. Hands down, because I’m like, they will understand what I’m talking about. … not only will [they] understand what I’m talking about from a audio production point of view, but they’ll understand what I’m talking about from a music point of view. (Moore)

It is clear that the educational environment and pedagogical settings could be better utilized to learn the things that are more difficult to self-teach: the sensory and critical listening skills that are the most important part of musical proficiency for P&E students. These skills are fostered through deliberately listening to music, which for best results should be from a variety of genres. Classical music in particular should be included in the listening material; the tenets of music proficiency are easily identified in music from this genre. Richard and Chin provide compelling evidence that deliberate Coleman 25 study in listening can deliver a level of musical proficiency comparable to that of trained musicians:

In their review, Bigand & Poulin-Charronnat (2006) conclude that while trained musicians often perform better in tasks requiring explicit knowledge of music, the similarities in music processing ability between individuals who had received extensive conservatorium training and those considered “non-musicians” are greater than the differences. Furthermore, if sufficient time and effort is dedicated to listening, the music skills of non-trained musicians can become highly advanced (Finnas, 1989; Hedden, 1981). (Richard and Chin 292-293)

This is highly applicable to P&E students. The majority of music production and engineering require the mentioned “music processing ability”—the listening element of music proficiency—and not any particular knowledge of the specifics of music.

It would be reasonable to assume that music production students are already avid listeners of the music they enjoy. This is an excellent first step, but according to Epstein’s argument of prioritizing breadth over depth, students would be better equipped to navigate the uncertainty of the music industry through dedicated listening to multiple genres. Although each musical genre has its own specific sensibilities and conventions, all music in the western world is united by basic underlying principles. Tonality, melody, rhythm, dynamics, and emotional expression are elements that are present3 in any piece of music, and “for knowledge to be flexible, it should be learned under varied conditions”

(Epstein 94). Understanding these elements independently of how they present in a single genre makes it possible to perceive them in any genre.

The ability to identify and critique these elements is crucial for a producer to make the decisions that are necessary of their position. Donahue remarked on the lack of these particular skills he has observed in recent P&E graduates:

3 or conspicuously absent Coleman 26

One of the fundamental issues that I still find is that a lot of the kids coming out of recording programs don’t have, they have the sort of the worst of both worlds. Meaning that they don’t have strong musical backgrounds, and that the also don’t have strong technical backgrounds. You know, they are sort of equipped to be an assistant in a pop studio somewhere where everything is already in place, but they’re still gonna have a tech guy come in and fix stuff, and they’re still gonna have producers that are gonna come in and make musical decisions. So I mean that’s sort of one of the failings of some programs out there, is that they sort of teach that middle road but they don’t do either side, you know they don’t…expand out to the two extremes of the profession… (Donahue)

Learning to Listen

Listening skills are highly necessary, so building those skills is imperative. Moore was quick to assert this during our conversation:

…what matters is … that you’re in there developing listening skills, one way or another. And that’s really vitally important. And in my opinion, my humble but correct opinion, I think that ... for an audio major, it’s really important to have that continue for so many reasons. (Moore)

Interacting with and studying classical music lends listening skills that are applicable across genre. Of course, it makes the most sense to approach music proficiency from a place of familiarity. Introducing the elements of music, especially those that are more abstract such as tonality and form, using an example of music students already know would be a more effective introduction than diving right in to unfamiliar territory, and is a great first step in building understanding of the concepts to which each word refers. The crucial next step, however, would be to then move on to picking them out in music with which they are not familiar.

While it might not be the initial choice for instruction because of its relative lack of popularity and career prospects, classical music is a perfect tool for learning musical concepts because of the rules that already exist within the genre. There already exists an entire syntax and field of study dedicated to musical elements within classical music, and Coleman 27 hundreds of years’ worth of material that has already been analyzed and dissected. This means there are ready-made lessons on the elements of music contained within pieces of music, especially in the Baroque and Classical periods, when musical customs prioritized setting and following rules. On top of that, the performances themselves are a study in dynamics and balance; “the orchestra mixes itself” is a common figure of speech and is true of instrumental ensembles of all sizes and makeups. The relationships between sections in an orchestra are governed by the same acoustic rules that apply to all genres of music, so a grasp of orchestral arrangement and performance provides a foundation for mixing skills for any genre.

Even just studying one additional new genre doubles the number of perspectives from which a student can draw. However, approaching new genres can be difficult.

Grossman, with years of professional and educational conducting experience4, spoke on how one can become more familiar with orchestral music, though her words could apply to any genre of music:

Well, the first thing you do is you start listening. Number one, you start listening. And you get really comfortable with going to the library and hitting play, or asking people for, or attending concerts and listening, and be ok with your ear. … and not be judgmental of your ear or- that’s not the right word, not to, to question your own opinion. You know, you’re allowed to not understand it, and you’re allowed to think that you do understand it. You know, it’s both…it goes both ways…And so you just have to feel comfortable understanding it or not understanding it. (Grossman)

Exposure is the key first step to gaining familiarity. After that, understanding can be achieved. As Richard and Chin made clear, understanding of music can be gained solely

4 as past conducting faculty at Interlochen Center for the Arts, conductor of the Contemporary Youth Orchestra and current tour conductor for Styx Coleman 28 through listening, and just this understanding makes a significant difference in knowledge and expertise.

For example, take this moment during a masterclass by Leslie Ann Jones with the

University of Rochester audio and music engineering program, while she was critiquing students’ mixes:

“One of the mixes was a nicely rendered jazz piece written by another student featuring piano, saxophone, electric guitar, electric bass and drum kit. However, it had ‘so much compression everywhere that nothing breathes,’ Jones said. ‘Even when you get to the loudest part of the sax solo, I don’t feel that ‘ah-ha’ moment of someone having achieved greatness over the last 24 bars.’” (Marcotte)

Did compression manage to become such a standard in pop music because it’s a style that doesn’t utilize dynamics to communicate musical ideas, or is pop music so homogenous in its dynamics because of how integral the compressed sound is to the medium?

Regardless, had this student had instruction in deliberate listening of jazz and classical recordings, they would have had an awareness of how integral dynamics and tone color, attributes that neutralized by compression, are to the expression of musical ideas, and would have been better equipped to understand the effects of the use and the lack of use of compression in a track. That is the effectiveness of just one additional point of view: it creates an exponential growth in perspective. Recall again Epstein’s words: “Breadth of training predicts breadth of transfer. That is, the more contexts in which something is learned, the more the learner creates abstract models, and the less they rely on any particular example” (76).

During my interview with Liza, our conversation turned to the benefits of being a student of music. She mentioned a particular facet of her teaching philosophy, which is to Coleman 29 always take into account and trial students’ suggestions in rehearsal if they are different from her own, and then to work together to decide which to implement,

…because in order for you to have an opinion, you have to be able to know how to do it more than one way. Or, understand what the other side is saying. How do you know if that fingering is the best one unless you can also do the one that your teacher is suggesting? You can do them both? Great, now you have an opinion of which one’s gonna work best for you or which sound you like better. So I think that approaching the arts that way and allowing for that creative freedom is applicable to having confidence in decision making that you’re making in other aspects of your life. Because you’re gonna be open, you’re not gonna have blinders on, you’re gonna listen to someone else’s opinion and feel really comfortable with, hopefully comfortable with any decision making that you make because you will have thought through it. (Grossman)

Although she is referring in this example to the musical decisions that must be made by performers and conductors, the principle holds true to any decision-making, especially that which is done in collaboration with others.

In Jones’ aforementioned article about producing competitive songs, the premise seems to indicate a non- genre-specific approach so that the practice could be applied to any genre. Yet every example given in the body of the article refers to commercial pop music. Teaching the four components of form, instrumentation, texture variation, and audio/production techniques with regard to multiple genres would better serve students for two reasons. First, it would provide a platform for introducing and listening different genres in the classroom. Second, it would give students the opportunity to build a robust understanding of music separate from genre. If a student is only taught to listen for and work with the form and textures of pop music, they may have trouble doing so in another genre. However, if they can identify those things in pop, classical, jazz, and EDM, chances are they will be able to identify them in any genre because they understand the concepts themselves, independently of how they present in any single genre Coleman 30

Moore touched on this concept as we discussed how time in the classroom could be used to maximum advantage:

…the thing that worries me about you know a lot of programs is that they focus so much on commercial or pop or that kind of thing … maybe that’s where the money is and that’s what they’re thinking about, but I think … if you were trained only in that you can do nothing else. If you’re trained in a classical environment you develop an ear and a style that’s transferrable. (Moore)

Again, Epstein’s ideas prevail. A skill or knowledge base that can be applied to many situations is more valuable than that which can only be applied to one. This is an especially important point with regard to the music industry, where uncertainty and unpredictability dominate. “As ambiguity and uncertainty increase,” Epstein states,

“…breadth becomes increasingly important” (207).

Exposure Reduces Fear

Exposure to a range of genres is necessary not only for skill-building, but also for personal growth. Experiencing firsthand a variety of scenarios makes for a student who is confident in the studio and in their own choices. A range of experience from which they can draw aids in decision-making during a production as well as broader decision-making about career and affinity. To put it simply, it is necessary for someone to try things before they can decide which one they are best at or enjoy the most. In his discussion on this topic, Epstein uses the term “match quality,” a phrase “economists use to describe the degree of fit between the work someone does and who they are” (128). A student can’t know the genres they like or dislike working with, or the genres they are good or bad at, until they’ve actually interacted with them. This calls back to Grossman’s words on Coleman 31 needing multiple perspectives in order to have an informed opinion: “…in order for you to have an opinion, you have to be able to know how to do it more than one way.”

This necessary trial period can be scary or intimidating because it necessarily involves interaction with the unknown. Martone addressed this when our conversation turned to a noted lack of interest in classical music from P&E students:

…so, if I may, I would say the reason people might be resistant to [learning about classical music] is cause they’re afraid. So like, when you don’t know about something, your first reaction is ‘oh I don’t really need to know that’ or ‘I don’t want to know that’…

… but again if you’re talking about people who are scared of classical music, there has to be a little bit of way- you know it’s like when you’re drinking wine. …if you wanna learn about fine wine and you’re- you’ve never had a glass of good wine, you have to find a way in. And usually the way in is…start with something, somebody says ‘you should try this’ … and you’re like ‘oh, I like this!’ Or ‘oh I don’t like this.’ Same with art. If you go to a museum and you’re scared of the artwork because you don’t know- like I go to a museum and I’m not even sure what I’m looking at cause I don’t have any background in it, but I can know that I like it or I don’t like it, and that leads me on to the next thing. It’s that same way in music, you listen to something and you’re like ‘oh I really like that, I wonder what else is like this.’ (Martone)

This is a perfect explanation of the process of assessing match quality. Martone also shines a light on the reason why people may often forgo this process, even if it will benefit them in the long run: fear. She goes on to say that said fear can be circumvented by direction and recommendation from someone with more experience. In this case, the best time for a P&E student to experience and sample unknowns is when they are still a student, under the direction of their experienced instructors.

Cross-Genre Influences in the Billboard Top 200 of 2019

Interestingly, an argument for experience with multiple genres can be found in recent popular music charts. A survey was done of genre-crossing in the top thirty albums Coleman 32 of Billboard’s Top 200 of 2019 to assess the presence or influence of classical music in those albums. Musical genre is fluid and resists exact definition, especially in contemporary material, so for the purposes of this survey, presence or influence of classical music was determined by looking for: a) the use of acoustic non-strummed string, wind, or brass instruments or b) a head producer who has a significant level of musical proficiency. Of the top thirty albums, five are soundtrack albums and twenty-five are non-soundtrack albums. The soundtrack albums were disregarded for this survey; although they may contain pop music, they are were created for the purposes of a film and should not be compared to standard pop music albums. One of the twenty-five non- soundtrack albums is Queen’s Greatest Hits, which was also disregarded, as it was released in 1981 and is not relevant to this discussion of current music trends. The remaining twenty-four albums comprise the body of work surveyed.

The purpose of this survey was to assess how many top albums of the year were the product of some sort of incorporation of classical music. Using AllMusic and Jaxsta, it was determined that eleven out of the twenty-four albums had traditional orchestral instruments on at least one of their tracks. Of the remaining thirteen, another ten were from artists or producers who were musically proficient due to a background of classical instrumental or vocal training.

Cross-Genre Influences in the Billboard Top 10 Non-Soundtrack Albums of 2019

• # 1 When We All Fall Asleep, Where Do We Go? – Billie Eilish

Producer Finneas – see below

• # 2 thank u, next – Arianna Grande

Track 4 “Bloodline” – sax, trumpet, trombone Coleman 33

Track 6 “Bad Idea” – strings

Track 8 “Ghostin” - strings

• # 4 Lover – Taylor Swift

Track 1 “I Forgot That You Existed” – sax, trumpet, trombone

Track 12 “Soon You’ll Get Better” – fiddle

• #5 beerbongs and Bentleys – Post Malone

Producer Andrew Watt – see below

• #7 Championships – Meek Mill

Track 6 “Respect the Game” – strings

Track 8 “Championships” – strings

Track 19 “Cold Hearted II” - strings

• #8 Astroworld – Travis Scott

Track 17 “Coffee Bean” - strings

• #9 Hollywood’s Bleeding - Post Malone

Producer Andrew Watt – see below

Overall, twenty-one out of the twenty-four albums surveyed were created either with orchestral instruments or by someone who had training as a musician.

Finneas O’Connell, producer for sister Billie Eilish5, grew up with piano and guitar lessons, and spent childhood learning to play pop songs on the piano. This experience is observable in his production philosophy: in a conversation with Sound on

Sound, he says "I don't generally quantise synth or piano patches, and obviously when you are playing real instruments, it's much harder to quantise them and make them sound

5 and performer of his own solo act FINNEAS Coleman 34 authentic…I just play a part until it is right..." (quoted in Tingen). Having a background in instrumental music has resulted a musically proficient ear, and he understands the importance of expression in the instrumentals of a track.

Perhaps the most striking evidence of this proficiency is Eilish and O’Connell’s recent collaboration with composer Hans Zimmer on the theme for the upcoming James

Bond movie No Time to Die. An interview with all three artists for Vulture details the timeline of the song’s production. First, after meeting with a producer from the film:

…they were given parts of the script and went about the business of creating a theme. Finneas had originally tried to compose it on guitar, but, Eilish says diplomatically, “it … did not work. And we actually had pretty bad writer’s block.” Then Finneas ditched his guitar and located a piano…and played a little riff. “It’s the first thing you hear in the song,” Eilish says. “Immediately we were like, ‘Ohhhh.’ It just suddenly made sense. And then we wrote the rest.” From there, it went off for approval to Zimmer in L.A., who had already been offered a small suite of options from several artists ... But when he heard Eilish and Finneas’s offering, he knew it was the one: “That’s the vibe. That’s the everything. It’s a perfect movie song: In its quietness, somehow, you have a huge landscape in front of you.” (Barshad)

Just the story of how the theme came into being illuminates how pivotal O’Connell’s musical sensibilities were to the creation of the final product. The continuing development and actual production of the track provide still more evidence:

The trio eventually convened in person for a few days of recording with a 70-- person orchestra at George Martin’s air Studios in London, now housed in a gorgeous, acoustically pristine Victorian-era church. “We experimented around,” says Zimmer. “We experimented for a while,” Eilish says. “We experimented with 70 people,” Zimmer says, laughing. With Billie and Finneas’s input, Zimmer eventually assembled two wholly different string arrangements for the song. … The collaboration didn’t end there. As Zimmer continued to work on the score, he solicited their advice. He would send pieces of music, then ask for input: variations, tweaks, suggestions. “I would text Finneas, ‘Can I just get a little da- da-da whatever?’ ” (Barshad) Coleman 35

The final product was therefore a result O’Connell’s and Eilish’s input as much as it was of Zimmer’s composition. This likely would not have been the case if they were lacking in musical proficiency.

Even apart from pop and classical coming together in the development of the track, “No Time to Die” is a genre cross just due to its instrumentation. At the BRIT

Awards, the live performance of the track consisted of Eilish performing with O’Connell and Zimmer on piano and backed by a full orchestra (Roberts). The studio recording of the song includes an isolated horn section preceding a full orchestra. Consequently, both the live performance and studio recording of this track depended on the expertise of producers and engineers who could work with orchestral instruments as well as pop vocals.

It’s probable that the production crews working with the orchestra for those sessions and performance were already specialized in producing that kind of music. Even so, an argument remains for people who do not work with classical music on the regular to have some idea of how to handle it. Grossman has had experience in this particular situation as well. At the conclusion of each season, CYO collaborates with a pop or rock musician for a “Rock the Orchestra” concert, and with each musician or band comes their crew:

I’ve also had experience with people who have only recorded rock bands, and they are traveling with the band. And their focus is ‘how do I record the band,’ and then the orchestra is always like a second thought, and it has been not successful. Recordings have been lost as a result. (Grossman)

Although such a situation might be rare, the lesson is still plain: any job may end up requiring more skills sets than anticipated. As Epstein points out multiple times, Coleman 36 preparedness for such a demand can only be attained by broadening the scope of learning, and not fall into a cognitive rut. Even Donahue, who has worked at Soundmirror, a classical-focused production company, since 1997, has done work with other genres. In fact, it was his expertise in critical listening that allowed him to be successful as a hip- hop mastering engineer for several years when the market for classical music shrank drastically in the late 1990s (Donahue).

Mazurek commented on the instructional tunnel vision she has noticed in the institution where she teaches:

I teach at another school where classical music is kind of an afterthought, you know, it’s just one semester, one elective that you can take, and the focus of that program seems to be like electronic music production, or at least heading in that direction and that’s what their deal is, but I feel like almost anybody can go and do that. Not everybody can place a microphone or, you know, go on a remote with equipment and record an orchestra. (Mazurek)

She goes on to say that she had to do a great deal of self-teaching when she started at

WFMT, and that the transition into that position would have been a great deal easier if her education had included instruction in non-pop genres.

Communication is Key

This kind of work with orchestral instruments extends beyond just knowing how to mic and mix the instruments themselves. It also demands understanding of how to work with the musicians that play them. As a performing classical musician who has spent a great deal of time with other performing musicians, I know firsthand how particular we can get about our performance space. The lighting is wrong, we are spaced too close together or too far apart, the sections are sitting in a different order than they are used to, there is a mic stand, cable, or music stand in an inconvenient place—these are all Coleman 37 common (and legitimate) complaints that I have heard, even just in rehearsal.

Understanding these issues and resolving them empathetically, or coming up with a compromise if the complaint cannot be completely satisfied, is paramount for the success of a session. Precious time is saved and a comfortable and collaborative atmosphere is maintained. Moore spoke to the importance of his communication abilities in his role as producer:

…I would say one of my greatest assets as a producer is my ability to communicate with other musicians, and my ability to gain their trust quickly. Because you know oftentimes…let’s say I have a new client, I’m coming in as a complete unknown to the musicians, and you know it’s like, you’re there working with these musicians, they’ve put a lot of blood sweat and tears and a lot of money into these projects, and so they’re like ‘who are you and what do you know and why should I be listening to you.’ So it’s a lot of psychology, a lot of relationships building, but because I speak their language, and I know about the instruments, I know about the music, I can gain their trust pretty quickly so that they don’t have to worry about the recording process, that’s my job. (Moore)

As Moore states, having the same background as the musicians is a tremendous advantage when it comes to communication and collaboration. This advantage is available to anyone, regardless of experience in playing an instrument, through the acquisition of music proficiency.

Though the particular example of Moore concerns classical music, the need for connection and communication between producers and engineers and the musicians they work with is present in every genre. The way a producer or engineer interacts with the musicians being recorded is integral to the success of a session. I asked Grossman what effective communication means to her; as the conductor of a youth orchestra, she is responsible for staying in touch with the production crew as well as her musicians, many of whom have never experienced a recording session before. Her reply was immediate: Coleman 38

Always an open dialogue. Always I’m comfortable asking a question. If I don’t understand what’s happening, I don’t feel as though I’m going to offend anyone by saying ‘can you explain this to me?’ It’s always, literally, ‘I haven’t seen this before and I would like to learn from this. Can you tell me what you’re doing?’

EC- Right, and so, then having that happen the other way around, of having someone ask you that same question would also be welcome.

LG- yeah, what I tend to do is walk whomever it is, whether it’s somebody I’ve worked with all the time or rarely or never, is I walk them to the orchestra and I tell them where my principals are. Here’s my principal bassoon, here’s my principal flute, here’s my principal horn, here’s my principal trombone, this is the portion of the bass section I want the mic nearest, I do not want the mic in this section of the second violins because they are not playing in rhythm properly. I’d like you to- you don’t have to mic the principals, but keep the ambient mic in this area. So I feel comfortable saying all of that out loud. There’s no question. (Grossman)

To reiterate, Bielmeier and Gordon also cite the ability to communicate with musicians as a central facet of music proficiency. The same priority can be seen in Toulson, where

“communication skills” is one on a list of three key skill areas6 for P&E students.

Thompson and McIntyre provide a third concurrence when they assert that a student’s ability to contribute creativity to their field is contingent upon their engagement with the social aspects of the field7.

Hypothetical Course Outline

The following is the outline of a schedule for a hypothetical semester-long music production course which explicitly incorporates instruction in music proficiency. This is an exercise to demonstrate how the arguments outlined above might be applied to a classroom setting. For this particular section I find it important to issue a disclaimer: I am

6 the other two items on the list are “technical skills” and “project management skills” 7 that “ability” being music proficiency and “engagement with social aspects” being communication Coleman 39 not a music industry educator, and though I have done a meaningful amount of research on music industry education, I by no means consider myself an expert. This course outline is a thought experiment and is not intended to be a specific set of recommendations or a criticism of those classes in which I have been a student in the past.

Since this class exists purely in the realm of hypotheticals, I have planned a semester based off of a rather idealized set of circumstances. The class described below would meet three times a week, twice for 60-minute lectures and once for a 120-minute lab. The class size would not exceed ten students, and would take place in facilities with enough equipment, electronic resources, and physical space to accommodate each student. The class would be taught within a school with sufficient connections or resources to bring in high-level musicians to collaborate with the students during their lab time. The concepts and instruction described would be for an upper-middle level class, the second out of a series of three or the third out of a series of four production classes.

Week 1 – Introduction and review of hard skills – DAW, studio, and console

• Introduce course goals

• Assess weak areas that need additional focus or review

Lab: review studio and console skills, review DAW use during production

Skills: DAW, studio, console

Week 2 – Critical listening and mixing

• Discuss the concept of critical listening

• Discuss the elements of music

Listening exercise: identify the elements of music in three different examples Coleman 40

• Introduce the concept of mixing – this is the start of a conversation that will

continue throughout the semester

• Discuss how mixing incorporates each element of music

***Assign initial project

Lab: mixing OOTB

Skills: Listening, processing, console, communication

Week 3 – Space and capture

• Discuss the concept of space and how it presents in a final product

Listening exercise: identifying the intended space of a final product, comparing

space between genres

• How is the physical space used during production? How does one capture or

avoid capturing the room?

• How is space achieved through post-production techniques?

Listening exercise: listen to a track that was processed to have a different space

than the recording space and whose post-production info is readily available.

After listening, walk students through the post production of the track

Lab: micing a room with a live musician, manipulating the result to evoke different spaces than the one it was recorded in

Skills: mic techniques, communication with musicians, processing and plugins

Week 4 – In-class recording 1, final project assigned

Week 5 – Song structure, instrumentation, texture

• Introduce the elements of song structure

Listening exercise: identify the song structure of three different examples Coleman 41

• Introduce the concepts of instrumentation and arrangement and what each

achieves

Listening exercise: identify the instrumentation of three different examples.

Discuss what different instrumentation would have achieved

• Discuss texture, and tone color. Highlight the fact that these have some degree of

subjectivity about them and can be difficult to pin down

Listening exercise: identify textures and tone colors from the same examples as

above, use the concept of instrumentation to facilitate

***Initial project due

Lab: Share and discuss initial projects. Doing so in the lab space allows for good monitoring and the ability to give practical demonstrations

Skills: editing, plugins (reverb, filters, effects), instrument familiarity

Week 6 – Tonality, tuning, and intonation

• These words sound very similar – deliberately explain each one

• Introduce the vocabulary of tonality – assuming students are already familiar

with the concept but maybe not the vocabulary

Listening: identify the tonality of three different songs. Discuss the effect it has

on the product overall

• Discuss intonation, what it means to be out of tune, and how to tell if an

instrument or vocalist is out of tune

Listening: listen to tones and melodies that are in tune and out of tune. Discuss

how to identify intonation Coleman 42

• Review how different instruments are (or aren’t) tuned, and how their acoustics

work

Lab: Experiment with micing different instruments – plucked strings, amped plucked strings, bowed strings, winds, brass, percussion

Skills: instrument familiarity, communication with musicians

Week 7 – In class recording 2

Week 8 – Dynamics and compression

• Discuss how dynamics influence the experience of listening to a song, both in

terms of expression of meaning and emotion and in terms of the actual

experience of listening (do you have to be constantly messing with the volume, is

it way softer or way louder than songs usually are, etc)

Listening exercise: listen to three different examples and graph dynamics over

time, compare the dynamic range of each example

• Demonstrate the application of compression and explain how a compressor affects

a track on a waveform level

Listening exercise: listen to an example compressed and uncompressed. This

doesn’t have to be an entire song, but should be a part that has dynamic range in

its uncompressed state

Lab: Record a live musician, experiment with recording with compression and with using compression in post-production

Skills: studio, console, plugins and processing, instrument familiarity

Week 9 – Compression continued

Week 10 – EQ 1 Coleman 43

Week 11 – EQ 2

Week 12 – Rhythm, meter, and tempo

Week 13 – In-class recording 3

Week 14 – Catch-up and review

Week 15 – Final project due day of lab

Initial project – Each student chooses a set of stems and a mock proposal of a final product from an artist from a list of five. Each proposal will have a hypothetical stylistic goal the artist would like to achieve: “Here are the stems for a single by Musical

Group. The band is looking for a product that is wispy and ethereal [or futuristic and upbeat, or funky and down to earth].” The goal for this project is to understand and apply the pre-production and post-production processes without having to worry about executing the production itself, as well as evaluate a production that has already occurred.

Pre-production – Students will analyze the instrumentation of their chosen session. They will use that information to make a track sheet, write out mic choices, illustrate a studio set up, and declare any isolation or dubbing they would plan to do to.

They will write a simple explanation of the decisions made.

Post-production – Students will edit and mix their session to achieve the desired final product. They will again write a simple explanation of the decisions made. They will also write a “wish list,” which would consist of anything they would have done differently from the actual production to achieve the hypothetical final production.

In class recordings – For each in-class recording, an artist or musical group comes in to the studio and the class works together in lab to record two to three tracks.

Before each session, students work together to create the pre-production products they Coleman 44 created in the initial product. After the session, each student gets a copy of the stems to work with, to put toward the final project. Each of the three scheduled in-class recordings should be of a different genre. The two lectures during the week of an in-class recording dedicated to catch-up, session planning, and questions and review, so that students feel adequately prepared for the session.

Final project - Students create a five-song EP of their choice of five tracks from the in-class recording sessions. This is a project that should be worked on over the course of the semester, starting with the first in-class recording during Week 4. Students will use skills gained over the course of the semester to mix their tracks and put together a cohesive final product. The EP will be accompanied by a written piece with an analysis of decisions made. The written piece is not the main product of this project, but simply serves to encourage students to think about every decision that they make.

Labs – Labs would include a variety of experiences. First, they would serve to apply principles discussed in classroom in a studio setting. This has the dual purpose of applying concepts from lecture in a “real” studio situation and familiarizing students with outboard gear, working out of the box, troubleshooting the studio, and so on.

Labs would also be used to work with musicians live in an informal setting as opposed to the more formal in-class recordings. Some labs would consist of having a drummer in the studio, or a cellist, or a vocalist, to be able to experiment in a live setting.

When it comes to requiring instruction in reading sheet music, I am solidly on the fence. Some of the producers I interviewed seemed to feel like the ability to read music was a non-negotiable, and that anyone who couldn’t do so would be missing something fundamental. This may be true for someone working exclusively in classical music Coleman 45 production or post-production. However, when it comes to instruction in classical music production for general music production students, I am hesitant to present the skill as a must. I think pushing the ability to read music might dissuade students from engaging with classical music. Just like reading written words, it is a big skill to learn, and it takes a long time to get really good at it. It is daunting to be faced with the task of having to acquire such a skill at the level required to understand entire scores. In my opinion, the ability to efficiently talk about music to others is the most important skill for producers and engineers, and while an understanding of sheet music might facilitate this, I do not believe it’s a requirement.

On the other hand, being able to read sheet music is extremely useful. A lot of musical information can be absorbed in a relatively short time from written music. Being able to follow a score makes it possible to have a physical representation of the entire piece removed from linear time, enabling you to make notes, compare different segments to each other, and see the “big picture”. As stated above, understanding sheet music can aid in spoken communication, since the language we use to talk about music often pulls from vocabulary used in written music.

Although the benefits of being able to read sheet music are compelling, I also think most of them are only available to those who are able to do so at a high level. Thus, asking a student to learn to read sheet music for those reasons would be at best pointless, and at worst frustrating and alienating.

I believe that the best compromise would be to focus on building a foundation of vocabulary so that students can discuss music with others and be confident in their Coleman 46 language. This strategy would also create the opportunity for students to become familiar with the vocabulary of multiple genres.

Conclusion

The benefits of including classical music in music production and engineering classrooms are numerous. In addition to directly building music proficiency and its many facets, classical music instruction will also help to foster the breadth of experience that is critical to success. Epstein adopts the terms “kind” and “wicked” from psychologist

Robin Hogarth to describe different kinds of learning environments (20-21). A kind learning environment has clear, consistent rules, and actions taken get immediate feedback; he provides chess and golf as examples. A wicked learning environment is the opposite—the rules are unclear and fluid and the feedback is incorrect or counterintuitive.

Media industries are examples of some of the most wicked environments, where trends are nearly impossible to predict, and success and failure are seemingly unconstrained by the laws of logic. Indeed, Epstein cites a study of the success of comic book creators which found that breadth of experience was the sole predictor of that creator’s success, not length of experience or level of access to resources. He also exemplifies notable figures in other media industries, Hayao Miyazaki, Neil Gaiman, and Jordan Peele, all dependably successful within their fields8 and all with diverse backgrounds that span

8 fantasy animation, popular fiction, and comedy screenwriting/directing, respectively, though Miyazaki has created comics and movies in nearly every genre, Gaiman has authored a comics series and written several TV shows, and Peele has written, acted, and directed horror as well as comedy Coleman 47 genre, medium, and audience (209-210). Mazurek confirmed this trend within the music industry:

Well I think it’s good to be exposed to [classical music] even though you may not, it may not be your main focus when you go out in your career, but maybe at some point you have to record like a string section or a horn section or a choir or something and … it’ll give you insight as to how to do that and make it sound like a section as an ensemble and not a bunch of like, session strings … So I think that’s like a really good perspective to have, cause you’re gonna draw influence from all types of things. (Mazurek)

Especially as the field continues to develop in unpredictable ways, aspiring music industry professionals must understand that breadth is the key to success in such a wicked environment.

The music industry is defined by creative disruption, with each passing year bringing about change and innovation that redefines the industry. We are currently seeing streaming take center stage as the main route of distribution and consumption, while access to technology makes it possible for an artist to gain rapid international fame from an album that was produced in a bedroom. Even as I am writing these words, the music industry is being turned on its ear by COVID-19, which caused the live music scene to evaporate nearly overnight. Artists and production personnel have had to turn on a dime in order to adapt, and some may ultimately not be successful. Responses to the Pearson

Global Learner survey show that current students already understand that they will need to continue to learn and re-train throughout the course of their career (16). This oxymoronic state of constant change necessitates the building of fundamental, transferrable skills that ease transition and adaptation.

Even apart from being successful as a student or successful in the job market, the breadth and skills that come from learning about classical music as a P&E student simply Coleman 48 provide the opportunity for personal growth as an artist. Inspiration can come from anywhere, and having a broad understanding of the many facets of music makes it possible to take advantage of that inspiration. In Moore’s words, “It’s about developing the ear, it’s about listening, critical listening, you know, it’s about expanding your horizons to what might be possible sonically.” This is especially important for students to take to heart: while we are in school, our main responsibility is to learn, grow, and experiment with what is possible. It may be our only moment to do so before the demands of income and career reduce the opportunity for experimentation for its own sake. Using classical music in the classroom to promote a cross-genre approach to music production and engineering allows students to use their valuable education to its fullest advantage.

Coleman 49

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