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What makes a really big hit?
Why certain song are played over and over again, even after
many years from their recording? Why do they never go out of
fashion or become boring? I am not intending to say, that
the melody, lyrics or harmony have no influence on this. But
there is one more thing, which cane make it or... brake it.
It is arrangement.
Is arrangement
important at all?
Arrangement in music production
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Is the arrangement important
at all and actually what does it
mean? After all, why to care about it when I already have
recorded a
good composition and it sounds great? And how the
arrangement looks like on famous, world-class musicians
albums?
This article will answer these questions and will give you many
useful suggestions as how to achieve a great sound of your
music by arrangement
alone.
Mp3-mastering examples>>
Let's answer the question first; what exactly is arranging
a song? Who actually is the producer-arranger, who
produces music?
Arrangement is a layout and instrumentation of a
music piece.
A layout in the sense of the order and length of intros,
verses, choruses, bridges, etc. And
instrumentation in
terms of why a solo in the song is played by saxophone for example,
rather than guitar. Or, in which point a new instrument, a voice
or a
synthesizer is introduced for the second verse.
Because we have defined the word "arrangement" and we know now what the word means
let's continue to the practical application of the skill of
arrangement in the production
of music. To some musicians or composers this skill is not known,
so they do not cooperate with an arranger. In
general, many of today's musicians (or composers) arrange themselves,
they decide on
track layout, they record themselves all the tracks, they mix them
themselves and they are trying to master by themselves. Of course,
this may not give as good results as the work carried out by
a
specialist. Specialization at various stages of
music production is the key to the success of music. The person
who determines the length of the song, the order of verses,
of what instrument should be playing and what not, and even
who takes part in recording of an album and who does not is called a
producer. He is the most important
person in the process of creating music. Let's look at this
small story:
A guitarist found some chords which did sound something quite
like a start to a nice song that he really likes. He plays it over and
over again and likes it more and more. He feels that this could be a good material for a song! He takes
the guitar, goes to the producer and says: 'Look, what do
you think? "- And he plays before him murmuring the melodic
line of the song. The producer is a person with very strong
sense of imagination to visualize how the song should look
like, how it should be constructed. Immediately catching, he
realizes the potential of these chords to become a major hit
and the ideas are starting to grow in his head. The ideas of
how should it sound
when ready-what instruments should play in it, whether to
rent female backing vocals for chorus or not, what type of mixing
console is best to be used and how should it shape the final
sound
and who of the 15 drummers cooperating with him would be best
to play drums for this song. This is the
professionalism of the vast knowledge of music production
collected in one man, who did not necessarily ever played any
instrument - he simply feels and knows what to do with the
few chords played in front of him by the guitarist to make
it a hit, which will
be heard throughout the world.
The music producer can be compared to the film
director. When I watch b-movies, I
always have the impression that they are poorly assembled
and therefore lose very much. The actors playing, the pictures,
etc. may be okay, but the scenes assembly suffers. Assembly should
be dealt
with by the director and it is a very decisive factor
whether the movie will grab attention and keep it till the
end or not. The producer decides how much time the scene is
supposed to
run, what kind of music is used, what should be the scenes sequence, etc. A well-cut movie is
holding tension all the time, the viewer does not even
know when the hour or two have passed ... And if the director
will make a mistake in scene cutting- everything else is for nothing!
The viewer leaves after half an hour or switches the TV to
something else
because he is no more interested, not drew-in. So even if big money
have been spent for the costumes, horses, landscapes,
special fx, if
they are simply hard to notice in this movie? The entire
actors play, and even the
best pictures will be lost if the director (producer) is
not able to arrange a sequence of scenes in such a way that
the viewer is perceiving it as one, whole piece of a show and is
always interested what will follow next.
Similarly, with music - even the best composition will lose a
lot or even all of it's artistic energy if
it is not properly produced and arranged. Good phrase
or riff if it is too long starts to be boring. The length of a song must be
just right, neither too long nor too short, otherwise the
listener will not keep with it to the end.
And he will never want to listen to it for a second time,
not mentioning about spending money on it.
And vice versa, if the song or track is really good, or
very well produced and arranged, the listener will be listening to it in
circles. The song will be played frequently on the
radio, will appear on charts and eventually will become a
hit and earn big money.
Needless to mention that the producer also
takes a lot of earnings out of it. And rightly so, because he has to be
done justice for his skill after all :-).
Of course, sometimes there is the situation that the whole band
itself acts as a producer, having
credits for the production. Situation like this took place
with groups such as
Pink Floyd, which was the producer of their albums, and a
talented engineer Alan Parsons cared only for the quality, sound effects,
microphones, etc. It is worth mentioning, that he founded the group after, an excellent
Alan Parsons Project, which recalled the music of Pink
Floyd very much.
Okay :-). We know now what is arranging, who is the
arranger and producer, and why the production is so important.
Now is the time for specific tips on how to do this, to make
our music well produced\orchestrated and arranged if we can not
afford us the best producer in the world, and we need to do
it ourselves.
There are several things that we need to remember as we
proceed to to the final mixdown of a track. They are:
1 Not necessarily all the tracks that were hardly worked out
and perfected
during the recording must be used in our mix. Same as not
all the scenes recorded during the film making can be accommodated in
the 1 or 2 hours of the movie. Usually several hours
of pictures are filmed and the producer uses two. Same with music. Record 15 good
solos and use one. Or none :-). Be creative and not
schematic.
2 Not necessarily all the tracks must be on the same level. It is
typical that, especially in young bands everyone wants to be
well heard (if not the loudest) but it does not serve well
the whole recording session. Therefore, the manufacturer
decides who is to be in the foreground, who is on the second
plane, who is in the background and who unfortunately has to resign.
3 It is much better to make a piece that is too short then too long. If
the track is too short what a listener will do? Play it back again. And then again. And
again. Similarly, the radio
station will do the same. And if a song is too long? Well, then
a listener gets bored, will turn it off in the middle and will not play it over again.
Therefore, let us remember that if the song is long, having for
example 7-8 minutes this length must be somehow motivated by the
music, there must be something happening that justifies the
length, there must be some continuity
of the narrative. It can not be so long only because someone
unnecessarily repeated a verse by copy and paste method simply to gain
length. Sometimes, a monotonous effect is needed in styles
like trance,
and this can be achieved by a gain in length. But it is not always the case,
it
is a rather rare. From the other hand it is ALWAYS better to
make it too short then too long ;-). So make it a rule.
4 Not necessarily everything that is worked out carefully and
by hard work HAS ANY VALUE. The most important thing in
music is "Feel" and it does not come
from a tension. It comes from a relaxed and neutral awareness and
the objective
perspective on everything. It is important to know what's
going on in what we do - as an artist painting the image must have
good lighting to see colors so the music producer or
performer must hear
what is happening in music-and to achieve that he has to be completely
neutral, relaxed. What really counts is the atmosphere! Good music can not
be recorded in a bad atmosphere. The process of recording and
postproduction music is a process of "feel registration".
If there is no feel and musicians themselves feel that
something is wrong with their music how can they expect from their listeners to
love their work and listen to it in circles?? First, they must feel
it themselves and then the others will surely feel it also. FEEL IS
THE MOST IMPORTANT THING! It is what the people want. And
they buy CD's to experience
the
feel. They buy FEEL, rather than empty sounds.
As for the spirit of music ..... this is the spirit of art.
And the art is all about the transfer of human emotions, the feel. People
love what they really feel and they pass by indifferently if
the things do not move them. Therefore, the artist must feel what he does.
This is his profession. But to be able to feel he must have
his tools set up and mastered well enough to make everything
automatically and not loose the time and energy on struggling
with the technical side. This is the only way to achieve
creativeness in music. Only what
is done lightly, has any value as the emotion is. Then it
will live forever in the
sounds. And therefore it will be listened repeatedly by the
people all around the world.
5 The simplicity of approach. Often, it's likely that some
perfectionists are trying to do everything so perfectly that
it all breaks. Do not repeat this mistake and do not add
anything by force if a track is already fine. Very often,
removing some instruments will do much more then adding
something. Deleting some tracks from the mix can clearly improve the
whole thing and adding too many can completely and permanently ruin it. Add
something only if the whole thing gives the REAL impression that there
is something missing.
6 Contrast principle. Human psychology and sensitive
perception has something strange to it: it likes contrasts.
We perceive beauty in
general, thanks to contrasts contained in it in comparison
to ugly things. Therefore, a
good producer uses the contrasts in sound, tempo, dynamics and
using the effects.
Let's take a look at the way in which film producers attract
viewers by the contrasting scenes. It seems the same with
music. If for example we contrast 2 tracks - making one dull but loud and the other setting at
lower level but much
sharper we will get a better effect than setting both tracks
at the same level and
equally bright. Similarly, if we use reverb on one, but
the second will remain quite dry a human ear will be able to find a
contrast effect and the both tracks will sound more
interesting against each
other.
Monitoring in production
There is much talking about importance of monitoring in
music production. Well, it is just as
important as the camera's lens for a professional
photographer-through the lens the photographer sees what he
photographs. Similarly, it is also with the film tape used
for filming - each type casts colors and lighting in
slightly different way. The monitoring system should satisfy our sense of music-if we lack
in it high frequency sounds, for example (which is unfortunately
not uncommon, even in expensive and widely recognized monitors)
we should make sure we get what we really want. The best
monitoring system
is the one that we are just fond of and that we are familiar with.
Let's not trust too much the marketing madness and all the ads, the mere fact
that so many companies produce different monitors shows a
clear fact that
none of them are perfect. If there really existed an universal ideal
for monitoring it would not be needed to produce as many types of
monitoring devices and
advertising each one as the best or the most faithful :-). You have to find
the
monitors to please you really, and make you feel that they give
you information about the music the way you like it and need
it. And in terms of
psychology of creating it is also an extremely important
factor. Listening must
create an atmosphere in which you feel well and you are INSPIRED.
Therefore, monitoring is very important - we can not paint
the picture, if we do not see it clearly-we can not mix or remaster music if
we do not hear what we are doing. But it is not about
spending a
lot of money to get something that does
not meet our requirements. You have to know what you want,
and take advantage to the maximum of what you actually have
right now. That's the
whole key of the success.
Monitoring is not just an amplifier and speakers, but also
the room. Important thing here is that it does not have a lot of reverb
and it does have a nice, quiet atmosphere to work. More about
monitoring the music during the production can be read
here.
Monitoring in music production has to give us a total picture of what
we do with all the music. At the same time it has to create such general
atmosphere that inspires and draws us in and gives us a
sense of participation in the entire music spectacle that
just takes place in front of us. Then, what we do will be much,
much better.
Ego in production. Psychology of making music.
Well, we are all human beings ;-). Competition is something
very natural to us, it is a thing developed over the millions
years of evolution. We have to assume that we
usually want to be better than another. If we are musicians,
we
have a tendency to hierarchy -I am better, you're a little
worse, he is the best and he just is a mere "the boy
for beating". I play eight years and you play only four, I'm better
and I have a main vote here.
Those who feel better than other musical colleagues feel generally very
good :-). Especially when they are actually not that good
:-). You can say that their pride and ambition is met.
Be careful not to act like this, do not take such an approach to the arts, and
hence treat the music and the collective work as a team play. We are all
imperfect, if we cooperate with someone, we need to
accept him along with all his advantages and disadvantages,
and we need to treat him as part of ourselves. It really
requires a wealth of
skills and experience to look at the music work this way, as a common
effort, and at the same time to remain humble, being aware of the fact that music is
endless ...
The best bands always played in such a way that the
musicians listened to each other and got inspired. Mutual inspiration leads
to the fact that live music is attractive to listen and
gives the impression that there's some immanent intelligence
into it. If we
look at the aspect of EGO in the production, we will discover
that it teaches the importance of mutual relations in the
process of creating music. An experienced producer is also
an experienced psychologist. So he approaches his musicians
to squeeze everything good out of them, that is all that
they are capable of in the good sense of it. And while he is
doing this
approach he manages somehow, that everyone respect his decisions, which can
sometimes be confusing or even annoying to a musician. For
example, the drummer makes a roll and he considers
it the summit of a real high fashion and a peak of decorative work, and the
producer tells him that his role is to play very sparingly,
with no rolls.
Ego of the drummer here must give way before the authority of
the producer, who must always have a decisive voice and
comfort of making free decisions. Otherwise he would not be able to produce music.
The impression of immanent intelligence in rock music comes from the way in which musicians cooperate and listen to
each other, getting mutually inspired. An example of perfectly sounding
bands
may be The Beatles, Led Zeppelin, Deep Purple, Weather
Report, Jimi Hendrix's Band of Gypsies, Sonny Rollins Trio, Miles Davis
Band, and some newer things such as Iggy Pop, Metallica,
Guns and Roses. And, of course, many others.
From the other hand, the production of music based on a wide range of
techniques and styles of Techno-type, such as House, Ambient,
Acid, Club, Trans, Jungle, Industrial, etc., during
production, mastering the workshop is of utmost importance.
The workshop must be constrained so that the music feels to
you
when you create it exactly the same what the listener will feel at the moment
of
listening. The music group "The Prodigy", e.g., especially in
their older recordings has the impression that the music is
all alive, has intelligent rhythm and possesses a kind of an internal
intelligence, awareness, although this is just pure techno
music. This is the result of excellent
production. This is not about sound quality, but the general sense
and feel, the extent to which this is done, and it reaches
the listener. People do not respect in the musician a fact, that
he uses most expensive and the best model of amplifier or that
the band is recording in a very expensive studio, to tell the
truth listeners
do not give a damn about it :-). In fact, they respect in
musician
that he can bring them in a mood that they like, just like that. A conductor of
this mood is the producer of the recording. To bring the
listener into this mood the
producer and performers must first bring themselves in such a mood, if
they are nervous and tired of what they do for sure their
listeners will
receive this feeling and also will dislike it. Or even not,
the listeners
will soon escape from this negative emotions and will go to those who
give them the feel that they really like.
Therefore, the psychology of music production is so very
important.
Well, what to do with the production, if we do the music
ourselves, while at the same time, we are the composer and
the sound
engineer, and musician-performer of all of that, and the
producer making decisions-how much time this track is
supposed to run,
where should a verse and chorus be placed, and what instruments
should be used?
TRUST YOUR EMOTIONS AND FOLLOW THEM
First of all let yourself be relaxed, loose tension. Feel
what is done, trust your emotions of the moment. If
something seems to be wrong-delete it. If
a song starts to bore you after 5 minutes-shorten
it. If you get the impression of too much overloading of the
music-get rid of several tracks :-). If you are not fully and really convinced
by a
solo- just delete it. It will not do anything good to music anyways. Do not
expect the listener of your music that he will absolutely
love it if you are not fully convinced by what you have done yourself.
Speaking in other words, "Do not give others to eat something,
you can not eat yourselves. ;-)
And, most of all, do not treat what you do so DEADLY SERIOUSLY ;-).
You will land in the Stratosphere.
To be continued, stay in
touch ;-)
For all your questions and
inquires about music arrangement and other areas of music
production please contact us at:
ibestmastering@gmail.com
tel: +48 666 11 333 0
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