Sax Saturday: Brecker Licks

Oh, the cheese! I can't help but alliterate. It's just far too tempting. Anyway, I felt I should blog about the saxophone. I've been doing far more practicing lately, partly down to a new year's resolution to practice an hour-a-day. While I haven't actually lived up to it, well I'm kind of there, but need to make up about eighteen hours …. I'm in that deluded frame of mind where I'm convinced that I'll make up these odd hours when I have a spare minute. We'll see.

Today, I wanted to share a batch of Michael Brecker licks that I found on Steve Neff's web site. He's posted a PDF of forty trademark ideas that the late great saxophonist played. Brecker had such a distinctive sound, being inspired by rock guitarists as much as some of his R&B sax contemporaries. Hendrix-like squawks play as pivotal a role in his improvisation as arpeggiated chords and pentatonic patterns. Anyway, have a look at the web site and let me know how you get on – these are equally useful for guitarists and other instruments. http://www.neffmusic.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/downloads/2010/09/40-Brecker-Licks1.pdf

On another note, I was surprised this week while reading about Stan Getz by what Coltrane said about him: 'Let’s face it—we’d all sound like that if we could.'. I find this remarkable considering that Coltrane has such an amazing and distinctive tone. I mean, he basically led the way for tenor saxophone playing for the second half of the twentieth century. Brecker would had learned his solos by rote. Getz does have such a superb sound though - and it would be poor to simply associate him with those Jobim tracks that most people think of when they hear his name. He has such a clear, effortless sound that I really need to hear more of.

The Commerce of Magic: Music Production (Part Three)

Brace yourself for the final thirty minutes which I've summed up in this final blog post. Here goes …

Green Cross Code: Stop, Look, Listen
Getting the perfect take requires patience, but it helps if you're watching and listening to the takes. Some musicians might make a face or are noticeably disappointed with the way they've played. This might inform you of what they want to be re-recorded. Snyder says, however, that if you were happy with the take, sometimes you need to calm the player's worries and say, 'That was great, it was full of energy, we don't need to do that again' (my paraphrase … ).

Art and Commerce
'You always have to balance the idea of art and commerce.'. Snyder stresses the importance, as producer, of both making sure that the album is musically authentic while ensuring that it pleases the 'suits' and brings in some cash.

On Recording Etta James (Topical!)
He recounts his tale of recording Etta James in six hours because of a piano that wasn't up to the job – he canceled a day of recording in order to sort the piano out, putting pressure on the next day's schedule. The album was James's first jazzy album after years of soul: Mystery Lady, which is an album of slow Billie Holiday ballads.

Finally, the Traits of a Good Producer
You have to have a love for it, for the music, and its history.
You have to have a respect for the outcome and an understanding of the impact of the record on people that you will never meet.
A whole bag of other things: humility, patience, musicality, business, an ability to make sure something gets finished, a great attention to detail …

Thanks for reading. Tomorrow I'll be posting some sax-related stuff.

The Commerce of Magic: Music Production (Part Two)

Here's part two of my notes from Jonathan Snyder's monologue on music production.

Working With People You Haven't Worked With Before
While the musicians are setting up, find out what their strengths and weaknesses are, and then the first chance you hear something played well, complement them, but whatever you do, 'Don't fake it!'

This may be hard to take for some musicians, but because music production is a business: 'Occasionally, you have to replace somebody. Your obligation is to the result, not necessarily the musician'. I guess this counts as much outside of the studio as in: Miles Davis being a pretty ruthless example.

The Necessity of the Producer
'It's hard to be the artist and the audience at the same time'. The producer also works as a bridge between the 'suits'—the record company execs—-and the musicians, who more often than not, don't speak the same language. He quotes G. K. Chesterton, 'Art is limitation. The essence of every picture is the frame.', joking that musicians just want to play, sing, and write, so it's his job to add the frame and to focus the musician's performance.

Biggest Problems for Young Musicians in the Studio
Lack of preparation. It doesn't all 'just happen' in the studio. He sounds like a killjoy at this point, but he's bound to be right: 'Party after your work ... !'

Getting Started as a Producer
'You need to have a goal and a plan to achieve that goal. It's not good enough to just say "I want to do this." … Go to a band and say, "I really like what you did and stay with that band, go and see them more often, and talk to them more openly … For a band to be successful they need to have some kind of analysis of what they do to break it down into its component parts, to figure out what defines excellence in every aspect of it and how do you get there.'

On What Motivates Jazzmen
'I've seen jazz musicians of the first rank play better when a pretty girl sits down … I guess guys will be guys. So there's no telling what's going to motivate people …'. So, if you have Pro Tools but no pretty girl, it seems like you're not going to be very successful.

Tomorrow, I'll be posting the final instalment on this producer's tips and advice.

The Commerce of Magic: Music Production (Part One)

One of my muso mates, Ashley, sent a few friends and I a video by a guy called John Snyder earlier this week. He's a monotonous talker in tone, but much more interesting in content. He's a producer who's had the opportunity to produce some of the greatest jazz artists around along with some more well-known names such as Stevie Wonder. It's quite long at over an hour and I'm sure many of you don't have the time to spare to listen to this muso's advice, so I thought I'd sum up some of the key points for those that are interested over three articles, this being the first.

'I see something to do and I just go do it.'
Having trained in law after college, he sent out almost a hundred letters to entertainment law firms in New York - as well as one to a record producer. He got a reply and was asked to go and meet him in New York, so he jumped up north and went to meet this record producer. What's important at this point, although he doesn't really stress it in the video, is that he knows the producer's back catalogue better than the producer himself. He says that he reminded him of stuff that he'd recorded a while back and forgotten about. This kind of in-depth knowledge of the people we want to work with in the industry is crucial. Not only does it give us insight into what our prospective employers or collaborators have done, but what they are likely to do in the future. It is no coincidence that when asked who he would have signed if he was working for him, he answers with three names, two of which the producer was signing at that actual moment. He employed him there and then. This is no mere coincidence: this was a healthy guess based on a thorough understanding of the producer's work up until then.

'The Producer is the First Audience'

He talks at length about what the producer is expected to do, and stresses the need to be responsive to the performer. In one scenario, for example, Dave Brubeck turns to him and asks, 'How was that?'. While most of us are trembling in our boots as we imagine ourselves in his shoes, the producer really needs to 'think and feel at the same time' and have an answer. The role is both creative and practical: you need to think about the logistics of arranging sessions and costing them, while thinking about the music itself. He says to ask the question: 'If you don't get goosebumps, then what?'

'The Psychology of Producing'
Some artists have egos—Paul Simon apparently one of them—and the producer has to know how to deal with them. 'The process is important. It's necessary to create this environment of comfort and security. ... How the artist feels is very important to the result.'. Performers are responsive to an audience, so a sterile atmosphere in the studio is counter-productive - the producer and engineers are the audience in this context and need to be on board with the musicians.

If something's in the way of creativity, he has this advice: 'Always be aware of what it is that you're doing, and so I say to the musicians if we're having a problem: "You know, isn't it interesting, we woke up this morning and nothing existed and we go to bed tonight and five songs ... exist on tape, any one of which has the potential for affecting people's lives in a positive way, if not changing the world ... We have all felt it."'

Please return tomorrow for the second part of three articles on this producers' life and advice. If you'd like to watch the video click here.

At Last

So, those of you who are reading this most probably realised that I was joking about the dubstep. Those who aren't reading this probably thought I was serious ...

It's Valentine's Day, the day each year when my mailbox gets clogged up with love letters and poems from my many admirers from across the UK. I love you all too. The song that I would most want to play on a day like today is 'At Last' by Etta James, which is pretty fitting after her death a couple of weeks ago. My best memory of the song is from it being played over one of the happiest scenes from Pleasantville, in which Tobey Maguire and his girlfriend travel towards 'Lover's Lane' while the previously Oz-like black and white cinematography disappears to reveal their car wading through a scattering of pink blossoms. There's something nostalgic and innocent about both the music and this utopian American dream that in reality wasn't true. After all, James's life was a troubled one, albeit a profoundly creative one.

Aside from their powerful orchestral arrangements there is something profoundly powerful about songs such as 'At Last' and Sam Cooke's 'A Change is Gonna Come'. Both strike powerful first notes (both ascend from dominant to tonic - a powerful vocal jump in a high vocal register) and set the tone from the outset. Florence Welch (Florence and the Machine) in her Radio Six Plalyist this week says of Cooke's number, 'when he hits that note ... it seems so desperate and hopeful and triumphant and sad all at once ... And it's absolutely perfect'. I couldn't put it better myself. Happy Valentine's Day, and happy listening.

Introduccione

Music. Well, I'm a composer so I guess that's what I should be writing about. Coming up with a name for the blog was the only obstacle to get me on my way, hence 'musi(C)ings'. My only worry is that that large C in parentheses is more likely to remind people of the shortcut to create the copyright in Microsoft Word than it is of the incredibly clever pun on music and musings - which is what this blog, hopefully-if-I-can-be-bothered-to-write, will be all about.

Ok, name, check. What about content. Right, well that's where it gets tricky, because it's all very easy saying that I'm going to write about music but there's so blooming much of it isn't there? So, I've decided to write a blog about dubstep. Not many of you know that since I've moved down to Bermondsey I have developed a huge appreciation of dubstep, rap, and general gangster mayhem. I'll be adding some critical commentary on some of the nation's finest music. Check back here for my next post on how dubstep outclasses John Coltrane any day tomorrow - Valentine's Day.