Month: June 2016

The Sound and Music Industry Assignment

Posted on by unclebulletwound2

In this assignment I will be taking three job roles from the music industry and talking about them. One job from performance and two jobs from other areas. Among these jobs, I will be talking about the session musician, the music producer and the recording engineer in depth with facts.

1: What each role does day to day. Why are they important

2: Role Interaction?

3: Self employed or Employed? Contract? Dangerous work? Money?

4: Full time or part time? Hours (If any)? Seasonal or time off in between hours?

5: Qualifications (If needed)? If needed, how to get them and where? Give examples (Links)

6: What can these lead to?

 

Session Musician

This job role means that you will be a hired gun of sorts to help out someone who is in need of a certain instrumentalist or vocalist. Most of the time it’s either just backing for a band/group or it will require them to be a touring member of a band that doesn’t have the original instrumentalist for some reason or another. Sometimes it might be a job with an artist who is already famous and then the musician might even end up being there permanently if they are skilled enough.

This job role is a self employed one, there are no set kind of hours to work. If it is recording and the musician is very good, the work will be done in no time and because of this, the musician will get a good reputation. As this keeps happening, more and more people will want him for their recordings. This job role, to give you the best opportunities, requires you to be very open minded about the music you play because the more styles of music you learn to practice and play, the more job offers you will receive.

To perform well in this job role, no higher education or qualifications are required. However, knowledge about music theory will possibly be needed. This also isn’t necessary, but having a skill with multiple instruments can give you an edge as a session musician in a few ways. Going back to the first paragraph, it can give you an advantage over other session musicians who might not be able to do as much as you. Also, it just means that you could possibly fill in for more instrument parts if needed in a recording situation. Another skill that would be handy to learn would be sight reading and learning from ear. These two skills are an instant judge of character because they aren’t the easiest skills to learn of pick up, so going into education for those things would help you out tremendously.

All of this can lead to you getting jobs with possibly many artists if you are very talented not only at your instrument(s), but with your success rate and your good reputation. But it is a slow battle at first since you have to build a reputation to have one and not many people would trust an unfamiliar face in the music industry. Most of all, you need to be kind, persistent.

According to this website, their annual pay average is around $54,600 (£38811.63).

 

Recording Engineer. 

A Recording Engineers job is to record a band making an album or some other kind of recording. But not just to record it, to also mold it to the desires of the band in charge of the album. He edits and mixes the sound captured via his microphone set up and placement and also setting the right levels so nothing is clipping throughout. They should also have good knowledge of both digital and analog tape recording. Usually the engineer can also act as the producer as he can add his input to a certain part of the recording that the band might not have thought of that might sound good, this takes an engineer with good people and a good ear. The work is hardly dangerous either but there can be the odd mistake that can take place, as in being careful around the desk with liquids and foods.

Education wise, you don’t really need a whole lot of GCSE’s or other grades, however you do need to have an advanced knowledge of a desk and the software that comes with digital recording. Usually this information is a for YouTube videos away or a few links and a half an hour read away, but there are places like Kendal College and Lancaster and Morcombe college is a good place to earn degrees for universities such as BIMM in Manchester or LIPA in Liverpool and also those courses teach you all about the desk and software.

According to this website, down the page there is a line graph showing the average percentage of employed and self employed recording engineers with 49% being self employed and 36% being in full time work which would imply that most recording engineers would prefer setting their own hours without limitations of shutting down before the band or artist finish their product.

Engineers can be payed or work on a project-to-project basis. If they work with a big studio they will get payed a big sum annually, but if they work from home, they can charge their own rates per session and they’re usually big rates depending on the amount of hours it takes to record. Average annual salary earnings according to this website are $40,000 (£28433.42).

Music Producer

A music producers job is to basically write the music for popular artists who are either just the vocalist of a pop group (Rihanna, Adele, Beyonce) or they would write the beats and backing for singer songwriters (Ed Sheeran, James Bay, Hozier). It’s their job to arrange music for artists or bands that come through their doors, they also can act as a musical coach to the musicians who might be stuck for ideas. They’re also their when it comes to the final stages of the recording such as the audio mixing and in some cases even the audio mastering. When they’re on break, they usually have to deal with phone calls and social media affairs of other artists wanting their product recording. On their off time, they go to shows to find other talent around the area and they also find artists via social media because it’s become so easy to scout with Facebook and Soundcloud. It’s also not just making music for artists, sometimes people go down the soundtrack route and work their way up from film to film.

Once again, just like the Recording Engineer, you don’t really need qualifications only really an advanced knowledge of the desk and the software that is used in their establishment. However, going to a college course to learn that is one thing but unlike a recording engineer, a music producer would heavily benefit from also doing the musical side of things on a college course as well because they have to have a sense of directing when it comes to making music for an artist.

A music producer usually would end up in a studio working full time depending on how much of a reputation they make for themselves. They would end up working with massive artists and become a beacon of hope for all artists. But, like most job roles in the music industry, it’s about starting from the bottom and working upward. It might be sending scores to companies to see if they’ll use them, or perhaps making your own songs on software such as Studio One or Protools. They would usually start off self employed but get picked up by a studio and then studio hop until they are in a very good position.

According to this website, an average annual earning for a music producer is $49000 (£34349.81)

 

 

 

Pop Music History (Chronological)

Posted on by unclebulletwound2

The history of popular music is a rich tapestry, in this assignment, I shall be taking a chronological approach at detailing all the different types of popular music for the 50’s to the 90’s. I will choosing 10 artists over the 5 decades and go over each decade’s artists and why they were influential, whilst also comparing and contrasting between the decades.

 

 

The 50’s

Ther 1950’s is where popular music started out in the musical evolution, an evolution from the ‘Crooner sound’ of the 40’s which was basically male vocals accompanied by orchestra or big band. It was in this decade that it became less about big band acts and Jazz bands, but more about songs that appealed to a much bigger audience in the mainstream. Artists such as Elvis Presley and Little Richard, the two I will talk about for this decade.

Elvis

Elvis, or better known as “The King” was an american musician and most notable for boosting the success of the Rock’n’Roll genre. Because it was so new at the time, people took one listen to his voice and guitar and loved it. His posture also helped his fame because of the sexual nature of his movements on stage. It was his movements, his clothing and his attitude when performing that gave single handedly gave him success in the mid 50’s, this was because all the women wanted him and all the men wanted to BE him. He didn’t have any competition when it came to other musicians, but there were some other very popular musicians around.

Little Richard

Little Richard was another popular character back in the 50’s, but for much different reasons than Elvis. His whole genre was soul and blues, this became very popular because it was very much a black community standard however Little Richard brought it into the white community and it caught on. Little Richard was a church based person and his lyrical content wasn’t anywhere near as absurd or pointless as some of Elvis’, however they both had a very distinct vocal style of loud and aggressive singing.

 

The 60’s

The 60’s was more about bands rather than single artists with bands around them. Among them were some big hitters in the musical world, this would include The Beatles and The Jimi Hendrix Experience (Technically still a band). These two artists, although very different, had a major effect on the 60’s and also onward, but I will just be talking about the two for this decade.

The Beatles 

The Beatles were a 4 piece english band from Liverpool. Their first release was a major success because of a few reasons, their look was an integral part of their success because of how smart they looked. This made them look audience friendly and gave different types of people a reason to listen to the also audience friendly music they were writing about relationships and life. The Beatles had a different kind of weapon though, not only was their look notable, they had two more things. They had the Lennon McCartney duo harmony singing and the fact that Paul McCartney was left handed and made the band look more symmetrical. They created “Beatlemania” and took England and the world by storm

 

The Jimi Hendrix Experience 

This group fronted by Jimi Hendrix was an English-American rock band. This is a particular case of being messy was considered a good thing, Jimi’s style in this band was very harsh and fuzzy which was unique because his riffs were very notable for the time. It was around this time that psychedelic drugs were being used in bulk around the country and with this bands music being heavily influenced by drugs like LSD, it struck a chord with the masses. This is the complete opposite to The Beatles because of the raunchy lyricism and the guitar solos and stage antics. If mothers wanted to listen to The Beatles, they definitely wouldn’t want to listen to Jimi Hendrix.

 

The 70’s

The 70’s saw a very big increase in new genres: Disco, NWOBHM, Punk, glam and progressive rock. With bands like King Crimson, Yes and Genesis, they were paving the way for the Prog genre with extensively long songs with difficult chord progressions and lengthy guitar and keyboard (and every other instrument for that matter) solos.

Yes

Yes were a Progressive rock band in the 70’s that along with Genesis and King Crimson popularised prog into what it is today. Yes were purely based around fantasy with their lyricism and with the instrumentation, it really fit with the themes because the songs really make you feel as though you’re in the landscapes that they sing about. That was their appeal to a niche audience, however they were influential in that sense, they were one of the big three in the prog movement.

Stevie Wonder

Stevie wonder was the most popular R&B singer songwriter of the decade and yet again, appealed to the black community with his soul sounding music at times. But it was again a case of the white community adopting him and also realising the merit behind his work. Also his sight ailment made him somewhat of a commodity and ironically a ‘Wonder’. He released songs like “Superstition” and “Signed, Sealed and Delivered” to critical acclaim worldwide.

 

The 80’s 

Many singers were coming back into the fray with the bands at this point in time. People like Madonna and Michael Jackson reigning supreme in the pop music world. However there was a thrash movement appearing with bands like Metallica and Anthrax bringing metal to a faster new world. Music in the coming decades was about to become more of a culture thing between different people, with some not liking others based on their musical tastes. Metallica was one of these bands.

Metallica

Metallica started off in the early roots of thrash and as one of it’s creators. They wanted to go against the social norms of regular pop music and play fast guitar riffs with face melting solos. They became popular at the time because of the intensity of the music. They released “Kill em’ All” and they were the fastest in the game at the time along with Megadeth when they released “Killing is my Business… and Business is good”. They were influential because of their stage antics with beer and the rebellion in their lyrics (mainly about drinking and living life on the edge). There was a stigma back then of glam metal being a really

Michael Jackson 

Michael started off his humble beginning in The Jackson 5 as a young boy. The great success of that group gained him worldwide commercial fame though. Soon enough he was singing his own material. The apex of his fame was when Thriller was released in 1982. Everyone knew Michael Jackson, but when he released Thriller, he was a worldwide phenomenon. He had many things about him that were recognizable, such as the moonwalk, glove and his ‘Crotch grab, high voice’ move. All of this became his brand and was distributed worldwide.

 

The 90’s

The 90’s saw another movement become popular stemming from the late 80’s. This movement was evolved from punk but slowed down, it was called Grunge. The main antagonist of this was Nirvana with their heavy riffs and shouted, harsh vocals. On the other end of the spectrum, a band called The Red Hot Chili Peppers were reaching their apex of fame with the release of Blood Sugar Sex Magik in 1991.

Nirvana

Nirvana were a 4 piece Grunge band, that came out of nowhere with their first album and then released their seminal album “Nevermind” with the help of Sound City studio. Songs like “Smells like Teen Spirit” and “Lithium” put them on the map in the musical world. Again, with Nirvana there was a stigma attached to them about if you liked them or not. They had a mass following of people who had no one to listen to or look up to, then Nirvana come along with their anti political messages and their mental illness messages and gained a cult following of teenagers who had a lack of direction. When Kurt died, they say that the grunge movement died with him, only serving to prove that Nirvana were definitely influential.

The Red Hot Chili Peppers

The Red Hot Chili Peppers were a 4 piece American Rock band that dropped their highly successful album “Blood Sugar Sex Magik” in 1991, same year as Nirvana’s “Nevermind”, yet this was a funk based band with a completely different message and stage persona. They were more fun loving and about fantasy. When Blood Sugar Sex Magik was released, they were known by way more people because of the commercial spread of songs like “Suck my Kiss” and “Give it Away”. Michael ‘Flea’ Balzary was also their main weapon in this band race because of his technique behind the bass and his presence on stage. These days, they are still staying relevant with evolutions in their sound with albums like “I’m with You” that keep original elements of funk but also adding modernised guitar sounds with effects.

2000’s

The decade of the 2000’s was the year of Nu-Metal. Bands like Disturbed, Linkin Park and Limp Bizkit. These types of bands became popular because of their lyrical content appealing to teenagers feeling angry or oppressed. Not only that, but girl and boy bands were emerging such as S-Club 7 and Girls Allowed. These commercialised groups are formed by companies and then made into walking, talking merchandising products.

Linkin Park

Linkin Park were one of the first popular Nu-Metal bands to appear in the early to mid 2000’s with releases such as “Hybrid Theory” and “Meteora”. The gained commercial success with songs like “Numb” and “One Step Closer”. They mixed heavy distorted guitars with rapping and turntables for a mixed genre feel and this was an influential move for bands at the time or in the future (Deftones). They also had Chester Bennington on vocals with his multi range voice of clean vocals and harsh screams, this gve them the edge over most Nu-Metal bands at the time because not a lot had both worlds at their disposal. As they progressed throughout the 2000’s, the became more and more accessible to the masses and way more radio friendly.

S-Club 7

S-Club 7 were an English pop group created by the former Spice Girls manager Simon Fuller. It was a mix of men and women to keep things gender balanced and have something in it to appeal to everyone as the company that ‘owned’ them would have wanted something that would sell quickly to all audiences. They had hit singles such as “Reach” and “Natural” which quickly spread all over the radio and with their catchy hooks and the well sung vocals. The reason they got so popular though is much akin to the reason One Direction got popular. They appeal to the masses of teenagers and because of the amount of marketing that is sunk into these groups, they get spread so quickly that it’s almost shoved down people’s throats. But, it is an effective method of getting your act famous; and it worked.

In conclusion, there are a plethora of artists throughout the decades that received fame and fortune for how great they were as musicians or however they were marketed as a final product. It shows that if a band has enough of a personality, then they can leave an everlasting effect on the community (Hendrix setting guitar on fire). There will come a time in the future when music will change in a massive way yet again and it will yet again shake music’s foundations.