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If you listen to songs from the same genre or style, there will always be many

similarities for obvious reasons. However, we usually perceive that each song has been individually produced and therefore should present something original and unique, or certainly individual.

This is where perceived production as we call it comes in. Perceived production is not a million miles away from production plotting. We may perceive that a track has been produced (which obviously it has) but the production is simply following a stylistic template or pro-forma as it were—a pro-forma that has stood the test of time, more or less untampered with through the ages.

If we think of the singer-songwriter genre many aspects of the production are generic across a multitude of artist’s tracks, especially the rock ballad style.

The beauty of perceived production is that the listener can somehow anticipate what the next part will do, what the next drum fill will be, and how the chorus will resolve. It is somehow like an old childhood favorite song covered by a new act of the day, but is actually a new, completely different composition.

We perceive what general instruments will be playing, when they will come in, the type of melodic or rhythmic part they might play based on the general norm for that genre. We therefore perceive that creative production has taken place when in actual fact it is possibly nearer to emulation. We perceive the production.

The three pillars of the production process. Together they form the infrastructure of the production.

The producer’s attention to what we refer to as good

C.A.P. should be extremely high. With good arrange-

ments, excellent performance allied with great sounding and sympathetic capture, it is possible to produce and get a good sounding recording. Many productions have ultimately relied solely on these ingredients. It is a relatively recent phenomenon that the studio has become the wizard in the process. Yes, many things can be doctored in the studio, but with- out a good arrangement and individual performance, the music will not reach its true potential.

Despite excellent recordings and performances, many producers and engineers “fix” and arrange the outcome of their recordings by editing the takes together to make the mix more consistent. This is a widespread practice today and, allied to other pro- cesses such as auto-tune, is the norm. However, it is worth noting that this kind of editing is exceptionally time-consuming and the better the take, the less edit-

ing required. This is good on two counts, one on your production finances, and the other that the creative process can flow faster for the band. Nevertheless, this should not detract from attempting to gather a excellent performance in the first place, hence the good C.A.P.

The importance of these individual pillars of the production process is arguably only second to the way in which they integrate with one another. The relationship between

capture, arrangement, and performance is some-

thing that should not be underestimated as together they form the essence of the pro- duction. A strong or successful production is often one where these three elements work together in a balanced and sympathetic way. If one element can be judged as weak then the others will suffer. Conversely, if one of these areas has received more attention than the others then the same effect occurs. The vision of the end product will of course have a huge influence on how these elements are approached and executed, and differing

genres will certainly not require the same contribution from these three elements. However, before commencing a recording it would be wise for the producer to consider their own production C.A.P. methodologies and prefer- ences, and consider how these will influence the recording process and whether

The producer’s C.A.P. refers to a toolkit that could be adopted to ensure that the ingredients are balanced to create a musical delicacy.

they match the artists expectations. In the next sections we consider these three elements of production in the order in which they would generally occur.

arrangement

Although arrangement appears as our second letter in the producer’s C.A.P., it is most often the element that comes first in the production and recording process. The term arrangement can conjure up a whole realm of different meanings and interpretations.

For many, arrangement means a notated string or brass part, for example, a string or brass arrangement. Others might consider the choice of instrumentation used to be arrangement and further still some would consider arrangement to be the organization of a song in a structural sense, for example, verse, chorus, mid eight, chorus, outro. Whichever seems most applicable to you, it is important that as a producer you get to the bottom of what arrangement can be and not what you might think it is. As one of the three pillars of production, the arrangement is a major benefactor to the success of a song.

You may consider yourself to be a producer or an aspiring one but would you also add “arranger” to your résumé? Likewise if you consider yourself to be an arranger what would make you stop short of using the term producer when refer- ring to your skills? Is there a difference between the two roles and if so what is it? For a moment let’s consider what an arranger and producer actually do. You might see yourself in a slightly different light.

twO SIDeS Of the COIn: prODuCer anD arranger

rOleS—By BrIan mOrrell

Brian Morrell has written extensively for TV, radio, theatre, and the Internet. During his continuing professional career as a piano player, composer, and arranger, Brian has played a role in some of the most successful shows staged, including The Phantom of the Opera, Chess and Aspects of Love. He has worked as a session musician and arranger for some of the 20th century’s top pop figures, including Elton John, Eurythmics, Sting, Natalie Cole, Barbra Streisand, Kate Bush, and Gloria Gaynor, to name only a few. Brian has lectured in music theory, composing, arranging, piano playing and history at many different colleges, mostly in London. He currently holds the position of Senior Lecturer in Music Production at Leeds College of Music, U.K.

The sound of a piece of music is something that transports to the listener immediately, usually before the emotive, harmonic, melodic, or lyrical impact of a song. T.S. Eliot said “true art communicates before it is understood”. He wasn’t talking about music production but the phrase applies and underpins the profound power of orchestration, arrangement, and production, its uniqueness and its comparable qualities.

The most important issue to grasp when discussing the similarities between producing and arranging is that both roles are informed by art and technology and

Just how much does arrangement fall under the producer’s jurisdiction? If you are thinking of arrangement in a traditional sense which concerns notation, scores, stave, and dots, then how involved the producer may get depends on his or her own skills or those of the artist or band they are working with at the time, and, of course, the requirements of the track. If we consider the role of George Martin with the Beatles, his compositional, arrangement, and scoring abilities were used extensively.

in reality are separated only by history and interpretation. Producers, like arrangers and orchestrators before them, have always worked at the cutting edge of available technology, but always with one eye on the art. It was never about technology for technology’s sake. Production is about harnessing creative skills, using suitable technology creatively to manage sound and music; so is arranging and orchestration. Both roles have always embraced technology, but only for what it can bring to music; and what it can add to the art.

Essentially arrangers and producers have always been the same person, divided only by subtly different skills. The result is the same; the process slightly different. The advancement of production has benefited traditional arrangers greatly in that they are freer to write more creatively in the knowledge that any subtleties and abstractions they employ can be dealt with sympathetically by a producer who understands orchestration to a degree. Indeed as an arranger in today’s world one must possess knowledge and understanding of production in order to grasp the potential of a recorded arrangement. Although the concept of production sprang out of the shadow of the arrangement, production has informed the arranger in many ways. Arrangers cannot and should not live in ignorance of the possibilities production brings, any more than producers can resist the need to understand more about instrumental and textural subtleties. Arrangers and producers share not just the basic skills needed to truly understand the management of sound and music, but also some of their industrial applications too. For example, there are those who specialize in studio arranging; who produce stunning arrangements and vivid orchestrations which only have to be played a handful of times, so can be adventurous and demanding. An example of this might be the vivid and abstract orchestrations of George Fenton, contained in much of the BBC News themes of the 1990s. Then there are those who specialize in live arranging, who need to deliver parts that can be performed every day for perhaps 20 years, and which can be played with subtly different instrumental line-ups and still work. Similarly producers sometimes specialize as live sound producer/engineers or studio producer/engineers, where a creative application of art and manipulation of sound is more achievable. We need great producers and we need great arrangers and orchestrators, but more importantly, we need them to be respectful of each other and aware of how their various roles have adapted and evolved. Far too many producers and arrangers are fearful, skeptical, and even dismissive of each other’s skill base. But producers and arrangers are essentially the same person, divided by technical specifics, history, and interpretation. The role they play and the result they achieve is almost identical, but the processes are different. Those who seek to rationalize production as the child of technology and portray arrangers as simply instrumental specialists are missing the point completely.

However, it is not always a necessity for a producer to read and write traditional notation and if a project does require this skill then a specialist arranger can be called in to arrange a string section, for example. Modern production and produc- ers could be considered as direct descendants of the traditional arrangement and arrangers. Although a bold statement to make many modern producers could be considered as the new breed of arrangers but simply use technology in order to realize the end result. In a similar way the modern mix engineer could be com- pared to that of an orchestral conductor. Mixing itself isn’t necessarily a new idea as conductors have been doing it for quite some time, albeit in a slightly different con- text. Whether you agree or disagree with these ideas they are worth considering. So much of arrangement is about understanding the structure of music. With a song it is very much about understanding how the various components of the song work together. This means that although a producer may not arrange a track in the traditional arranger sense she will influence the arrangement via altera- tions to the structure of the track, which instruments play where and when, and how they play certain parts. These things in turn alter the way in which instru- ments interact and go toward creating a groove or vibe.

Modern DAW software has enabled this to take place to an increasing extent in recent years and it is this technology that has allowed producers to discover new ways of piecing music and instrumental parts together, taking them apart and then putting it all back together again in a totally different way (remixing!). If this is not arrangement in the traditional sense of the word, then what is it? Production? In some respects production could be considered as the orderly management of sound and recording if traditional arrangement is considered as the orderly management of music/instrumentation.

arranger tO prODuCer: an eVOlutIOn?—

By BrIan mOrrell

In some ways producers are essentially evolved and devolved arrangers. Production is an evolution of the art, mindset, and approach that arrangers gave us: the desire to change, evolve, restructure, develop, adapt, and arrange. This is production in a nutshell. The mindset of the arranger is therefore reborn into a modern and technically savvy production context and environment.

Production also constitutes a devolution of arranging because it essentially devolves the creative organization of sound and music into two wings: those who understand voicing, orchestration, instrumentation, and the orderly and creative dividing of instrumental textures, and those who possess a greater knowledge of how to manipulate sounds within a recorded environment in order to create new colors, textures, possibilities, and dynamics.

Some people rationalize production as if it is some great new experience and process; in fact production has always been the prism through which music is

Arranging a piece of music means much more than simply moving blocks of audio or MIDI on a sequencer or DAW around until it works best for the song. This might work for some musical genres and pieces, but it is the true arranger who will consider the rhythm, harmony, and melody of a piece and manipulate, massage, and reorder these to achieve a successful outcome.

As Brian Morrell has eluded to in his accompanying sidebars, arrangement is an art form and something that takes years to master. In this context, we are refer- ring to the arranger that can take a lead line and perhaps some other aspects of a piece and completely reinterpret it to realize a new piece. If one was to be blunt about this in the way in which we’ve painted it here, the modern equiva- lent might be the remixer in today’s popular music. The remixer will take perti- nent and prominent parts of the main track such as the vocal and the main riff perhaps and envelop this within a completely new arrangement with new instru- mentation, and so on.

As such, the skills required by the traditional arranger, say one who worked with big bands reinterpreting classic standards would be well-versed in instrumenta- tion, ranges, and rhythm, as well as melody and harmony.

heard and appreciated. The producers of the 19th century were the great romantic composers; they were composers, arrangers, and orchestrators before such roles and responsibilities were devolved and fragmented in recognition of their own individuality, a more tech-savvy environment and a more diverse music industry. The music of Debussy, for example, was as much informed by a vast understanding of sound, sonic management, and orchestration as it was by his distinct and abstract harmonies. He was perhaps the greatest innovator and producer of his generation. In the early 20th century, long before production skills and technological advancements allowed for such sonically advanced recordings, the arrangers would act as producers by embedding the dynamics and subtleties into the arrangement. The arrangement was the mix; the recording was simply a crude capturing of the arrangement.

As an example of the power production wields, most composers nowadays do not arrange or orchestrate—something that would have been unthinkable even 100 years ago, when such skills were part of the process of achieving popular music. Most do not conceive their music whole of its instrumental sound but instead tend to think about such issues as being distinct, separate, and subsequent to the art of composing. But, tellingly, most composers and songwriters do think in terms of production, so perhaps this represents merely a subtle shift in emphasis; perhaps production is simply a modern cool prism through which songwriters rationalize their music. Production, therefore, enjoys a massive arc of responsibility and power; it is both the arbiter of musical judgment and the prism through which most people listen and rationalize music. Again, in this respect it is identical to the role of the arranger and orchestrators.