Are students too far removed from the nuts and bolts of music-making?
As a music production lecturer, it’s your job to deal with students who show up with bells on, as well as those who can barely ring them. Can you ever win?
At one end of the scale you might have a student who imports audio loops and positions them around the arrange window so it looks a bit like the screen of the guy or girl they’re sitting next to. When you explain that it’s just a set of unrelated loops that run at entirely different tempos to each other and that of the project, you’re met with a blank face.
Photo: Shropshire Media Network
At the other end of the scale are those who live and breathe music production. They are almost as rare as the former example, but they make the job so worthwhile. They gasp when they finally understand binary counting, get inextricably attached to remix projects and flood lectures with insatiable curiosity. Fantastic!
Whatever the extremes, it seems that, due to the nature of computer-based production, students are further removed from the nuts and bolts of both music and technology as each year passes. Just as chefs don’t have to pluck chickens or dig potatoes, these students rarely have to solder leads or route signals through hardware effects units. The majority of production can be completed inside an on-screen studio, and within this virtual environment there are many shortcuts and presets designed to make the job ‘easier’. But does that compromise their understanding? Here are a few examples of what I frequently hear from students during lectures.
Firstly, there’s the question: “What the hell is that lead?” I recently took a bunch of different leads into a lecture, sparking genuine intrigue — dealing with physical connectors isn’t an essential part of their daily production routine. So what about asking them to use some quarter-inch jack plugs to connect an effects unit via the auxiliary send/return points on a mixer? “You want me to... What?”
No wonder the world of virtual sends, inserts, buses and channel groups often gets them in a pickle — real signal flow is a mystery to them.
Secondly, there is the confusion caused by triggered chords. Many software synths feature patches that trigger a chord from a single note. Fine — until the students try to figure out what to put with these one-finger minor ninth or major seventh chords. Often they’re unsuccessful and it ends up sounding like a chromatic bloodbath: “Well, I’m only playing one note, look.” To proceed successfully, they need either a good musical ear, or awareness of diatonic scales and chords (the suggestion of the latter usually sends a few into yawn orbit). An extra layer of confusion is added if an oscillator’s coarse-tune dial is turned — one of many idle tweaks a green student might make. If your F-sharp plays a C-natural note, you may as well give up and start a tonal revolution.
Finally, there’s the familiar, “I know what I want it to sound like.” Don’t we all? You’ll hear this from novices and experts alike! The only difference between the two is practice and determination, narrowing the gap between frustration and success. I tell my students that there is no quick fix, despite what plug-in presets might have them believe. And no single platform, DAW or software instrument makes your music better than anyone else’s. Excuses are common: “But my music sounds crap in Cubase, it’s much better in Logic!” Consider a talented student with an old beaten up PC running Windows 95, Cubase 5 and a Casio keyboard — they will probably make great music. But what about £100,000 worth of kit in the hands of a lazy undergraduate with attitude?
Nowadays, it’s much easier for music production students to get confused because there are endless possibilities. It can also be much harder for them to get the results they want because they’re seduced into thinking it’s easier than it actually is; presets prevail and lull them into a false sense of security which often ends up in exasperation. Under these circumstances, all a lecturer can really do is encourage perseverance, the drinking of strong coffee, and good old-fashioned slog.
About The Author
Kate Ockenden is a music composer, performer and lecturer. She is happy as long as she is creating something, be it enthusiasm in the classroom, or a catchy melody line for kids’ TV. She is currently busy with her latest venture, The KoGo Project.