react against non-tonality’ seems an ever-
more salient strategy for present-day British
composers.
ARNOLD WHITTALL
Emeritus, King’s College London
doi:10.1093/ml/gcu006
ß The Author (2014). Published by Oxford University
Press. All rights reserved.
The Art of Record Production: An Introductory
Reader for a New Academic Field. Ed. by Simon
Frith and Simon Zagorski-Thomas. pp.
xxi þ 301 (Ashgate, Burlington, Vt. and
Farnham, Surrey, 2012. »19.99. ISBN 978-
1-4094-0678-5.)
The Journal on the Art of Record Production was
launched in 2007, prompting Simon Frith to
hail ‘the emergence of a new academic field
rather than simply a further subdivision of
musicology’. At a time when interdisciplinarity
and putative paradigm shifts are seemingly
heralded at every turn, this is a bold claim. On
a practical level, it is true that text-based
musicological approaches are insufficient for
dealing with sound recordings; a methodology
that is sensitive to both fixed and temporal
qualities is paramount if the recording’s status
as always already mediated is to be accepted.
Musicology’s performative turn has tended to
treat the recording medium as a transparent
vehicle for performance. By contrast, a recent
spate of literature on musical mediation works
from the assumption that the recording
medium is opaque and highly negotiated. The
Art of Record Production: An Introductory Reader
joins this literature but goes further in attempt-
ing to legitimate producers and engineers as
practitioners of art. It seeks to celebrate studio
personnel as prime agents in the collaborative
process that is music-making, or as editors
Frith and Simon Zagorski-Thomas put it in the
Afterword, ‘recording . . . is not something done
to music but a process in which sound becomes
music’ (p. 277). Several of the Reader’s contribu-
tors themselves enjoyed (or continue to enjoy)
professional careers in the studio, bringing a
wealth of emic knowledge to their writings and
the Art of Record Production’s annual confer-
ences (hereafter ARP). In this sense, ARP and
its publications provide new vistas for practice-
based research, with the potential to explain
activities that were once considered the
province of unmeasurable intuition or highly
technical craft.
The Reader’s chapters are drawn largely from
ARP conference papers and grouped into three
140
sections: historical approaches, theoretical
approaches, and case studies. The three
sections are divided by interludes of comments
and commentaries by industry professionals, a
format that readers will be familiar with from
the ‘personal takes’ interspersed among the
chapters of The Cambridge Companion to Recorded
Music (ed. Nicholas Cook et al. (Cambridge,
2009)). The comments range from specific
responses to the chapters, to more general
accountsçsome anecdotal, others theorizedç
of first-hand experiences in the studio. Some-
times the comments sit a little uneasily next to
one another and it is not always clear how they
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have been ordered. Interlude 3, for example,
seems to deal with links between academia and
the industry, prompted by Zagorski-Thomas’s
and Katia Isakoff ’s questions on how the two
might serve each other. Among this discussion,
ex-new wave producer Mike Howlett’s
paragraph on how to make an artist comfort-
able when recording appears somewhat arbi-
trarily placed (p. 272). Nonetheless, the Reader
takes on an extra dimension when its interludes
and chapters are cross-referenced, offering a
sort of ‘auto-ethnography’ that deserves inter-
rogation. And some of the interludes’ most
innocuous comments draw attention to
fascinating avenues for research, such as ex-
Motown engineer Bob Olhsson’s remark that
‘[o]verdubbing had been reasonably common
beginning in the acoustic era but was con-
sidered a crutch that one never discussed in
public’ (p. 93). Overdubbing has been discussed
in relation to the post-war multi-tracking of
Les Paul and others, but if there is a pre-
history that stretches back to direct-to-disc re-
cording then this warrants urgent investigation.
As Jonathan Sterne and other historians of the
long twentieth century of sound reproduction
have demonstrated, the roots of audio technol-
ogy run deep into the nineteenth century.
The Reader’s generic scope is broad; indeed,
one of the advantages of studying production
values is the potential to unearth commonalities
across different musical genres. The repertory
covered ranges from mainstream classical
(Andrew Blake contextualizes the career of
EMI producer Suvi Raj Grubb) to Jamaican
dub (Sean Williams offers a sort of
‘haptography’ of King Tubby’s mixing desk), as
well as more familiar case studies like Pet
Sounds (whose reception is charted by Jan
Butler) and The Beatles (William Moylan
compares mixes from the White Album and
Love). The historical breadth mostly spans the
late 1940s to the present day, which is to be ex-
pected given that the 1950s saw the widespread
adoption of magnetic tape, the LP format, and
stereophony. One exception is Susan Schmidt
Horning’s brief history of acoustic and early
electrical era studios in the USA, which draws
on valuable interviews by the author in the
1990s, but is mostly a precursor to her principal
focus of post-war studio acoustics (real and arti-
ficial). The other exception is George Brock-
Nannestad’s chapter on straight-to-disc home
and professional recording, which also makes
for a welcome look at the oft-neglected topic of
amateurism. The ready availability of the tech-
nology is striking: disc cutters were used in
European and US middle-class households of
the 1930s to record birthday and wedding
speeches as much as music itself. Contemporan-
eous commercial practices are also described,
including an account of how two recording
machines could be used simultaneously, one for
a master take, ‘the other for immediate repro-
duction and replay to ascertain the quality of
the balance, the orchestration, and the soloist’
(p. 25). These sorts of judgement calls suggest
that an art of record production was at work
long before interventions such as tape splicing
became the norm. It would, though, have been
interesting to learn more about how home and
professional users experienced playback and
whether they experimented with multi-miking
at this time (Presto machines with multiple
inputs were being manufactured as early as the
mid-1930s).
The most compelling historical accounts
draw on practices from outside as well as
inside the studio. Blake demonstrates how Suvi
Raj Grubb, as a prote¤ge¤ of Walter Legge,
perpetuated conservative values of the Western
classical canon and Englishness even as a left-
leaning, Indian immigrant. This provides
intriguing counterpoint to the standard narra-
tive of 1960s Anglo-Indian relations, typically
characterized by the counterculture’s use of
‘oriental’ philosophies and music. Frith draws
on music journalism from the same period to
offer an account of rock’s discursive formation
as a genre. Like classical critics, rock critics
eschewed audible production, regarding it as
commercial, gimmicky, and inauthentic. Rock
musicians tried to define themselves against
radio pop (whose authentic, originary site is
the studio) by proving themselves in live
performance, except this involved emulating a
studio aesthetic. Rock thus grew out of two
key sitesçstudio and stageças a sort of work-
in-progress, for which ‘[t]he producer’s job
. . . is to put an end to the creative process’
(p. 219). In capturing the ontological tensions
between live and mediated, product and
141
process, being and event, Frith’s argument
speaks directly to Howlett’s definition of the
producer as nexus (pp. 189^90).
Frith’s account is neatly complemented by
Albin Zak’s chapter, which explores just what it
means for 1950s pop music to have been
conceived in the studio at a time when ideals of
sonic fidelity were being established by audio
magazines. The notion of sound being ‘faithful’
assumes an authentic source for that sound. In
the case of post-war US pop, the source shifted
from Tin Pan Alley to the studio, where it was
relieved of its live correlate. Fidelity thus
became a series of discourses largely independ-
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ent of the objective sonic reality and touted by
hi- and lo-fi productions, both of which ‘moved
the public’s conception of recorded music away
from expectations of real-world analogy’
(p. 50). Zak encapsulates this shift by coining
the term ‘no-fi’. However, it is notable that the
ears with which he evaluates these records are
his own, cultivated by the ‘electromusical
common tongue’ he inherited from this
recorded era (p. 43). In fact Thomas Edison’s
tone tests (c.1915 to 1926 ) suggest that claims of
lifelike fidelity were always highly variable.
The historical contingency of the senses needs
factoring into the equation. Then there may be
other narratives to tell, such as that of race
records, which began like all records as ‘live’
takes but with a hyperreal intimacy to the
sound that would never have been heard in a
crowded juke joint. The genealogy of race
records of course extends right up to contem-
porary R&B and hip hop, where the mantra of
fidelity (‘keep it real’) is stronger than ever. If
Schmidt Horning proposes a fresh narrative
based on distinct studio sounds in big band and
pop records of the 1940s and 1950s, then Paul
The¤berge’s account of more recent develop-
ments deconstructs the notion of studio alto-
gether. In an innovative study that draws on
US and Canadian national statistics, The¤berge
follows up the modes of recording that have
replaced large studio complexes of the 1970s
and early 1980s. Incidentally, engineer Steve
Savage appends The¤berge’s chapter by report-
ing that large studios in the San Francisco Bay
Area are currently thriving on new work for
the video games market (pp. 93^4).
The problem of how to appraise production
values objectively is addressed by spectro-
graphic analysis in Zagorski-Thomas’s com-
parative study of British and US rock in the
early 1970s. The proposed thesis is bold: US
mixes tended to favour a commercial, upfront
vocal sound, prompted by the country’s
post-war economic boom and mirroring the
proxemics of American society; UK mixes had
a warmer bottom end that blended sources
together, conforming to established traditions
of concert-hall aesthetics and larger studios,
and mirroring the reserved sociality of the
British people. But with only two pairs of spec-
trographs and a table of studio dimensions
making it into the published chapter, there is
not enough objective evidence to satisfy linger-
ing questions of why American records were so
successful in Britain or why engineers qua
artists could not challenge the social patterns
that surrounded them. Other authors focus less
on historicizing their case studies, such as Alan
Williams’s ethnography of headphone mixes,
which contributes as much to the growing
discipline of sound studies as it does to a
musicology of record production. Further
ethnographies include Michael Jarrett’s survey
of quotations by jazz and country producers
and Phillip McIntyre’s sociological analysis of
collective creativity in the studio, which
employs familiar models by Howard Becker,
Pierre Bourdieu, Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, and
Antoine Hennion to dispel the Romantic myth
of lone genius.
Allan Moore strives in his chapter to theorize
the soundbox, a descriptive notation for stereo
mix placement. Favouring theories of ecolo-
gical perception, conceptual blending, and
image schemata, Moore ties meaning to real-
world, bodily correlates instead of locating it
on a metaphorical plane. A turn to embodied
meaning is certainly consistent with wider
trends in musicology. Nicholas Cook has
argued (in Peircean terms) that musical
meaning is iconic as much as symbolic, while
Gary Tomlinson recently called for a return
from aesthetics to pathetics, i.e. an ecological
framework in which meaning shapes its
interpretant as much as vice versa. Insofar as
Moore is moving in this direction, he undoes
his position somewhat by dipping into Philip
Tagg’s semiotics and quoting Paul Ricoeur on
letting a text speak for itself, thus placing
meaning back into the realm of symbols and
association. After his analyses of Ben Folds Five
and Annie Lennox, the reader is left wondering
if the syncopated introduction to Lennox’s
‘Walking on Broken Glass’ really is a literal
anaphone for tiptoeing across glass shards or if
it is merely an instance of musical caricature.
Moore also argues that the timbre of the intro-
duction can be heard as embodying the song’s
lyrical content, yet ‘glassy’ synth voicings have
been a trademark of Lennox’s sound since the
Eurythmics. Nonetheless, his overall argument
142
that ‘the major context for production decisions
is the other musical decisions which go into the
making of a track’ (p. 101) is to be applauded.
I would add that considering ‘production’ con-
textually, rather than treating ‘producers’ indi-
vidually, entertains the possibility that creativ-
ity emerges out of group situations regardless of
official role assignments. Just as Trevor Horn
and his session musicians are recognized for
having played on the records of Frankie Goes
to Hollywood, so Miles Davis’s assembly of
finely tuned bands for each of his records needs
to be taken seriously as part of the work of
production.
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It is a shame that there is no sustained study
of the psychology of record production, despite
the editors’ lament in the Introduction (p. 5).
Louise Meintjes’s ethnographic work on South
African recording studios touches on the issue
but for non-apartheid setups there is still much
to be said about diplomacy and hierarchical re-
lationships among studio personnel, not to
mention the outstanding gender problematic
(nearly every habitus discussed in ARP is all-
male). There is also work to be done on the col-
laborative production techniques of the biggest-
selling Western chart music (along with Asian
genres like C-, J-, and K-pop), which blur en-
gineering and musicking to the extent that
they are perhaps more communal and egalitar-
ian than any of the processes covered in the
Reader. See, for example, YouTube videos of
Tony Maserati and Outfit 27, whose clients
include Lady Gaga, and promotional clips for
Jay-Z’s 2013 album, Magna Carta Holy Grail.
Bibliographic and orthographic incon-
sistencies aside, a few technical errors are
worth noting for the record. McIntyre describes
the normative process of post-production,
claiming that ‘[e]diting . . . now more com-
monly occurs at mastering’ (p. 159). This
statement requires clarification. Whilst many
mastering engineers compile singles, radio
edits, and so on, the potential of digital editing
is still best fulfilled at the mixing stage. Jan
Fairley and Alexandrine Boudreault-Fournier’s
chapter on Cuban recording practices contains
some misleading typos in the discussion of
equipment. On page 262, for example, Pro
Tools is capitalized but MOTU’s Digital Per-
former software is not; for non-specialist
readers a term like ‘digital performer’ is hardly
unfeasible! Elsewhere in the chapter a home re-
cordist’s equipment is listed: ‘The studio,
complete with Cuban flag on the wall, is
equipped with . . . AKG 414 CK 91 and
Newmann TLM microphones, including the
classic 1945s RCA microphone allegedly used
by Fidel Castro and Che Guevara for their tri-
umphal broadcast shortly after the
revolutionaries seized power’ (p. 261). The lack
of comma between ‘414’ and ‘CK 91’ uninten-
tionally confuses two AKG microphones (the
former is a broadcasting workhorse whose
capsule dates back to 1950, the latter a recent
Blue Line budget model) while ‘Newmann’, evi-
dently a misspelling of Neumann, is actually a
British manufacturer of retro-inspired micro-
phones. Finally, I assume the RCA reference is
to the iconic Type 77-D microphone introduced
in 1945, which mainstream America knows so
well from television shows by Larry King and
David Letterman. The irony of this technology
being used to herald a communist revolution is
acute. Admittedly these inaccuracies are minor
but music technology students and practitioners
will know the equipment being discussed.
Musicologists need to ensure they maintain
rigour on the technical side if their cultural
analysis is to be taken seriously.
Overall, ARP and its Reader make their mark
in a way that is certainly distinct from existing
forums such as the Audio Engineering Society,
paying attention to musical practitioners that
have long eluded public attention, let alone
critical study. Like any young academic field,
ARP needs time to develop and to work out
where to situate itself. Should it favour those on
academic or vocational degree courses? Should
it prioritize the study of past practices or the
proposal of business solutions for the industry’s
future? Then there is the question of who is
not represented: certain industry professionals
have not been enticed by ARP’s reflexive turn;
the voice of classical producers and engineers,
for example, is notably absent. And why was
ARP born now, at this point in the history of
recorded music, when physical formats, large
studios, and their apprenticeship schemes have
seemingly been erased by the digital age?
I suspect that ARP will ultimately take up
nuanced positions within these dilemmas
rather than solve them. Yet as symptoms of a
particular foundational moment, they deserve
exploration in a further reflexive turnça feat
that can only be achieved by the ongoing part-
nership of notable professionals and academics
reappraising more than a century and a half of
recorded music.
MYLES EASTWOOD
University of Cambridge
doi:10.1093/ml/gct126
ß The Author (2014). Published by Oxford University
Press. All rights reserved.
143
The Globalization of Irish Traditional Song Perform-
ance. By Susan H. Motherway. Ashgate
Popular and Folk Music Series. pp. xvi þ 212.
(Ashgate, Farnham, Surrey, and Burlington,
VT, 2013. »55. ISBN 978-1-4094-3423-8.)
Susan H. Motherway’s monograph surveys
commandingly the complex network of Irish
traditional song performance (ITSP) in local
and global contexts. A combination of case
studies from different genres of song and the
insightful application of globalization theory
provides a framework within which more
fully to understand the phenomenon of ITSP,
Downloaded from http://ml.oxfordjournals.org/ at Pendlebury Library of Music on September 21, 2016
which the author categorizes according to five
performance genres: Irish traditional singing
in the local vernacular; Anglo-Irish song;
ballad singing; country ’n’ Irish; and contem-
porary hybrid forms. Indeed, the concept of hy-
bridity is central to the thesis that globalizing
processes are significant factors affecting
musical change in this context. The tension
between hybrid and non-hybridçoften
perceived to be ‘authentic’çforms is what
drives the enquiry into not just synchronous
practices, but diachronic developments as well.
Like many titles in the Ashgate Popular and
Folk Music Series, this book adopts a varied
range of methodologies from popular music
studies and ethnomusicology. While not based
on any substantive fieldwork, it engages with
globalization and post-colonial and cultural
theory, in addition to incorporating a breadth
of music-analytical approaches. Such an
eclectic approach is well suited to the music
under examination, including examples of folk
music, traditional music, popular music, and
art music.
The emphasis in the title on performance
introduces yet another perspective to the
study, which adopts a wide understanding of
performing practice, focusing less on in-depth
historical-musicological usage and more on all-
encompassing usage covering musical, social,
and cultural practices, especially in relation to
the culture industry. Similarly, discussion of
‘tradition’ highlights the importance of trans-
mission and defines ‘traditional’ songs in oppos-
ition to ‘newly composed [folk] songs’ (p. 23).
The distinction between traditional and folk
songs places an emphasis on a connection
with the past, maintained in many cases by the
non-literate transmission of traditional songs
through successive generations of performers.
In defining Irish traditional song, Motherway
explains how sean-no¤s satisfies an essentialist def-
inition, literally an ‘old style’ of singing in Irish,