Stay Tuned

I'm really trying to keep up with this thing I swear. We're a bit busy at the Wall house right now. Em and I are moving this weekend so between her working and me doing homework, we're trying to get everything done without losing our minds. So I don't know when I'll post again next, but you can expect some pics of the new place.

Last Wednesday I had Advanced Multitrack Production and we talked about various stereo mic techniques. This was a precursor as we then started discussing surround sound and we'll finish that up tomorrow I suppose. One interesting note about the discussion was Alan Blumlein. Blumlein patented the concept of stereo, which he called binaural sound but the technology wasn't developed when he came up with the concept. He died young in a plane crash doing a secret trial of on-board radar. Really interesting person.

Yesterday during Recording Studio Ensemble we tracked the Bolling flute piece. All the performers did a great job, which helps when you're trying to capture music. A good recording starts with a good performance. I was the assistant engineer, which meant I plugged in all the mics and made sure the engineer had everything he needed. Here's a photo of my classmates Mike, he was the producer, and Pierre, he was the engineer sitting at the console.
Tonight in Structure, Context, and Style, we discussed the analysis of Sound (timbre, dynamics, and texture) and Harmony. I also found out what piece I'll be doing for my final presentation. Looks like I'll be getting to know it pretty well.

Today's T: 60 Isn't nearly as old as it used to be on black

Snowy Monday

The commute home today took an hour and a half. This was after I cleared three inches of snow off the car after only four hours of class. This was pretty frustrating as last Wednesday classes were canceled due to snow that never fell and I guess today I had to pay for it.

Because of the Monday holiday yesterday, today was a Monday schedule meaning that I had Recording Studio Ensemble. We were supposed to track (record) the Bolling flute piece today but because there was a conflict with the drummer, who's not in our class, we delayed the recording until next week. So it was more rehearsals today. My job is page turner/extra set of ears. Not terribly important but I did notice something's today that will hopefully help in the performance next week.

I didn't update last week because of the snow day and no class, but I thought I'd fill you in on my Tuesday night class. It's my music theory class and currently we're discussing how to analyze pieces. It's a very thorough exercise. The musical aspects we look at are called SHMeRG (Sound, Harmony, Melody, Rhythm, and Growth), we also look at these characteristics on three dimensions: small, mid, and large. So while a large harmony dimension might be a song's key, the individual chord changes would be considered a small dimension of harmony. In order to put this idea into practice, our homework is to analyze Pachelbel's arrangement of "Jesu, meine Freude" and Handel's "Largo" from Concerto Grosso Op. 6 No. 2 in F major.

No word on whether we'll have class tomorrow or not due to snow, but I'm guessing we will.

Today's T: Beck Mutations on blue

Recording Studio Ensemble

So I'm a day behind. Here's what happened yesterday. We decided what our responsibilities would be for our first project and what we would be recording. Here are the deets (details for those older people out there).

Our first project will be to record the Suite For Flute & Jazz Piano Trio #1, Mvt. 2 Sentimentale by Claude Bolling. The only female in our program is a flautist so she's doing this with a piano, electric bass, and drums. Now since none of those instruments will be played by me, I'll be on the other side of the glass. Because I don't have any experience with any of the gear yet I'll be the assistant engineer on this gig. Which basically means I'll be helping set things up, but primarily documenting the session. Marking down what equipment we used and where we put it, what settings we had all the knobs turned to, things like that. It's a good role for me because I can still watch what's going on without having to worry about too much. So hopefully all will go well. I'll let you know next week.

Today's T: Fantasy Baseball on grey

Advanced Multitrack Production

Since my background is in music education and not audio production I was missing a pretty crucial piece of the application when I applied for this program, a portfolio of previous audio work. So technically I was accepted conditionally with the idea that after this semester I can submit a portfolio of work from my classes this semester. My Wednesday class, Advanced Multitrack Production, is the class that will help me build this portfolio. The class is actually primarily for undergrad seniors in their last semester but a lot of grad students take it as an elective.

The class has several projects that involve recording music onto multiple tracks. What that means is that each instrument is recorded to it's own track, either on a computer or onto magnetic tape, so that their levels can be adjusted individually when mixing them down into a final stereo mix. Essentially it's doing what I hope to be doing with the rest of my life. That being said it is by far the scariest class I'm taking this semester. There's so much awesome gear available to us to use for these projects and I don't have a clue what most of them do. Hopefully this class and some additional outside research will help me figure that out.

This week we learned about Durgin 114. That's not a sweet audio doo-hickey, but instead the room on UMass-Lowell's campus that serves as the "live room," that is the room where we'll be doing the recording. It looks like this:Now what we learned is that when this room was designed, it was built primarily as a critical listening classroom, and secondly to function as a live room. In the picture above, the wall behind the piano that's covered with grey fabric actually conceals about several thousand dollars of monitoring equipment (fancy speakers and power amplifiers). The panels along the side of the walls help to absorb and diffuse sound wave reflections so that you only hear what's coming from the speakers. The panels toward the back of the room have surround speakers in them, so that we can listen to 5.1 mixes. Apparently it's one of the best listening environments in the country.

Today's T: Bears eating berries on yellow

Structure, Context, & Style

My Tuesday class is called Structure, Context, & Style. It's essentially the music theory course for all graduate music students. Since it's for all music students, a third of the class are SRT grad students (five of us) while the rest are all music education grad students. (Pop quiz: How many music grad students are there?) I feel a little special in that I'm the only one in class with a foot in both camps kinda. I know I'm not pursuing a Masters in music ed, but at least I know what they went through at one point. And they appear to be your typical run of the mill music ed people. I'll just leave it at that.

The professor of this course is Dr. M. He doesn't go by that but I fear if I type his whole name my blog will show up on his google alerts or something. It's cool he's teaching the course because he's the coordinator of the SRT program so it's nice to get to know him some. He speaks very softly, which can be tough since kids are shredding on guitars in the class across the hall. But it does make it seem like everything he's saying is important. Or a secret.

I like this class for the reason I like most music theory classes. It feels educational. Everyone sits around discussing ideas and there are "Aha!" moments. Most of the concepts are abstract and require some higher order thinking, which is good because I haven't done any of that in a while. It reminds me a lot of my favorite undergrad class, 20th Century Composition Techniques. Plus it helps when your professor is wearing a blazer with elbow patches.

The big project in this class is that we'll work in groups of 3 to study a major work of Western art music. (More commonly referred to as Classical music. (Since Classical is a period of time in music history, we don't call it that because some of the pieces may be Baroque, Romantic, or even Impressionistic!)) I don't know my group partners or my piece yet but I'm guessing they'll play a big part in my final impressions of this class.

Today's T: bass. on brown

Recording Studio Ensemble

So I only have 3 classes this semester, one on Monday, one on Tuesday, and one on Wednesday. My Monday class is also my ensemble. Every music major at every school in the whole wide world has to participate in at least one ensemble a semester, or at least that's the way I understand it. Ensembles practice throughout the semester and perform a concert or two to demonstrate the work they've done. It's also an opportunity for music students to practice techniques they've learned in other classes or lessons and use them in a practical environment. And so it is with my class, Recording Studio Ensemble.

Now instead of performing a concert to demonstrate what we've learned, this ensemble records our performance. The production of the recordings is as much of the class as the performance.

So far I'm enjoying this class as it's seems like it'll be a great way to meet the other students in my program. It's an ensemble that's only open to grad students in Sound Recording Technology (SRT), so there's only six of us. This wouldn't be that big of a deal except for the fact that it creates some interesting instrumentation situations. In the class we have a vocalist, two pianist/keyboardists, a fluter, a bassist, and a boner (me). I'll keep you updated as we get tunes decided and worked out.

Today's T: UC Davis Tennis on grey