#21

I still look at ‘producer’ from a more traditional perspective I guess. Maybe the punk rock background and how Steve Albini pushed for a very clear distinction between producer and engineer shaped it too. Engineers capture the sound. Producers offer input to the musicians and the engineer as to how the songs should be arranged, mixed, presented, blah blah. Of course, there’s a lot of tension and blurring between the two roles. Producers often have a skill set in music and engineering too and maybe work to bridge that. Often, of course, those producers muck with stuff in ways that affect how things turn out, push the agendas of labels, create drama, frustrate musicians, etc.

Things definitely get muddled in the more mainstream pop world where many performers don’t write or create their own music and are ‘just’ performers. Plus, there’s the advent of bedroom music production and expansion of electronic music production that adds more potential meanings.

But yeah, I just default to thinking of it like Ted Templeman producing a Van Halen album or David Briggs producing Neil Young or Teo Macero with Miles Davis? I dunno, maybe I’ve spent too many years reading Tape Op and reading music bios or something :slight_smile:

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#22

I share the exact same feeling about the term - it always evokes images of assembly lines and creating a commercial product rather than a piece of art. I certainly don’t want to be referred to as a producer.

However, the role it describes is a (relatively) new role and it needed a name (“musician” or “sound engineer” certainly wouldn’t have covered it). I think this particular term is an unfortunate pick, but it is what it is and it seems pretty clear to me that while the term is clearly connected with this image, it’s not meant that way. What I find even more unfortunate is that it somehow got attached to the role of the single person making music on their own in the studio (i.e. wearing both the hats of the musician and the producer), where I think “musician” or “artist” would’ve fit the bill much better.

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#23

In electronic music there’s a history of the musician doing all the steps themselves – AFAIK, Wendy Carlos, Suzanne Ciani, Isao Tomita, Morton Subotnick, Jean-Michel Jarre, Vangelis etc. didn’t have “producers” working with them.

Carlos is “musician and composer”, Ciani is “pianist, composer, and sound designer”, Tomita and Subotnick are refered to as “composers”, Jarre is “composer, performer and record producer” (because he did produce records for other artists).

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#24

Maybe it’s a geographic thing, but not in the UK. In my mind, underground producers are those that seize the means of production, use unofficial channels (local record shops, pirate radio, probably YouTube these days), to get their music out to those who want to hear it, regardless of commercial intent, and the categorisations (musican/artist etc) of the music ‘industry’. So maybe it’s been subverted/reclaimed. Like I said in my earlier post, I probably romanticise this somewhat.

There’s also a point here around music as ‘product’ versus ‘authenticity’. As if these are in some way paradoxical. I’d make the point here that I traditionally do that the idea of ‘the artist’ and his/her work being some wonderful form of individualist self-expression is a relatively new one; and that most of the history of music has been driven by entertainment or patronage.

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#25

I feel @Starthief provided plenty of counter-examples to this assertion directly above your post.

#26

Likewise, my perspective is really shaped by getting into hip-hop in the 90s. The first producers I really paid attention to were the trendy names in hip-hop in the 90s - The Bomb Squad, Prince Paul, DJ Premier, et al - and as far as I know these folks sat with samplers and such and made music.

I was also paying attention to pop/rock production credits, as I listened to a lot of chart and indie stuff - Trevor Horn, Flood, Eno and Lanois, et al.

I think it was Rick Rubin that first got me thinking about how two different roles were both being described by the one word.

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#27

I suspect that @Autogeneric had a broader time scale in mind than just the middle of last century.

It’s just an unavoidable fact: professional musicians depend on the machinery of patronage and/or entertainment—or they’re wealthy enough to not need to work. To my mind, pointing this out doesn’t sully music any more than it actually already was compromised and dirtied simply by being a product of our real world.

Indeed, (as I somewhat cryptically suggested above) it’s possible to see this in a utopian light: even in the debased, factory mindset of “producers,” there is room for real artistry that seems to escape attempts to reduce it to exchange-value.

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#28

And perhaps broader than than the Western musical canon (excuse the pun, although that would have worked really well for last week’s Disquiet Junto!) too.

But this for me is a really interesting discussion to have, and some really good points here. I struggle with this a lot; the concepts of authenticity and value.

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#29

The other thing I thought to say:

If people learnt a meaning of “producer” as “person who makes instrumental music with electronic gear” and they use this word, this says nothing else necessarily about their attitudes about music or trade.

I wish I could think of a less ridiculous example, but the modern use of “escalate” to talk about things getting dramatically more intense or complex probably doesn’t influence how people feel about escalators.

(Trivia: the verb “escalate” was a back formation from the machine)

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#30

Now I’m wishing this did actually happen - people tensing up as they go up a floor, calming as they go down :laughing:

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#31

On that point: the line between art and entertainment is pretty blurry.

In the beginnings of electronic music in the 18th century, it was more experimental, somewhere between art and scientific curiosity.

But then with the Theremin and some others, there was kind of an attempt to “legitimize” them by using them to perform standard repertoire, which would fall more into “entertainment” IMHO.

The Futurists, Musique Concrete, etc. were more toward the art side; the Barrons and BBC Radiophonic Workshop were entertainment; the San Francisco Tape Music Center was more art; Keith Emerson was more entertainment. My examples in the earlier post were some of each (many of those musicians made music for commercial purposes… and one could have fun and/or frustration arguing whether “Switched-On Bach” was meant to be art or entertainment :grin:).

The “producer” role appeared when multitrack recording and editing made the studio a much more complex place, and somebody had to manage it from a technical and creative standpoint . But the whole task, aside from dealing with other musicians and engineers, is a subset of what a modern electronic musician typically does (unless they’re strictly a performer).

I think since it’s associated with the recording industry, the connotation is that a “producer” leans more toward entertainment side than art… but it’s a blurry line.

I’m not saying that “art” is more or less authentic or creative than “entertainment” – it’s really more a matter of intent and context. Maybe art is itself a subset of entertainment, and maybe that’s a whole other head-spinning discussion.

I work on the 8th floor of a building, so this does kind of happen for me :grinning:

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#32

it just seems so straigthforward to me… one who “produces” generates a product. what’s wrong with “musician?”

or maybe “musicker”

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#33

I like it. Evokes thoughts of ethereal melodies generated from the harmonic resonation of rare minerals. Or something.

Next time I hear “so, you’re a producer?” I’ll say, “nope, I’m a musicker” It’s perfect.

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#34

As the saying goes, “music is a verb.”

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#35

respectfully disagree. most of the history of music is “written in water” - sounds made without the power structures to preserve their forms through history. those sounds still have value, have utility, deserve respect. and not always about “individual” expression - much of the most stunning and formal work i’ve wtnessed is community-driven (e.g. gamelan)

now, the power structures are no longer necesssary, and we don’t need to continue to pay them homage.

i have nothing against professional musicians but neither do i hold their “products” in especially high regard.

but i’ll try to keep this conversation in mind, maybe i can shift my internal meaning of “product” in this context from
“article or substance manufactured or refined for sale”
to
“thing or person that is the result of an action or process”

or heck, even algebraic product…

but look, i grew up unduly influenced by precisely that cohort of early electronic composers/performers cited above. there is no question that their generation considered “producer” to mean men like Phil Spector or Sam Phillips. so the distancing is perfectly understandable.

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#36

It might work. When I’ve tried to use: ‘I use personal experience to inform economy of selection within the continuum of macro to micro timescales in the creation of sound (recorded or otherwise)’, I normally get the kind of responses that would be instantly moderated…

(But that is probably actually what I do…)

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#37

I’m excited to see what we decide should replace “Digital Audio Workstation” :stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye:

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#38

Respect. Go high, see if they can keep up.

#39

This is a very good point and not counter to what I’m saying at all; I think I was trying to open up this exact discussion, that an ‘art for art’s sake’ narrative is a modernist thing and plays against many reasons for making music.

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#40

the “blipbloopatron”

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