Creativity in the Recording Studio

Alternative Takes

Paul Thompson

• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
• Year: 2018
• Print ISBN: 9783030016494
• eBook ISBN: 9783030016500
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Music
• Index: Social Sciences

Paul Thompson offers an alternative take on the romanticized and mythologized process of record-making. Side A illustrates how creativity arises out of a system in action, and introduces the history, culture, traditions and institutions that contribute to the process of commercial record production. Side B demonstrates this system in action during the central tasks of songwriting, performing, engineering and producing. Using examples from John Lennon, David Bowie, Tupac Shakur, Björk, Marta Salogni, Sylvia Massy and Rick Rubin, each chapter takes the reader inside a different part of the commercial record production process and uncovers the interactive and interrelated multitude of factors involved in each creative task.

© The Author(s) 2019

Paul ThompsonCreativity in the Recording StudioLeisure Studies in a Global Erahttps://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-01650-0_1

Begin Abstract

1. Introduction

Paul Thompson¹

(1)

Leeds Beckett University, Leeds, UK

Paul Thompson

End Abstract

On a wintery evening in November 1966, The Beatles arrived at EMI’s Abbey Road to begin work on what would become ‘Strawberry Fields Forever’ (1967). They recorded their first tentative take of the song that night and, over the following four weeks, The Beatles created 25 different takes. With ongoing deliberation between the lead songwriter John Lennon and record producer George Martin, each of the various takes were recorded with a different approach, or an alternate arrangement, sometimes at different tempos or even in different musical keys. By late December, John Lennon had finally settled on the opening section of Take 7, a lighter version of the song, and the later section of Take 26, which had a heavier and more dense arrangement. George Martin notes:

Completely without regard for practical problems, John said to me, “I like them both. Why don’t we join them together? You could start with Take 7 and move to Take [26] halfway through to get the grandstand finish.” “Brilliant!” I replied. “There are only two things wrong with that: the takes are in completely different keys, a whole tone apart; and they have wildly different tempos. Other than that, there should be no problem!” John smiled at my sarcasm with the tolerance of a grown-up placating a child. “Well, George,” he said laconically, “I’m sure you can fix it, can’t you?” whereupon he turned on his heel and walked away. (quoted in Martin & Pearson 1994, p. 22)

So, engineer Geoff Emerick and producer George Martin worked on finding a technical solution to join the two takes together:

George and Geoff carefully studied the two versions and realized if they speeded up the remix of the first version (take seven) and then slowed down the remix of the second (take 26) they might match…All that was left now was to edit the two pieces together…“We gradually decreased the pitch of the first version at the join to make them weld together,” says Geoff Emerick. They did it so well that few people, even today, know exactly where the edit is. (Lewisohn 1988, p. 91)

The recording of ‘Strawberry Fields Forever’ marked a critical point in the Beatles’ musical career and the practice of commercial record production more generally. The Beatles had played their final concert at Candlestick Park in August 1966 and this allowed them to pursue record-making without the added expectation that it would be performed live in front of an audience. This was crucial in creating an atmosphere of experimentation in the recording studio, dispensing with: ‘the concept of realism or what could be called “figurative” recording, often constructing instead virtual or imaginary space unconfined by what is possible in the “real” world of live performance on conventional instruments’ (Moorefield 2005, p. 29). In creating music that was meant to be listened to as a recorded work (rather than a representation of a live performance), The Beatles needed to collaborate more directly with studio technicians and studio engineers to utilize their expertise and knowledge of studio technologies. Integrating the tasks of songwriting, performing and engineering, and all overseen by producer George Martin, ‘Strawberry Fields Forever’ provides a prophetic example of what commercial record-making would come to involve.

Whilst there are innumerable noteworthy examples of recordings that are the result of creative and collaborative endeavours, ‘Strawberry Fields Forever’ illustrates the central theme of this book—‘alternative takes’. Alternative takes uncover a popular myth of art-making, namely that the completed work arrives fully formed in the mind of the creator (Csikszentmihalyi 1997). The existence of alternative takes instead points to a creative process that is often more complex and iterative than is typically presented. Take 7, available to listen to on ‘Anthology 2’ (1996), and Take 26 were both considered ‘complete’ at one stage of the creative process but the final recording didn’t come into existence until the two takes were combined by engineer Geoff Emerick and record producer George Martin.

Deciding on which takes will make the final recording isn’t specific to Strawberry Fields Forever or in fact The Beatles; choosing between alternative takes is a scenario played out in every recording studio around the world as musicians, engineers and record producers engage in the record-making process. In doing so, they are balancing numerous musical, technical, sociocultural and economic factors in their decision-making in which new market conditions, music technologies, current trends or musical tastes may be a prime factor in making particular decisions. For example, The Wailers ‘Catch a Fire’ (1973) had previously been recorded in Jamaica in 1972 but in order to make the sound of reggae more appealing to Anglo-American rock audiences, Island Record’s owner Chris Blackwell encouraged Bob Marley to add more electric guitar parts and guitar solos throughout the record (Rojek 2011, p. 87).

Despite the prevalence of recordings within the sphere of popular music (Gracyk 1996; Moore 1993) very little has been written critically about how records are actually made. Even after a century of sound recording: ‘the process of making records remains at least a partial mystery to the majority of those who listen to them’ (Zak 2001, p. 26). Researchers have historically given their attention to audiences, their reception and use of sound recordings, often overlooking the cultural producers, who wrote, performed, recorded or directed them (Berger 1995, pp. 145–146). Where attention is given to cultural producers in the field of record production, it is often the contributions of engineers or record producers that are overlooked instead focusing on the musical artists. In rock music for example, musicians are typically portrayed as the sole creative entities during the recording process (Williams 2010), endorsing the romantic ideal of a musical ‘genius’ whose artistic expressions are connected to the mystical and seen to be free from any constraint (Zolberg 1990; Petrie 1991; Watson 2000; Sawyer 2006). These romantic images form part of the numerous myths that surround the artist in the recording studio, the record production process and creativity more generally. Romanticism is so embedded into the culture of the commercial recording industry that these ideas are considered to be ‘common sense’ (McIntyre 2012b) and continue to be: ‘reflected in the way artists are sold to audiences, the way audiences think about what happens when records are made’ (McIntyre 2012a, p. 149).

These romantic images and portrayals of creativity in commercial record production are problematic; particularly when one considers that a record is rarely the result of an individual artist’s sole contribution (Zak 2001). In the opening scenario, The Beatles relied heavily on engineer Geoff Emerick and record producer George Martin to capture, manipulate, edit and arrange their performances, which makes the process intrinsically collaborative (Zak 2001, p. 63). But Romantic ideas of the record-making process continue to prevail because of the private nature of the recording studio and a process that often takes place behind closed doors...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Front Matter
• 1. Introduction
• SIDE A—Creativity as a System
• SIDE B—Creative Systems in Action
• Back Matter