Making music

Interesting piece on the production of pop music in yesterday’s G, built around the imminent arrival of another album from the long-serving queen of huge pop production, Kate Bush. The piece was written by British composer Michael Berkeley, who’s better known for his classical work. But he helped out on Bush’s mid-80s Hounds of Love album, and so is in a good position to compare the differences in approach between classically-trained composers and pop musicians. The resulting comparison, to my slight surprise, comes without any patronising tone - indeed, a faint air of admiration for the way un-(or semi-) trained pop musicians work.

[G]ifted "pop" musicians
like Bush and U2 are far more demanding of themselves in the studio
than classical musicians can afford to be, and will spend days working
on a tiny fragment. On the other hand, they envy the technique that
allows classically trained composers to write something down that can
be realised by good sight readers almost instantly. The Edge was amazed
that the London Sinfonietta under Oliver Knussen recorded my part of
the score (some 30 to 40 minutes) in a couple of three-hour sessions
while he laboured for weeks to get his sounds just as he wanted them.

On the recording of a part of Bush’s 1984 album with a group of choristers…

None of the singers or
Richard had ever gone over and over four or five phrases so exactingly.
No measure of Bach or Mozart had, in their experience, been subjected
to such surgical scrutiny, and I began to worry that their voices might
begin to tire. But Bush knew and got what she wanted and Hello Earth
is, I think, a remarkable track on the album.

What I wonder (and what we’ll probably never know): would training in composition make Kate Bush, U2 et al better, or just faster? Does training only help you express what’s in your head already, or does it change what you want to express?

BROWSE / IN Music
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COMMENTS / 4 COMMENTS

It’s an interesting question. As a classically trained musician myself I can understand how knowledge of musical structure such as cadences and answering phrases can help with the composition of a piece of music. However a lot of the best music comes straight from the instrument - look at Jazz and Blues, where the players will often ad lib for hours on end, with no musical score, and just a predefined chord sequence to work from.

Having said that, classical musicians are generally playing music that wasn’t written by themselves, and it is down to the conductor to interpret the music as he sees fit, whereas when the pop musician has written the material they are playing, they know exactly how they want it to sound and so are likely to be dissatisfied until they get it just right.

Nick Miners thought this on Oct 12 05 at 9:59 am

I wonder why you were (slightly) surprised?

Chris thought this on Oct 12 05 at 4:58 pm

In my experience, the main effect of learning music “properly” is, as you say, speed and efficiency. When trying to come up with a cool set of chords to go behind a new melody, a musician with no knowledge of theory will have to employ a fair bit of trial and error (depending on how good his/her ear is) whereas the trained musician will be able to focus on the most likely options right from the start.

It’s all a bit of a grey area, though - even unschooled musos often have quite well-developed concepts of how music works. They just don’t have the luxury of the “proper” names to attach to the concepts and are therefore restricted when it comes to communicating their ideas to other musicians.

adrian thought this on Oct 16 05 at 12:30 am