Insights In Sound 186 – Susan Rogers, Engineer/Producer/Musicologist S19 E6

Welcome to Insights and Sound, where we talk to the people behind the scenes, behind the technology, and behind the
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My guest is Susan Rogers. She is a producer, engineer, educator,
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um technology nerd, psychology nerd. Um my god, you’re all over the map, Susan.
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You really are. It’s wonderful. Um you you really have had a lot of
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disciplines, but I guess you are best known uh musically for your work with Prince, obviously. Um but then also for
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work with um you have this great uh discoraphy of a lot of uh my favorite
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artists. Um from Bare Naked Ladies to um one of my one of my obscure favorites,
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Rusted Root. Oh yeah. Um I I absolutely um I think they are
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definitely some of the some of the more interesting ones. But you really you’ve been all over the map musically. Uh and
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uh I’ve read your book. I was really fascinated by a number of things uh in your book. Um you came up as a
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music lover, not necessarily a musician. Oh, not at all. And uh and in fact, I
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loved uh there was one sequence you were talking about this uh this back and
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forth you had with Miles Davis and the quote that really stuck with me
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was uh some of the best musicians are not musicians.
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And I I really love that. I think especially because a lot of what you’ve done musically has really been about
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what I’m impassionate about, which is more the creative process, you know. Um and yet, um like myself, you came up
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as a tech. Uh my first gig was as a tech at Cherokee.
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All right. Glow. And uh you know, same thing. I got into it because I realized that wow, that’s
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job security, you know. Sure. And um you know at the same time I was
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also I was seconding sessions and in doing so looking over the shoulders of
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some of these wonderful producers like Phil Raone and and Peter Asher, Don W
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and um in doing so you learn a lot about the creative process
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and that has obviously really governed a lot of your career um especially your
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your career moves in later life. So let let’s start with some of the uh some of the basic biography stuff here just so
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that people who are not familiar with your work and your career uh know how you got to where you are right now.
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Okay. So you started um obviously as a tech um
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tell me a little bit about your your uh entry into the the world of this crazy
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this crazy industry we’re in. Right. Okay. So, I grew up in Southern California and uh really don’t I don’t
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come from a musical family and I had no inclination to want to play music or
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write it or sing it or perform it or anything like that. But I loved music like crazy. I think I was born to be a
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record maker because as a kid I was magnetically attracted to to records
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to listening to the radio. felt important and right and loved it so
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much. Now then and now it uh is really a steep
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climb for a woman to get into a engineering or production or mixing
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position in the music industry. And you can imagine in the late 70s there weren’t role models of women who were
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engineers or producers. Well, God, I would never have even imagined being a producer, but I would have liked to have
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been an engineer, but I simply thought that the door was closed to me. But one thing I knew I could do where my gender
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wouldn’t matter is the technical stuff that would get me in the room in studios. Uh, my father was uh
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mechanically inclined. I have brothers who are mechanically inclined. And I just kind of felt intuitively that if I
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studied on my own, I didn’t have any money for college, but if I studied basic electronics and acoustics and
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principles of electromagnetic induction, things like that, if I learned about tape machines and recording consoles and
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signal flow, I could figure it out.
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Well, we don’t do these things on our own, but I uh was very fortunate. I moved to Hollywood with a friend and uh
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saw an ad in the back of the Los Angeles Times that said help wanted audio trainee needed and the company was a
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company called Audio Industries Corporation and they sold and serviced MCI consoles and tape machines. They
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hired me as a traininee and uh I studied nights and weekends. Uh, they taught me
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during the week and I worked my way up and in short order I was doing service calls, repairing consoles and tape
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machines, MCI in the greater Los Angeles area. My least favorite machine to align.
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Oh, I don’t know. I I I mean I I I’m good with MTR90s. I’m good with Stutters. The
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MCIs just always drove me crazy because the you know you could as soon as you move little trim pots Oh god. Yeah. those
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little trim pots. What they help designed this? Yeah. What kind of state, you know? Yeah. Yeah. But uh
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but yeah, I can definitely relate. And uh I also read somewhere that you had um
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you had attended a school over at Crossroads of the World. I didn’t attend it. No, I think of money
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things like that. But my my roommate uh was, let’s call it, dating uh the the
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president of this little one room schoolhouse. And so she was able to get me a position answering phones, being
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the receptionist there. So because I was in that environment, I got to meet some of the teachers. Now, some of them came
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from Wally Haidider and Sunset Sound and United Western and some of those great LA studios. These folks would moonlight
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and pick up a little extra money on the side by teaching at what I said was this little one room schoolhouse. But I did
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hear the sentence that changed my life. And that was where I overheard a technician telling a student, “If you
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want job security, uh, become a maintenance tech because you’ll always work.” Mhm. Coincidentally, there was a studio
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in that little complex, too, called Baby O. You remember that place? I don’t remember BabyO, but there I
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after I was at Audio Industries for about two and a half, three years, I was invited and I accepted the invitation to
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work for Rudy Records. Rudy was a one room studio owned by uh Graham Nash and
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David Crosby in that complex in the Crossroads of the World complex. I wonder if that was the one that then became Baby O.
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Maybe it became Baby O. Yeah, I was there from u 80 till 83 till I went to work for Prince. And I know that you
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know the studio was around for a bit. I don’t remember what happened with it uh in the ‘9s. Yeah, I put a ne in there around 88 89.
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Oh, okay. So it might have been the same one. and it looked over at the back of the building basically. Um, if I remember
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right, the uh the studio was right smack in the middle of that cross the world complex
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adjacent, you know, to the uh parking lot. I bet it was the same place. Yeah.
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Yeah. Okay. Um, so you uh so you found your way in as a tech,
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which is really really interesting. And then um as fate would have it, you um
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you discovered the Prince was looking for a tech basically to wire in the studio. Is that right?
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Oh yeah, exactly. So at that time uh I was, you know, the early 80s. Uh Prince
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was my favorite artist. Uh I I loved then and now R&B music. So I listened to
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KACE and KJ LH. I mean, you came up in the Beatles era
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and almost everybody from from that generation says, “Oh, the Beatles changed my life.” And yet, you were much
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more um you were much more drawn to to R&B.
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Always. Uh for me, it was always Sly Stone over the Beatles. It was always James Brown. It was rhythm-based music.
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Um I I wrote about that in the book that I that I authored um
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on our listener profiles. And anyway, mine mine was right down Prince would call it the street you live on, but I
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lived on that R&B street. So when when you know they played Prince’s first singles from his first couple of albums,
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and he just became my favorite artist. Um then I heard through a colleague at
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Westlake Audio that Prince was looking for a audio technician to come to
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Minnesota, move there permanently, be his technician. And uh I knew instantly
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like I was made for that job. I had seen Prince in the Dirty the Dirty Mind tour. I’d seen him on the 1999 tour. I had all
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his records. I was such a fan. He liked working with women. I was one. Uh I I
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knew that uh I could do the work. So I got the gig. I got the I moved to
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Minnesota. I mean it’s interesting that you were even able to make that connection and
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just take that leap of faith. I mean that’s uh you know that that’s quite a leap for somebody in their early 20s you
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know to just Yeah. It was in my mid20s but you remember Daniel you know I mean the LA
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music scene in the 80s how rich Yeah. that was and you know if you were a
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technician with a good job in LA in the 80s you were in the beating
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heart of the music industry. Absolutely. So, Westlake Audio, whom I
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think most of your listeners will probably know because they’re still around, Westlake Audio was an important
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hub and a lot of technicians came through there. A lot of, of course, the great records were done at Westlake
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Studios. So, when Westlake put out the call and said, “Hey everybody, who wants
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to be a technician?” and moved to Minnesota and worked for this guy Prince who just had a his first crossover
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single with 1999. Come on, guys. Nobody wanted that game.
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No one wanted Minnesota. Oh my god. Yeah. Of course. I mean, you’re in you’re in
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the heart of the music industry in LA if you’re working and you got a full-time gig. But it just so happened I was
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perfect for it because I had the right training from the right people. I knew my stuff and I was the outlier that fit
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that job description pretty well. Uhhuh. Wow. Okay. And so, um, when you
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got there, you were confronted with somebody who was really, um, in many
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ways, I mean, you know, obviously a, um, a multi-talented
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and, um, very I I mean, there are not a lot of artists that work in that way,
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you know, in this. Oh, yeah. I mean, I was always fascinated with guys like him. Uh, Stevie Wonder was
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another one. Pod Run is another one. People who can hear the entire thing in their head and start laying it down
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piece by piece. I mean that um so so after you I mean
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just to to connect the dots there after you installed the console put in the studio you basically were immediately
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invited to sit in the engineering chair. Yeah. Then when I Prince hired me as a
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technician because he needed one. He needed a new console installed. He knew need needed uh a lot of technical help
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in preparation for Purple Rain, the movie and the album. He’d already started the Purple Rain album, but he
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had a lot of work to do and um the my my early responsibilities were technical.
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He did not have at that time in Minnesota a full-time recording engineer and he didn’t know or care the
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difference between engineer and technician. So, I got tossed into that
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chair and um I I knew the equipment quite
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well, but I didn’t know how to use it aesthetically, which ended up again
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being fortunate because Prince had his own sound. He manipulated sound to
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satisfy his unique arrangemental and performance skills. so he could mold me
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into being a sculptor of his sound in such a way that it served his music.
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That ended up being a problem for me after I left Prince because Prince sound did not translate well to other people’s
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performance or tambers or arrangement skills, but for him it it served him
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well. Yeah. I’ve um I I I don’t know anybody in that original band, but I’ve I’ve had
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quite a few conversations with Morris Hayes who worked with him and PG and uh
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Morris tells a lot of stories about how Prince’s view of musical and technical
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reality was so different and uh I guess in a way it was probably good for you that you didn’t have any
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rules already um you know sort of placed on you so that you you kind of you know
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learned you you learned in in that sort of avantguard fashion in that sense. Yeah,
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it uh it worked out really well for me going from being a technician to being a naive engineer under the toutelage of um
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you know undeniably one of the great record makers of the late uh 20th
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century. It’s undeniable that that Prince was was a brilliant record maker
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to be able to be, you know, to to be kind of custom molded into an engineer
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that served that style of record making. Of course, it had its disadvantages, but
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uh the advantages outweighed them. Sure. Sure. Um now, the other thing that
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I think is interesting, I mean, obviously you you did come from a kind of a nerdy leftrain background. I mean,
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obviously, you know, in terms of being able to understand a lot of the technical concepts and everything. Um,
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you know, one of the things that I’ve always been fascinated with in our
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industry in particular is that we really, this industry more than any other is this odd mix of leftbrain,
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right brain that, you know, creativity and technology in that sense. Um,
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growing up in this industry, knowing a lot of technical people like yourself,
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like a lot of the other people I worked with, you know, I I got hired to put a MIDI room in for Herb Alpbert at&m. Um,
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you know, uh, installing consoles at a number of different studios as well as, you know, at the same time
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wanting to be an engineer/producer because I was very fascinated with that.
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I’ve always been fascinated by the fact that people are obsessed with gear and
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that’s a wonderful thing. I love the gear, but sometimes to the point where we lose sight of what we’re using the
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gear for. Right. Exactly. And you obviously you had a real intrinsic understanding of
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yeah, I know what a compressor is, but you know, it’s not that I care about whether I’m using, you know, u this comp
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compressor or that compressor, this piece of gear or that piece of gear. It’s what are we using it for? We’re
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creating something here. Yeah, it’s a really good point and it needs to be discussed with students. Um
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I have taught at Berkeley College of Music for many years. So I’ve had a lot of students. Um what you’re talking
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about that leftrain, right brain distinction, um I I prefer to think of
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it as you know art and craft. We can also think of it as art and science.
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But for anyone who is an artist, whether you’re a sculptor or you’re a filmmaker or you’re a record maker, you must start
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with your craft. And once you’ve mastered your craft, now you can push paint around on canvas or you can push
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faders around in an informed way so that any art that
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you might have in you, by art, I mean original ideas can emerge. In other
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words, you can make the thing that you’re imagining in your mind’s ear or seeing in your mind’s eye. Um, we have
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to learn our craft first. Those of us who started as technicians or who have a technical aptitude um know our craft
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pretty well. So once we once we know signal flow and we truly understand how
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to push um a waveform whether it’s its envelope or its fine structure or its
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time of arrival or whatever it phase relationships all that stuff. Once we know
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about our tools and how to use them, then it’s up to us to see if we have any
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original ideas, um, it’s just as difficult, of course, uh, the art is
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just as difficult as the craft. Um, there’s an awful lot of trial and error involved. Whether you’re Bono or you’re
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David Burn or you’re Prince or you’re someone just starting out, the marketplace of ideas is going to show
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you right away if that record you’ve just made is um appealing or not.
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Sure. So, yeah, we do have to go through those two stages, you know, of art and craft. And along the way, I should have said it
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the other way around. Craft first and then art. Along the way, you do find your strengths and you find not only
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what you’re best at, but what you like. I had a colleague at Berkeley who’s a brilliant, brilliant engineer, and he
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tried his hand at producing, and he said um he didn’t like it. He didn’t like the responsibility. He didn’t like the
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pressures of it. It just wasn’t satisfying. And then other people go the other way. they get enough engineering
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under their belt that they can produce and then they’re off to the races and the engineering is something they’re not
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interested in. So we find I think in in mixing of course being a blend of the two, we find where we’re happiest and
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where we’re making the biggest contribution in our careers. No, you’re absolutely right. Uh, and in
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fact, you know, we were just talking a minute ago about um mutazowski and uh Mick and I had this great
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conversation a couple of weeks ago and I was asking him about that too and um he
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mentioned the same thing. He said, you know, um he loved mixing because he the
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psychology of working with the artist didn’t necessarily appeal to him, right? And I can understand that, you
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know, um, having watched a lot of the the great producers, you know, been
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having had the privilege of looking over the shoulder of guys like Phil Raone,
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John W, uh, you know, Peter Asher, and watching them approach the creative
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process. um you know and to a certain extent I mean there are some producers
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uh you know Rick Rubin comes to mind who completely divorce themselves from that
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leftbrain component because they find it almost distracting you know um although
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I I suspect that Rick knows more about technology than he’ll admit but um you
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know there is definitely um there’s a really strong dichotomy between the idea
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of interpreting the technical versus getting into the the artist’s brain, so
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to speak. Yeah. Yeah. I agree with you. When you’ve watched or learned about a great
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producer at work, you know where the bar is, set. Yeah. Yeah.
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Same thing with the engineers and the same thing with the mixers. I think um well, I talk with students about this,
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so forgive me for being pedantic. It’s just natural. You know, you’re gonna go the furthest in your career when who you
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are, meaning your natural innate strengths and ways of thinking, when who
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you are, has some overlap with what you want. Uh, I wanted to be a record maker.
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If I had started my career as a producer, I wouldn’t have lasted two months. I I I don’t have the innate
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skills or even the drive as a producer.
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my my skill set is more aligned with engineering and with mixing.
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The technical stuff is is where I’m the most confident and it’s where I’m the
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fastest, where I solve problems the easiest. I’m most comfortable there. Having spent
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time around great producers taught me enough about production that I could add
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to my skill set. But when you read about Sly Stone or Brian Wilson and you read
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about uh the great the great capacity of the great great
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producers, the Rick Halls of Muscle Scholes, the Sam Phillips of Sun Studios
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that this those are the paragonss for me. That’s that’s my dream, but it’s a
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fantasy. That dream is a fantasy for me. I’m not that. Never have been, never
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will be. Uh so I uh I do what I can. I make the contribution where I can. And
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when I do produce with artists, I’m really clear about what I can do for them. It’s a limited set of skills. I
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can do certain things and and what I absolutely cannot do for them because I just don’t have it. It’s
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interesting that you say that um for a number of reasons. First of all, um I had the impression especially from some
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of the things you mentioned in your book that a lot of those skills that you are very humble about there here that you do
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actually have in terms of understanding for example the importance of coaxing a
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performance out of the artist. the understanding of pre-production, talking with the artist, you know, um um you had
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mentioned things like uh you call it a record pull was fascinating, you know, the idea of just sitting down and and this is
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something that I’ve done working with artists as a producer too. Sitting down and just listening to music together and
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saying, you know, here’s something I like, you know, and and a lot of times it’s not like here’s what you should
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sound like. It’s more just here’s here’s something that’s influential to me. here’s something that I like musically
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because ABC whatever. Um, but you have that understanding of
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getting into the artist’s head which I’ve always felt is a very valuable part of being a producer.
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Oh, thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Daniel, so much. But here’s what I have to say about that because there no doubt
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you’ve got audience listeners here who have that as well.
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Commercial record making is I think a bit like football.
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I I’ve got the tactical approach that’ll get you onto the field. I can, as you
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say, pull music performances out of folks. I’ve got an ear for um well, I
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sure as hell know what I like. I’ve got an ear for assessing performances and and and I I know how to get out of that
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talk back and say whether or not we have a good take or a bad take. I can make some decent records. Winning the game
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requires, you know, this a certain ferocity,
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a certain competitiveness, and a callousness.
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There’s got to be that component in there. A callousness toward
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art for art’s sake. You got to be willing to be commercial and make tough
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decisions. Really tough decisions.
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It’s one thing to decide what to do. It’s another thing to carry it out. It’s one thing to have a tactical battle plan
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for winning a football game. It’s another thing to have the I don’t I don’t know what they are. 350 pound
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linemen or the the fleefooted receivers that can actually catch that ball or the
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quarterback who can stand there and in the space of a fraction of a second figure out whether or not he should
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throw the ball or just fall on it. Whatever. It’s one thing to know what to do. It’s another thing to actually do it
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in a really competitive marketplace that takes an X factor
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that um the great producers have. I that I know I do not have I I don’t have it.
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That’s interesting. You know, you you had mentioned um at one point in your book you mentioned
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the idea of um three different audiences.
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critics, you have the artists, and you have the public. I believe that’s how you I can’t remember off the top of my head, but I
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think that’s how you classified them. And yeah, what you’re referring to is the public. You’re referring to the
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commercial aspects of making a record. Um, and that I I think, you know,
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obviously there are as many different kinds of producers as there are people doing it, but um, you know, I think
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that’s where you’re absolutely right. That’s a different skill set than just
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um you know I have I have done certain projects with artists that I’ve been
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very very proud of. I have had the artists come to me and tell me that they
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love the work. Oh yeah. Yeah, but it wasn’t a commercial success you know and
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in a certain way I mean I have fel I have felt very satisfied and I have felt it as a success you know I mean how do
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you define success obviously you know you define it on whatever terms you want but yeah you’re right it’s a completely
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different skill set to create a commercially successful record as
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opposed to an artistically successful record in that sense yeah and it’s not just up to the
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producer quite naturally You know, it’s up to the artists as well. The biggest commercial success that I had as a
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producer was with Bare Naked Ladies. Well, I credit Terry McBride, their
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manager at Network Management, for preheating the oven for us. I also credit, of course, the
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ladies themselves. I mean, Stephen and and Ed and their their songwriting and performance skills. They were at the top
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of their game. I was just fortunate enough to be there and um I hitched my
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wagon to their star. I’m admitting here right now uh because it was a pop
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record. The three audiences that I mentioned in the book um are as you said
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the the critics and scholars and there’s the general public and then the third audience is a jury of your peers other
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musicians and like you I’ve made records that the critics have really loved and that other artists have hired me based
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on artists other musicians love these records. the critics. Um, I’ve I’ve
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gotten some great reviews, really great reviews of records I’ve produced, but
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it’s that third audience, the public, and they’re listening for something a little bit different than the art music
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that we’re fond of making. They they want um I don’t know. I mean, we can think of it in the in the realm of food.
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You know, no one would say that McDonald’s or Burger King is the best food you can possibly make. It’s the
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most popular food. And uh those of us who are chefs and you know we want to
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run a restaurant and have these original dishes are pleasing a different kind of audience than the folks who churn out
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you know the pizzas and the burgers. Yeah. The Big Macs of the world. Yeah. Yeah. Yes. Now that is not to say that there
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isn’t talent involved in making pop records. My old colleague Greg Kirsten
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has uh Greg is as accomplished and as talented and as as as
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capable as any musician I have ever worked with and Greg made a lot of major
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hits with Adele and Paul McCartney and Beck and Foo Fighters and all these others. Um so it it it is not it’s not
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like we’re making Pabum on the top of the pop charts. There’s great talent in
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there. There’s great stuff there. Um maybe not as much now as there was um you know a
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generation ago. I don’t know. You know it depends on who you ask. Um you know and and and again you know that
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all comes from a different perspective. I mean what what we would judge as great music. Um you know it every generation
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and every um every listener has their own benchmarks as far as that’s
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concerned. you know, um, there are some people who absolutely love the pop music of the 60s and some
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people who, you know, just turn their noses up at it, you know, and and every
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decade since then. So, um, I mean, again, you know, obviously it is up to
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the listener in that sense, but um, but for you as a producer, I mean, you had
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um, in fact, I I I saved it here because I love it. He had a great quote in the book and um I think I scribbled it down
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pretty quickly here so I don’t know if I got it exactly but um I’m going to read it anyway.
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Given the sublime the sublime level of talent available to many producers, you might think the producers’s objective is
30:23
to bring out the most virtuoso performance from the artists. That’s a rookie attitude. If you want to make the
30:29
best record, don’t opt for the best a performer can do. opt for the right thing to do. Basically saying it’s all
30:36
about the song. It’s it’s not it’s all about the the recording itself and
30:42
what’s best for the recording as opposed to showing off your chops essentially.
30:49
Yeah. You know, I worked with the great uh Sean Slade, producer along with Paul Coldery of Radio Heads Creep. And Sean
30:58
is so wonderful. Sean tells the story about how um Radio Head
31:03
really weren’t fond of Creep. They didn’t want Creep to go on that record,
31:08
but it wasn’t the best that Radio Head could do. Radio Head could do so much
31:14
more uh sophisticated music than Creed. But Sean Slade and Paul Coldery were smart
31:21
enough to recognize, come on, man. There’s that audience. There’s that public that doesn’t want to necessarily
31:28
hear the best you can do. They want you to, you know, do something kind of, you know, do something kind of fun,
31:34
revealing, and something kind of, let me go ahead and say it, entry level,
31:40
something accessible, low common denominator. Yeah, that sounds I I know what you
31:48
mean, and we use that term a lot. It sounds a bit derogatory because the public is smart. They’re damn smart.
31:55
They’re smart about understanding what
32:02
music’s main function is. Those of us who are artists and aesthets
32:10
when it comes to music, we’ve got this golden notion of what music can do, what
32:17
it can be. We know about the Jimmyi Hendrises of the world. We know about the Elephitz Geralds. We know how great
32:24
music can be. We know about the John Cold Trains and the Beethoven. The
32:30
general public will often say, “Uh, yeah, but
32:35
that’s not what we need. What we need is music that works for us.” And that’s
32:43
valid and it’s important and it’s a big component of what music is. So, uh, Sean
32:49
was saying to Radio Head, “Do something that works for more people.” How about it? What do you say, guys? And, uh, and
32:55
they did and it and it worked out well for them. And a a related example is the
33:01
fact that the I think I have my facts straight here. I believe the two songs in Prince’s Canon that made him the most
33:08
money were Kiss and Nothing Compares to You. I think those were his two biggest money makers. Uh, nothing compares to
33:15
You was a song he wrote and gave away to another band. Kiss very nearly was given away to another band. He wrote it very
33:21
quickly. I I worked with him and was there and when he wrote both of them.
33:26
So the artist doesn’t always know how music functions for non-m musicians. And
33:34
that’s really important to understand. Really important to understand. That’s interesting. Yeah, that’s
33:40
interesting. And you’re absolutely right because I think we’re so deep inside it when we’re creating it that maybe we
33:48
really don’t know what it looks like from the outside from a different angle. Yeah. You know that there’s the Milan
33:54
has the fashion shows once a year and New York has fashion week and all that kind of stuff and I see pictures of what
34:00
they wear and and we all say the same thing. No one would wear that.
34:06
But what they’re trying to do is push fashion forward and advance the state-of-the-art.
34:12
And what the rest of us are doing is we’re wearing jeans and t-shirts, button-down shirts, casual wear. We’re
34:19
wearing our sneakers. Clothing that we choose is the clothing
34:24
that works for us. We’re not necessarily interested in the best, the finest, and the most avantguard clothing. And music
34:31
is very much an art form that works this way. Um, simple rhythms work for people.
34:37
Simple lyrics, accessible lyrics work for people. Melodies with a fairly
34:42
common melodic contour, tonal center works for people. That’s what keeps the
34:49
music business alive. So, we can’t we can’t put that down. No, no, you’re absolutely right. And in
34:55
fact, um, you know, so many times musicians and artists who are not
35:00
necessarily commercially as successful are referred to as a, you know, a
35:06
musician’s musician. Yeah. You know, and Yeah, you’re right. I mean, those of us who are really into
35:14
creating the art, we sort of live by a different standard in a way, I guess,
35:20
you know. Yeah. But then again, Daniel, let’s think about the musicians, musicians
35:27
who wore the triple crown, who appealed to the public, who appealed to the critics, who appealed to other
35:33
musicians. In the book, I mentioned Duke Ellington. That was the story of the great Greg Kirsten, who I mentioned
35:39
earlier. Think about Brian Wilson. Think about Jimmy Paige and Led Zeppelin. I
35:45
watched that Becoming Led Zeppelin documentary recently. It’s excellent. I was a huge Led Zeppelin fan. I was a
35:52
teenager. I was a member of the public that thought they were the greatest. But I’m also a music and art lover. And to
35:58
me, Jimmy Paige is Jimmy Paige is my guy. And that’s my favorite guitar player. I would pick him over any of the
36:04
others. Jimmy Paige is no slouch. Neither was John Paul Jones or John
36:09
Bonham or Robert Plant. Likewise with Sly Stone and likewise with Brian Wilson
36:15
and with many other record makers out there today. Let’s talk about Phineas. Let’s talk about others who are making
36:21
hit pop records and are, as you’d say in poker, holding.
36:26
Yeah. Who who who are truly great. Truly great. Those Triple Crown winners are
36:32
the ones who are uh showing us where the bar is set for for for for real success.
36:39
Real lasting success, both commercial and respect wise.
36:44
And they’re Hen’s teeth. I mean, they they really are, you know, I mean, it’s it’s it’s rare that you find people that
36:52
have that natural ability and at the same time that intrinsic almost
36:58
unconscious understanding of what’s going to work to, as you say, hit that
37:03
triple crown. Yeah. Yeah. It behooves all of us to
37:08
consider what music is. And as you said earlier, what are we doing?
37:14
Yeah. What are we doing? What are we trying to achieve? You can get everything you want, but you
37:21
are going to get the thing you want the most. My mentor, the producer Tony Berg, who taught me taught me how to produce
37:27
essentially. Yeah. Tony knew from day one that he would never chase commercial success, that he
37:33
would always chase artistic innovation. It’s what he’s been doing for over 40 years. He’s made a great contribution to
37:39
the state-of-the-art of music. A commercial success is not something he’s
37:45
looked for or or achieved, frankly. But, um, by commercial success, I mean pop
37:51
hits, but he’s tremendously respected. And that’s a that’s a damn fine career right there.
37:57
Oh, absolutely. And you know there are there are people who have achieved commercial success
38:04
uh who you know a lot of the uh quote unquote more artistic community look
38:09
down their noses at I mean yeah who are we to say you know I
38:15
mean it it sells and you know there are people for whom that’s what they’re
38:20
after. So you know again we define success you know. Yeah. And in in
38:26
general, you know what we need to do is stop being so uh snobbish about music.
38:33
You know, yes, we love it. And aren’t we glad that
38:39
no one else hears music exactly the same way that we do,
38:45
judges it exactly the same that we do. Um what we know from neuroscience is
38:50
every listening brain is unique. Everything is the way it is because it got that way and all of our experiences
38:55
are unique. Mhm. We all heard different music growing up. We all have our own idea of what good is
39:03
on a meta scale and also on an individual scale like good rhythms. What do you consider good druming? Give me a
39:10
list of your five favorite drummers. I can give you a list of my five favorite and I bet that we won’t even have one
39:15
drummer shared on both lists. Oh, those those lists just infuriate me, you know, because Yeah. the pointless.
39:22
Yeah. And isn’t it great that we all have this difference of opinion because
39:27
it makes room in the pool for more of us. Absolutely. At least we have this variety of music.
39:33
You don’t have to like everything. Just as long as you like some things, that’s all that matters. Yeah. And and you know, it’s funny
39:40
because a lot of times, you know, you Well, what’s your favorite, you know, and my god, I mean, there’s hardly anything that I don’t like, you know? I
39:47
mean there’s the because really honestly there are so many there are so many sweet spots to tickle in that you know
39:55
it really is true. Um you know one thing that I’m that I also was fascinated by is um you know
40:02
the direction that your career has taken now um I was a big fan for a long time
40:08
of Dan Dan Levton and um you know the psychological
40:13
aspects of music. Um, I saw a presentation of of Dan’s many many years
40:19
ago. Uh, and I was fascinated by uh, he said, “I’m going to play a nanocond of a
40:26
song and everybody in this room is going to know what it is.” And sure enough, he played a nanocond of
40:34
Elanar Riby and everyone in the room identified it immediately. And um you
40:41
know I I find that now when I talk to students
40:49
when I talk to younger musicians coming up now um to a certain extent I mean
40:56
musically speaking we don’t have the same interests we don’t share the same uh the same influences obviously you
41:03
know they they don’t know who Sly Stone or the Beatles were or if they do you
41:09
know it’s not as it’s not as heavy an influence on them as it was on us coming up.
41:15
At the same time, I think the universal aspect of how music affects us
41:23
psychologically, affects our brain chemistries is something that has not
41:29
changed. I mean, it’s it’s it’s a universal thing. And so your your choice
41:35
to leave music production and study and apply yourself more to the psychology of
41:45
music and the psychology of how it impacts us. Um I think it’s admirable. I
41:51
think it’s fascinating. And um you know to me that’s really I think in certain
41:58
ways it’s more relevant than trying to chase
42:04
a hit to a certain extent you know. Yeah it’s um first before I before I
42:12
address that let me say that Dan couldn’t have played something that was a nanocond long because that would wouldn’t have been audible.
42:18
Well I I agree with a microcond yeah a microcond would have been uh
42:24
He sat down a second, but Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It’s
42:30
so a click a click is going to be a really fast click is going to be 20 milliseconds. So I I was uh and that’s
42:37
just a click. So, I was a a teacher’s assistant in Dan’s cognitive psychology
42:43
class at McGill when I was a grad student there and Dan was one of my doctoral adviserss and u so I’m familiar with the thing
42:49
you’re describing and your point is is well taken. So, he just played it
42:55
probably would have been about 30 or 40 milliseconds maybe even maybe even a little bit longer under 100
43:01
milliseconds. It’d be enough time to let us identify the tambber.
43:07
Yes. of the instrumentation on Elanar Riby. Now, we need I’m sorry I’m getting all pedantic. It’s just what I do, but
43:14
we need at least uh 35 milliseconds in order to be able to extract a pitch from
43:19
something. So, you’d hear the tamber, but you wouldn’t know it was Elellanar until you had heard uh maybe a note or
43:26
two, but then right away you would know. So, it was a very, very short sample. And um now back to what the the point
43:33
you were making is that um
43:39
the neuroscience of what happens when we listen to music
43:46
is amazing. So you got this triangle going on and it involves your auditory
43:51
cortex that does the listening, processing sounds, the motor cortex that involves muscle movements and commands
43:59
and does rhythm perception. And then you’ve got the dopamineergic reward
44:04
system. So these three guys form a triangle. And what happens when you’re listening
44:10
to familiar music? Memory already knows how the song goes. But memory is imperfect. You can’t remember all the
44:16
little details. So, I’m going to pick a a song by the Spinners that I love. It’s
44:24
a shame. Oof. Love that track. So, right. So, uh it comes on Sirius XM. I’m
44:31
driving my car and my auditory cortex recognizes first two guitar notes and oh, it’s
44:38
shame. Turn it up. Turn it up. Right. The auditory cortex is uh is activated
44:43
and memory says, I know this song. This is going to be good. We’re going to get a treat. This is going to be really good. And right away it starts. The
44:51
motor cortex says, “Ah, this groove. This is the groove I like. This the tempo I like.” So the motor cortex is
44:56
engaged. The auditory cortex is engaged. And the dopamineergic system is
45:01
predicting when the treats are going to come. And in this particular record,
45:06
there’s a high note from the singer that I love. And this is the great. So I’m anticipating. And there’s a circuit in
45:13
there called the Cotti nucleus that’s saying to everything else in the brain, you guys, this is going to be really good. This is going to be really good.
45:20
And then that good moment comes. And then the nucleus incumbent says, “Ah, they told me it was good and it was good
45:27
and I love it.” So now you’ve got this dopamine flooding through your brain. What happens then? And here comes the
45:33
really good part. The presence of dopamine as we listen to
45:39
music is shaping the auditory and even the motor cortex to be more receptive to
45:47
similar music in the future. So at some point when I was very young and the spinners record came out I got pleasure
45:55
from listening to it which taught my listening brain that’s what we like more
46:01
of that it made me it raises your antenna for the sort of thing that you really like. So you get better and
46:09
faster and more receptive to the stuff you like based on these good listening
46:15
experiences. Now, we can’t help it. As we get older and we’ve had a mental
46:21
library and a long history of good listening experiences, what happens is anytime you hear a novel
46:27
piece of music, you’re automatically going to compare it to stuff that’s made
46:32
you happy in the past. Sure. And you’re going to scan, you’re going to listen for what you like. Whether
46:39
it’s your lyrics, whether it’s your arrangements, your tambers, whether it’s your melodies, your harmonies, whether
46:45
it’s your rhythm, you’re listening for your treat. If you find a treat, you’ll nod your head and they go, “Yeah, it’s
46:51
good. I approve. Good record. I like it.” Now,
46:57
I I like to tell students this. Someone saying they like your music will do nothing for you. All they’re saying is,
47:04
“I like it. It’s good. It’s not bad. It’s good.” That’s a simple hedonic decision. What you want is for someone
47:09
to want your music. And that happens when you get extra dopamine. It lights
47:16
up other areas of the brain. And that makes you say, “You will be mine. I must
47:21
have you. I need to know the name of this artist. I need to hear this record again. It’s going into my personal
47:27
library. I’m going to buy the t-shirt. I’m going to buy the concert ticket. I’m going to tell my friends. I’m going to post about it.” Now, we have purchased
47:37
on a piece of music that contributes to this thing that we’re doing. And that is
47:44
how artists and producers and record makers careers advance by other people
47:49
listening to our music and thinking I want that. Interesting. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It’s a
47:57
really good point. It’s um I mean it’s it’s there’s so much complexity
48:04
in how music impacts our brains, you know. Oh yeah. It just I to me
48:10
I’ve always found that to be really really fascinating. And that’s why I mean I I really have I have
48:16
a lot of admiration for your career choice because I think um and and you know this
48:25
goes back again to what we were talking about earlier about left brain right brain. I think there is so much to
48:33
analyze in terms of this stuff, these details that really in certain ways go
48:41
by us almost undetected and unnoticed, you know. It’s like all we know is, hey, I like this. Turn it up. You know,
48:47
exactly. And that’s how it should be. Uh I I I teach psycho acoustics um as well
48:53
as some other classes for Berkeley online and sometimes uh students want to know well now that I know something
48:59
about psycho acoustics how is this going to help me in the studio and I always tell them it won’t it won’t help you in
49:07
the studio at all. It would be wrong if it did. When you’re making art you’re
49:13
working on instinct. Yeah. You’re not thinking analytically. You’re making art. You’ve got to feel moved.
49:20
You got to be in touch with your feelings. An analysis during the making of records would make
49:27
that record a hell of a lot worse. The only thing that this can do for you, an education in psycho acoustics or music
49:34
cognition or music and neuroscience, the only thing that can do for you, it can help you with the postgame analysis. So
49:41
now, if you’re listening to your mix and you’re realizing, I didn’t I didn’t get it. I I didn’t get
49:47
it. I I got to I got to get back in there. I got to remix this. It’s not working. At least you’ll be informed
49:54
better informed as to why it’s not working and what you can do to change it. For example, it’s not working
50:01
because I haven’t distributed the weight properly in this mix. I’ve made it bottom heavy and actually I want that
50:07
spotlight of attention to be more on the melody or more on the vocals. I need to reshape it. or you’ll you’ll have a
50:13
sense of, you know, the reason that kick drum is sounds flabby and tubby is because of masking. The bass is is
50:20
masking it. I know enough about critical bandwidth and I know enough that now I can get in there with that graphic EQ
50:27
and I can sculpt that kick drum and that bass fueled by knowledge to separate
50:32
them. It It’ll help. The analysis helps you offline. It doesn’t help you when you’re making music.
50:38
No. And I could see it being maybe applied differently, if not a little
50:44
more useful in uh in working in immersive now, you know, in terms of the
50:49
psycho acoustics that would be involved there. Um but yeah, you’re right. It’s, you
50:55
know, again, if you were to get that analytical with the music, you’d kind of lose the thread.
51:01
Oh, yeah. You wouldn’t make good music. Um there’s a lot of talk these days about artificial intelligence and what
51:08
it can do and we need to bear in mind that it artificial intelligence works
51:14
with data. It’s machine learning. Yeah. Yeah. It works with it works with
51:20
algorithms and data and it’s it’s smart. There’s no doubt about that. When we are
51:26
making music um I don’t know that anybody took out a pencil and a piece of paper and did an equation. I I just
51:33
don’t think u you’re working with um you’re working with information that’s
51:39
inaccessible to you. You don’t know how you know that this is the right microphone for this vocal. You don’t
51:46
know how you know that that was the right take that we got it two takes ago and that it’s just fallen off from here.
51:52
You don’t know how you know and it doesn’t matter how and it’s better that you don’t know.
51:58
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. No, I think you’re right. Um, and you know, again, that goes back to what you were talking about earlier
52:03
about um the left brain work, learning your craft before you can actually use
52:11
it to create, you know, I mean, it it go it comes down to just, you know, practicing your instrument until you get
52:18
dextrous enough to your with your instrument that I know what this is going to sound like when I put my hands
52:23
on the neck. Yeah. Or my hands on the keys. I know what this is going to sound like. And if you
52:29
really watch, you know, you talk about Jimmy Paige, for example, what intuitive
52:34
player he is where you just know he’s going to put his fingers on the neck of the guitar and it’s he’s not thinking
52:42
about what it’s going to sound like because he knows intrinsically what it’s going to sound like,
52:47
right? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. This this involves and this has been studied in the laboratory.
52:53
They’ve looked at jazz musicians when they’re improvising and an fMRI scanner.
52:59
And uh it involves going into our own heads. It involves shutting out the
53:06
external world and activating the default network, which is the network of nuclei that we activate. When we do go
53:13
into our own heads, which human beings do most of the time, or at least 30 to 50% of the time, close to most of the
53:20
time, we go into our own heads. So when you’re improvising, when you’re um
53:25
choosing, deciding, behaving instinctually,
53:31
it’s not like you’re not thinking. It’s you’re thinking from a place that is
53:36
deep in your own psyche and involves
53:41
our good friend, the dopamineergic reward system. It involves what’s pleased you in the past and your memory
53:48
systems know and your auditory system knows. That’s why you know it when you hear it. It’s made you happy in the
53:54
past. An example for me personally is u my favorite drummer is the late great Al
54:00
Jackson Jr. I love my Al Jackson Jr. and um I never knew why I loved him so much.
54:08
I just knew that it felt right when I hear him play drums. And now that I have a an education, I do
54:15
know why. I can tell you why. It’s because Al had the skill putting that
54:20
snare drum down on the two and the four few milliseconds just behind where I
54:27
anticipated the beat, which means that that exquisite feeling of anticipation
54:34
was delayed just a fraction of a second longer.
54:39
Uhhuh. and Al was consistent with that every time. So, drummers that rush the
54:45
beat on the two and the four are perfect for different listeners. The drummer
54:50
that’s a little bit behind the beat with that two and the four are perfect for me. We all have our own
54:57
unique physiology. We all know what our likes and dislikes are. Even if we can’t say it out loud, we feel it. And so, uh,
55:05
when we move that microphone on that loudspeaker cabinet, we know the difference, the
55:12
psychological boundary between this will work, this will not work. We often can’t
55:17
explain what that is. No, it’s true. Um, another drummer that does that, um, Bernard Party.
55:23
Oh, Bernard, you know, lays it back a little bit like that. And it’s it’s a really subtle thing. And as you say, you
55:29
know, it’s it different strokes for different music. Um, you know, John Bonham rushing the beat.
55:36
Yeah. What about that guy? Yeah, exactly. But, you know, I mean, you know, uh,
55:43
I mean, you know, um, Bernard Pury would not have worked for Led Zeppelin, for example. You know, I mean, just you’re
55:49
right. It it really comes down to so many little subtle factors. And, you know, you talk about these bands. Um, a
55:58
lot of times it really is the synergistic effect of these different artists all coming together. You know,
56:05
Zeppelin’s a perfect example. I mean, perfect example. Zeppelin would not have been the same with a different drummer or a different
56:11
bass player, you know. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. because it is sort of a the this
56:17
this alchemy of different aspects and
56:22
different performers and different ways of doing things that just kind of blends together in a certain
56:29
industry. One of the best or the best lecture I ever heard when I was in grad
56:35
school comes from a fellow named Bill Verplank. Bill Verplank is uh older than you and me. He’s from Silicon Valley. Um
56:44
he’s credited with being one of the inventors of the computer mouse and he knew Steve Jobs, Steve Wnjak, Paul
56:50
Gates, Bill Gates rather, and Paul Allen. So he knew the early days of Microsoft and Apple and he came to
56:57
McGill University when I was in grad school and he gave a lecture and the point of his lecture was the most
57:03
successful projects happen when different archetypes of thinkers get
57:08
together and it made a huge impact on me because it in in part it helped explain
57:13
the difference between Bare Naked Ladies the stunt album going quintuple platinum
57:19
in 98 and at the same time Guitas uh Whoever You Are album, a rather sacred
57:25
cow album with a hit single, they sold a tenth of what of what Bare Naked Ladies
57:32
did. And we had a lot of the same elements. So I couldn’t figure out why was Bare Naked Ladies so hugely
57:38
successful. And Gaggy, not so much. GG had great press, great reviews,
57:45
tremendous reviews. Gaggito had a hit single. They had a hit video. Why didn’t they sell as many records as bare naked
57:52
ladies? The Bilbert plank lecture taught me that we with gaggal were missing a
57:58
component that bare naked ladies had. So to make my overarching point when people
58:06
with different talents get together that’s when the greatest chance of success can happen. Gaggito was a bit
58:13
too homogeneous whereas bare naked ladies had some diversity in there. Now,
58:18
in the case of of Led Zeppelin, the four musicians who were all great in
58:24
different ways. Yes. And when these four people who are great in different ways get together, it fans
58:30
the whole thing out and makes the entire collaboration greater than it would be
58:37
if you had four band members who were all very similar. Yeah. Yeah. Very true. Um, you know,
58:43
another example, uh, more modern example that I think of is, uh, The Police, you
58:48
know. Oh, yeah. If you look at their individual works as three different artists, they’re
58:55
completely incompatible. You know, I mean, Stuart Copelan’s stuff is brilliant, but it’s completely
59:03
different from what he did with the police. Um, yeah, true. and and I think all three of
59:09
them, you know, they’ve and they’ve had success as individuals, but really in in almost completely
59:16
different disciplines in that sense, you know. Yeah. Because again, it was about the blend.
59:22
Yeah. In case your listeners might be wondering what Bare Naked Ladies had that Gaggy didn’t have was um in the
59:31
words of Bill for Plank, he called it a bully. I prefer calling it the competitor. Um
59:38
Bare Naked Ladies had Terry McBride. They had a tough ass manager, a great manager, Terry at Network Management.
59:45
And uh Bare Naked, rather GG’s manager at that time was their friend’s mom.
59:51
She didn’t know anything. A wonderful, wonderful woman, but she didn’t know anything about managing bands. She’d
59:57
never managed a band before. She was in her 70s. So the the Bare Naked Ladies had a competitor. Uh all the folks I’ve
1:00:05
worked with have had great artists header with them, right? Uh we’ve all
1:00:11
had our entrepreneurial strengths, but um we need we need someone who will compete
1:00:17
and fight for us. As I was talking about earlier with the football analogy, we need someone
1:00:23
who’s a fighter. Yeah. Yeah. if we’re going to be hugely successful. And a lot of artists are
1:00:30
reluctant to pair up with someone with those traits. Well, and that goes back to the, you
1:00:36
know, the age-old art versus commerce art argument. I mean, do you uh, you
1:00:42
know, if you look at the success of someone like um, you know, Dylan or the band, they had Albert Gman,
1:00:49
right? You know, uh, was completely, you know, or even, you know, um, oh, what? Oh
1:00:55
gosh, I’m drawing a blank on his name right now. Um, George Dukes and Frank Zappa’s manager. Um,
1:01:00
oh no. Oh gosh. Um, very very colorful character.
1:01:06
But again, you know, it’s people who are so different and yet they understand the
1:01:11
aspects of the business part of the music business. And yeah, you’re right.
1:01:16
you know, you need that if you’re going to if you’re going to really pierce that particular part of
1:01:23
the, you know, the equation. I think it’s um again, it’s it’s really it’s it’s it’s
1:01:29
such a such an alchemic um combination
1:01:35
of aspects that really does come together. uh if you’re lucky, if you’re really really lucky,
1:01:40
you know, that’s why it’s important to know what our strengths and weaknesses are so that when we do become part of a creative
1:01:48
team, we can bring the best of ourselves to help bring out the best in the team
1:01:56
and not try to be all things to all people. not try to do everything ourselves, do our part, but make sure
1:02:03
that we team up with people who are different thinkers than we are, who can solve different kinds of problems than
1:02:08
we can solve. So that you’ve just um helped yourself to be able to play this
1:02:16
game. Yeah. Yeah. It’s fascinating stuff. I’m um
1:02:22
I’m fascinated with what you’re doing now. You’re still teaching at Berkeley, right? Not in Boston. I teach exclusively for
1:02:30
Berkeley online. So I’ve written and taught and continue to teach psycho acoustics and music cognition and uh
1:02:37
music and neuroscience. So I I teach only a couple of days a week. Currently
1:02:42
I’m writing a textbook for Princeton University Press uh music cognition. I’m
1:02:47
about halfway through with that and that’s um that’s uh timeconuming. It’s
1:02:52
my most rewarding work. Not financially. textbooks don’t pay a lot of money
1:02:58
initially, but um the the doing the research on the writing and music
1:03:03
cognition is my favorite thing to do right now. So, I love this more than anything. And I still I I get
1:03:09
invitations for speaking engagements. So, I I travel and I give I give talks.
1:03:15
Yeah. I I would love to um I I want to keep in touch with you and know when you’re giving some speaking engagements
1:03:21
uh because I I really would love to hear more about this. The stuff you’re doing is just uh I mean it’s really
1:03:29
fascinating to me because again, you know, I I come from a similar background. I um I have really enjoyed
1:03:38
working with artists. It has been incredibly fulfilling to me
1:03:43
and yet I find that now when I’m talking to students I’m talking to them more on
1:03:49
the basis of neurodeiversity and how that impacts the artist and the artist’s
1:03:55
creative process you know because pretty much all of us who are in the arts are
1:04:01
on the spectrum quote unquote to some degree you know I mean it’s a it’s part of the creative process it’s part of
1:04:07
being the it’s part being sensitive enough to be influenced as an artist.
1:04:15
And so to me, what you’re working on is really, it’s so um it’s so intrinsic to
1:04:22
being an artist. And you know, it’s kind of like it’s a look under the hood really. Mhm. Yeah.
1:04:30
It is true that if we go into a recording studio, all of us
1:04:37
are bringing a skill set with us. All of us are bringing a mental library of what our idea of good is. We got that going
1:04:44
for us. But um the other thing we’re bringing, as you said, is um we’re bringing in our capacity to be in touch
1:04:52
with our emotions. We creative folks are okay
1:04:57
with being emotionally exposed and vulnerable and having our emotions be
1:05:03
right on the surface of our skin. We have to because we make a living
1:05:08
doing that in the recording studio. That that that’s how that’s how you work. Yeah.
1:05:13
So, it’s a it’s a it’s a unique triumpvirate of um of attributes, right?
1:05:21
You’re you’re very sensitive. You’re artistic. You’re technical, scientific, craft
1:05:28
oriented. You got you’ve got all these things going on. And you know what you’re good at and
1:05:33
what you’re not as good at and what you you know yourself. You bring that uh
1:05:39
into the party with some other like-minded folks who, if you’re lucky, have strengths in areas where you have
1:05:45
weaknesses to get there. You got a shot. you got a shot at making something that
1:05:51
um makes you happy and um makes music listeners happy as well.
1:05:56
Yeah. Yeah. If you’re lucky, it makes music listeners happy. You’re you know, obviously you’re never going to please
1:06:01
everybody. And I think especially now, you know, one thing you had mentioned in your book was the idea of how how music
1:06:09
is consumed and how that impacts the creative process as well. um you know
1:06:15
with the fragmentation of how music is consumed now and with the shorter
1:06:21
attention spans you know we don’t sit down and listen to an album now or anything like that you know and and um I
1:06:28
think in certain ways that changes also how we are viewing all of this how the
1:06:35
process how how the brain processes it in a certain way yeah and it’s too early for us to have
1:06:42
good solid data on what our new music listening habits are doing to us as
1:06:48
music consumers. You remember in our generation, you sat in front of loudspeakers when you listen
1:06:55
to music. And these days, that’s pretty rare. It’s more common to listen to music privately. And personally, I heard
1:07:02
something interesting the other day from one of my students. This is crazy town.
1:07:07
She’s a music teacher. and she said these days uh her students
1:07:15
don’t sing as well as they used to. And she’s been a music teacher for for decades. She
1:07:22
said it used to always be that you know got a music student and uh they can sing
1:07:28
a part to you. She said they don’t sing anymore. And I said really you really
1:07:34
seeing this? She said yes I am and it’s been a trend. And I asked what do you think’s going on? She said, “They don’t
1:07:39
sing out loud anymore. When we listened through loudspeakers, we would sing along on the record. If you’re listening
1:07:44
privately, you’re not inclined to sing.” And that just blew my mind. It might be
1:07:50
possible that uh natural singing, which is a natural
1:07:56
behavior in human beings, is rapidly declining due to a tendency to listen to music
1:08:03
privately and be reluctant to use your voice and sing out loud. All these
1:08:08
little things have downstream effects. So the technology has changed us and because it’s changed how we consume
1:08:14
music. Um so it will of course naturally change music itself. You mentioned
1:08:20
shorter attention spans. I don’t know if that’s been tested or not, but I do know that when people are listening to music
1:08:26
for hours at a time or at least an hour with earbuds in, they’re running a risk of early onset hearing damage. That’s
1:08:33
been measured. Yeah, we do have to be careful and our that our music habits um help and don’t hurt
1:08:39
us. Yeah. And and you know when you talk about singing um one of the things that
1:08:45
I had a conversation with another music industry friend recently about the uh the effect of autotune where um a lot of
1:08:52
the people that I know we’re getting demos now with singers who don’t sing blue notes anymore.
1:08:58
Yeah. you know there it’s it’s again emulating what we’re hearing you know and I mean if you look at the way music
1:09:05
has evolved you know we’ve gone from melody based stuff you know if you look back at music of the
1:09:11
30s4s uh you know you could sing a melody and you’d know what the song was and now
1:09:17
there’s a lot of of music that has almost no melody in that sense it’s mostly spoken
1:09:22
and uh again so you know there’s there’s an evolutionary component to that but yeah you’re right Um I I think music is
1:09:30
listened to privately. I think it’s also um it’s more often background now to
1:09:37
another setting whereas it used to be that as you say we’d sit in front of a a set a set of speakers you know and we’d
1:09:43
listen. So again so many things have changed and I think that’s obviously impacting the effect that music has on
1:09:51
us. But you know what Daniel you know what makes me feel a little bit optimistic? There have always been
1:09:59
a very large percentage of people who aren’t that into music. I don’t believe
1:10:05
that that percentage has changed over the decades. I think the majority of
1:10:10
people like music, but as I was talking about earlier, they don’t necessarily
1:10:16
want it. I think just as there are a lot of people who aren’t foodies and they
1:10:21
aren’t fashionistas, they want music to the extent that it
1:10:26
works for whatever to keep them from being bored to have lyrics that help solve a
1:10:32
problem for them or whatever. But beyond that, they’re not especially interested. These are the folks who don’t have a large music collection because they
1:10:39
don’t really care. Right. There’s nothing wrong with that. Right. I don’t crave it. Yeah.
1:10:45
Exactly. Yeah. So, uh, from what I see in the young people at Berkeley, now they’re
1:10:50
special sample because they’re all musicians and they’re at Berkeley, but I’m seeing that a lot of young people,
1:10:55
the ones who are into it, are consuming music the same way that we did when we were young. I see young people who are
1:11:02
as into it as ever and are knowledgeable about it and can talk about it, do who
1:11:08
listen to music with friends and uh, seek it out in the same way that we did. So, I really right now am not believing
1:11:17
that the human brain changes that fast. I think we’re seeing something
1:11:22
different. But those of us in the music business always just kind of naturally assume that everybody’s into music,
1:11:28
right? Because everybody we know is into music. Truth is,
1:11:34
that’s not true. No, you’re right. You’re right. Yeah. A lot of people aren’t that. Yeah. And and again, you know, there’s
1:11:39
also the aspect that um you know, are people making music together as much as
1:11:46
they used to be? You know, that’s another thing that fascinates me. I mean, you know, more people are working now with multitrack, with DAWs, with
1:11:53
beats, you know, as opposed to making music together in a room, you know,
1:12:00
that’s another thing that’s that’s I don’t know how different it really is because again, you’re right. We lack
1:12:05
that perspective because we’re deep inside it, you know. Yeah. Well, my my former my former
1:12:11
students who are working in the business now tell me the trend among young people these days is to get together in a room
1:12:16
and make music. That that the young people are um sick of this to put it
1:12:23
bluntly. They’re sick of this They’re sick of working alone in a room and sharing their stuff, uh, sharing
1:12:30
their files. And, uh, music is a form of communication. And if you’re just
1:12:35
sitting there by yourself and there’s no receptacle, there’s no one there listening to what it is you’re doing,
1:12:40
it’s pretty lonely. You’re getting together with other people and and recording with others. I
1:12:46
think we can be optimistic because I don’t think the human brain changes that fast. It wants what it’s always what it
1:12:53
has always wanted. Well, that’s that’s an encouraging thing
1:12:59
right there. I I I I think we’re going to leave it on that encouraging note because that that
1:13:05
makes me happy. Um I have immensely enjoyed this. Thank you
1:13:10
so much for making the time for this. Um I hope we can do it again. Um thank you. Yeah, this is um as I say,
1:13:18
you you you scratch certain itches for me in terms of what I’m what I am focused on as an artist and also as
1:13:26
someone who’s fascinated with the creative process. Yeah. Yeah. Me, too.
1:13:31
So, I I really really love that. And um Yeah. Well, thank you,
1:13:37
Susan Rogers, for being my guest. Thank you for your time. Um, I could go on like this for hours, but
1:13:44
um I I want to take it in little bites here. So, um, go ahead. Let’s agree to do this again.
1:13:50
Yeah, let’s have a part two anytime you want. I’m sorry that I’m going to miss AES this year, but um, next year if it’s
1:13:58
back in New York, I’ll I’ll be there. And I hope everybody has a good time and I hope it’s a a record number of
1:14:04
attendees. That would be really great. I would love to see that, too. I don’t know. But, uh, either way, I’m going to
1:14:10
be there. I’m going to be doing a bunch of panels and whatnot. Um, that’s what I do. So, I’ll continue to do it. And I’ll
1:14:17
continue to do it as long as there are people who are interested in listening, you know. Oh, there will be. Well, thank you,
1:14:23
Daniel. It’s nice to chat with you and um, best of luck with this endeavor.
1:14:28
Thank you so much, Susan. And, uh, I’m sure we’ll talk again. Well, we’ll see you. Bye.
1:14:33
Thank you. Hey, I’m Daniel Keller. Don’t forget to
1:14:39
hit the subscribe button and join us each week for Insights and Sound.