The Music Biz

On Saturday, I was confirmed my Work Experience placement (for any non-Brits, it's basically an internship during school for one or two weeks) at Airtight Studios ltd, a recording studio on the outskirts of Chichester. I met up with Richard Scott, the owner, and he showed me around the place and helped me fill out the form. A comment of his, however, has got me thinking.

He mentioned a previous student who had come to him for a placement, and had stayed for two weeks. He said that the guy was lucky enough to be doing his placement while a band was recording an album, and that every day he would go into the booth and help them do their thing. On the last day, Rich told him to get in the booth, and he turned to Rich and said "I don't want to go in there anymore".

This surprised Rich. This guy had been extremely keen about working in a studio, and was practically pining to do some work. But by the end of the two weeks, he despised it. Rich explained that the guy hadn't been prepared for what working in a studio actually meant - sitting in a small room for hours on end working with a pack of egos. The guy couldn't take it.

This got me thinking. Why did this guy think that recording an album, from rough recording to final, perfect mix would be easy, especially on the engineer's end? Where did he get this false information, that all music is magical and easy? I don't know. But what I do know is that music isn't easy. There's a lot of work involved. As Thomas Edison said, "What it boils down to is 1% inspiration and 99% perspiration". And he's right. A LOT of hard work goes into writing, recording and releasing an album, and people don't see that. They just listen to the magical little disk, and imagine that it was magical and cool and awesome at all stages. But that isn't always true. For reference, watch Metallica's documentary "Some Kind of Monster". That shows a hard recording. Read the session diaries on Opeth's website, www.opeth.com (they're in the discography section. Just select which album you want to read about.), and read about Deliverance/Damnation. Those were DAMN hard for them to record, and Mikael damn near had a psychotic breakdown by the end. In contrast, you do get some awesome and fun recording sessions. Watch Mastodon's "Making of Blood Mountain" series on YouTube. That shows a (relatively) easy recording, and they joke around a lot. It also happens to be a fascinating insight into how they write their tunes.

So, I guess what I'm saying is that people can't just THINK they're going to be right about something. You can't just expect to love being a studio technician because you like music. You need to do research, and to look into something; and ultimately, to try it out. I guess that's the real reason for Work Experience. It should also be used in life overall. I've been lucky enough to have been right most of the time I've thought I'd like something, but there's always going to be something around the corner which just won't work out.