I'm in the process of writing the dissertation proposal for my PhD. One of the areas involves the ways music is performed in the studio as opposed to other musical venues. This is providential because we right in the middle of a critical transition. As some of you may have noticed, the band began performing some of the new songs before we entered the recording studio. This is because they had been learning and practicing them in the rehearsal studio for more than a month. But performing a song live is very different from recording it in the studio. So the transition requires special adjustments to the arrangements which, while recognizing the unique nature of the studio, does not rob the music of the vibrance of live performance.
One of the things we had to do was to determine the correct tempos that would be used in the recording. Tempo in a live show is influenced by a number of variables. First off, many musicians don't have perfect tempo sense, meaning 1) they don't always perform a song at the same tempo twice, and 2) the tempo may change within the course of performing the song. There are a number of factors that will affect this. First, an excited audience makes for an excited band. And an excited band may result in faster tempos. Nervousness and tension among the musicians are another factor. Small playing errors, malfunctioning equipment, and bad hall acoustics may lead to frustration, hence the band may speed things up just to get it over with. Fatigue and illness may also contribute to tempo instabilities. Popular music audiences don't usually notice these fluctuations because they are too busy getting caught up in the moment. But studio recorded versions are different. It is assumed that a recording will be listened to hundreds or even thousands of times. Miniscule "errors" therefore become more evident and irritating with each playback. So recordings must be at the least, proficient, if not perfect.
Most recordings nowadays are done in pieces in an effort to gain maximum control over all the elements. In multi-track recording systems, instruments are added one at a time while listening to previously recorded tracks. The first track laid out in the recording process is a "guide track". This contains usually draft versions of the vocals, and harmony instruments such as guitars. It also contains a "click track" which serves as a metronome. This makes adding additional tracks much easier. In a rehearsal the weekend before we were to lay down the guide tracks in the recording studio, one of the last things I did was to ask the band to decide on the tempos to be applied to the guide tracks. We used a Kaka's pocket metronome to make the computations. I then asked Kaka and Jal to make a special guide click track that we would download to the studio track. These guide click tracks were not just the usual quarter-note beeps as in an ordinary metronome. Raimund Marasigan and I worked out a technique many years ago when we were still recording the Eraserheads. Raimund was always frustrated using a plain metronome because the absolute accuracy of the metronomes short "beep" prevented him from being able to put incremental rhythmic manipulations or "feel" of his playing. One way human "feel" is articulated into music is to delay or anticipate a note on a beat. For example, "sugod" refers to a deliberate anticipation of a beat to suggest excitement and tension. "Hila" on the other hand is what one calls a slightly delayed, laid-back feel. "Bulsa" or "in the pocket" refers to a feel that is right on top of the beat. So for the quarter notes, he eventually settled on using a cowbell sound, and for the 8th notes we used a tambourine, both of which are slightly longer and more "natural" than an electronic beep. Jal and Kaka spend a whole day creating these rhythm guides using Jal's laptop computer and sequencing software. But when we got to the recording studio, we noticed not only were all the tempos off, but they were unstable. We hypothesized that the either the laptop's internal clock was not that dependable, or the software was using too much CPU processing power for it to stay stable. So we ended up doing everything on the studio's drum machine, because we figured a real drum machine is optimized for stable tempo. But this wasn't the end of it.
A few days after the guide track session, we had our last practice in a rehearsal studio. I asked Kaka to bring his pocket metronome because I wanted him to play using the tempos we laid down in the guide tracks, and for Ebe and Jal to get used to having the fixed tempos. But Kaka forgot the earphones that fit the metronome. So he ended up using another laptop (that Kaka borrowed from someone else) as a drum machine. To our surprise, four songs seemed uncomfortably slow and inconsistent. So we upped the tempos again, and waited for the next trip to the recording studio to verify why the tempos were once again off.
Sure enough, when we got back to the recording studio, four guide tracks in question were uncomfortably slow. After a lot of headscratching, we realized that when we laid down the guides in the recording studio, the manner in which Ebe had been strumming the guitar used alternate up and down strokes, and not the straight 8th note downstrokes that he used in live performances. The former technique usually produces a slightly laid back feel, and the latter is more anticipated. Hence the guides were too slow by an average of only 2 beats per minute (BPM). This might seem insignificant on the surface, but it is a big deal to us. This is just one example of how exacting recording studio work can be. So on the next session, we took a few minutes to lay down completely new guides for Kaka to play over.
I just came up with an interesting analogy about tempos. Its all about eating. In a party (or fastfood restaurant), I notice that I don't really get to taste the food. This is because eating is accompanied by a host of distractions, like multiple conversations, noise, and general festivities. I figure the reason I can't taste anything is that my taste buds are so distracted that I end up gobbling up my food, and getting full quickly. This is much like attending a pop/rock concert. Its noisy, the lights are blinking in all sorts of color combinations, people are dancing their heads off, and you are going nuts from being in the same space as your idols. A lot of of the subtler musical elements naturally go unnoticed, such as tempo and rhyhmic stability. On the other hand, eating in an elegant, expensive restaurant forces me to savor each moment, from the time I smell the food, to the time the food enters my mouth, to the point at which the taste begins to explode, to the time the initial taste evolves into something else, to the time after swallowing when the aftertaste evolves even more. This is like a recorded performance. Each note and lyric must be given its own space and time. And both performer and listener must be allowed to savor each of these musical events.
This is just one area of the difference between live and recorded performances. On the other hand, future essays will try to discuss some characteristics of live performance that I try to simulate in a recorded performance.
