The Performer in the Recording Studio

To date, there has been relatively little academic enquiry into the creative practices of the performing musician inside the recording studio. Studies in this area have typically focused on the musician’s experiences of performing in the recording studio and much of what has been published is predominantly in the area of performance studies and almost exclusively with orchestral musicians. These studies are largely split into two strands: ‘historical research on the original conditions of performance at the time a given work was composed, and the study of performance practice through recordings’ (Greig, 2009: 24-25). For instance, studies into performance have emphasised the link between performance style, individual agency and the broader musical conventions of Western-Classical musicians. Although it was found that performers exercise their agency by exhibiting their own unique performance style: ‘it would be impossible for performers to please audiences, promoters and critics’ (Ibid: 248) if they did not broadly conform to their expectations. This highlights the influence of the art world on performing musicians and explains how: ‘current taste selects performers who

conform, and in so doing it creates a “period style” which may be defined habits that may of them have in common’ (Ibid).

The orchestral performer’s place in the process and product of recording inside the recording studio has also been explored (Blier-Carruthers, 2013). The orchestral performer’s creative agency inside the recording studio was also found to be limited because the record producer is viewed as: ‘all-powerful, to the extent that the

performers often feel that he takes away their control of the situation, yet to the outside world he is almost invisible’ (Blier-Carruthers, 2013: 4). Tensions are further created through the expectation of perfection in which: ‘audiences and musicians have come to

expect increasingly technically accurate performances…a perfection which musicians are at constant pains to deliver’ (Ibid: 5). Performers are also: ‘performing for and against the microphone’ (Greig, 2009) and recording technologies can become an added layer of constraint in their ability to exercise their creative agency inside the recording studio. For example, although the use of headphones can also provide a communicative bridge between personnel in the control room and musicians

performing in the live room, it limits the ability for musicians to communicate verbally amongst themselves to discuss or evaluate each other’s performance (Williams in Frith & Zagorski-Thomas, 2012: 114). Drawing on autobiographical, biographical and academic literature these aspects have been brought together through the study of issues affecting performance in the recording studio (Zagorski-Thomas, 2012). Eight categories were identified and are as follows (2012: 6):

1. The performer hearing themself 2. The performer hearing others 3. The performer seeing others

4. The nature of the studio environment 5. The nature of the recording technology 6. Power relationships and decision-making

7. The alteration of the player’s normal performance practice 8. The alteration of other aspects of the player’s working practice

It is acknowledged that some categories overlap with others and most notable is the observation that studio performance may not necessary include performing with other musicians in real time. The nature of the studio environment can therefore influence the performing musician and: ‘the nature of the environment in which the recording takes place will be an important determinant in the mood and attitude of the

performers’ (Ibid: 15). The recording studio can be a foreboding and alienating space for performing musicians (Williams, 2007) and the control room of the recording

studio has been compared to an 18th Century prison design feature called a

tower that affords prison guards continuous observation of prisoners. The design of the panopticon and the recording studio has been compared because the performing

musician has: ‘no way of knowing whether its signal is being preserved on a recording, or broadcast over control room loudspeakers, but must operate under the assumption that it is always on’ (2007).

Performing in the recording studio also often requires the musician to perform without an audience. In the recording studio, the audience is often replaced by those directly involved in the decision making process, however the lack of audience response can contribute to the introspection of the performing musician’s experience in the recording studio in which their performance is judged by other participants in the control room. However:

Judgment calls and decision making in the studio are complex phenomena – musicians will often judge a take by how it felt rather than by how it sounded. The stress of trying something that they are unsure of, a moment of indecision or forgetfulness and other factors that may make a player momentarily

confused or stressed will often make them feel negative towards a particular take (Zagorski-Thomas, 2012: 21).

Whilst useful in detailing some of the issues, concerns, alterations and requirements for musicians performing in the recording studio the available literature is lacking in a comprehensive exploration of the performing musician’s idiosyncrasies, their knowledge and symbol system, their collaboration with others in the field during a particular recording project and, importantly, how all of these aspects interact with each other inside the recording studio in the context of the creative system.