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Pop Music Production as a Post Sound Edit 

 

Since I’ve started to produce my own music again, I’ve been investigating ways to break out of some of my existing producer habits. As a visual learner, I tend to get lost in how MIDI events graphs look, and how different instrument regions or clips are placed next to each other and layered. I often end up with instrumental tracks that sound really flat and lack dynamic, movement, or any exciting moments.

While working at Boom Box Post, however, I’ve experienced the workflow of post-production sound edits that really contrasts with the workflow I’ve developed for music production. It’s an organized and serial process that is more efficient than the abstract and intuitive approach I take in producing. In looking to progress my production skills without falling back into the same habits, I thought it would be interesting to fabricate a method of producing music as a post-production sound edit. This could offer a more linear perspective on producing my songs since music in its most basic form is sound over time. This is how I would break it down.

In order to imagine my song as a post-production edit for a film or TV show, I need a story source that functions as the “picture” so I can spot it and reference my “editorial” against the narrative. For me, this material clearly comes from the lyrics which offer visual imagery and tell the story in each song. In fact, when I started approaching a new song in the works, I used markers in ProTools to spot lyrics that seemed particularly important and should be matched by a valuable moment in the sound.

One part of a sound edit that I’m very familiar with and that offers strong foundations is the background edit, which involves room tones for indoor spaces or wind and birds for outdoor spaces, for example. While backgrounds can be a very quick and painless part of the editing process, they offer valuable sonic information on the setting and location of a show. When I think about what would function as the “setting” of a song, the first element that comes to mind is the harmonic arrangement or chord structure. Harmonies in a Pop song support the melody and the emotional tensions of the lyrical story. One habit I have is loading my session up with multiple layers of synthesizer pads or comping instruments that provide similar harmonic information. However, when I look at these tracks through the lens of a background edit, I remember what happens to many background tracks during the mixing stage of a show: they get automated very low in the mix and often many layers get muted. In reality, there is so much going on in a mix that only essential backgrounds are needed, and the rest are just taking up space. I often find that when I get to the mixing stage of a song, the layers of harmonic information I have in the song will load up the mid-range and leave no space for the vocals that share the same frequency range.

The lesson I can learn from background edits as it translates to my producing is this: just take the essentials.

Since I’m thinking about what is essential to the song, I can’t ignore the vocals, which are the meat and cheese of most of my recordings. This post-production analogy is pretty straightforward, as dialogue holds a vital role in the sound edit. Dialogue and vocals drive the story and typically call for crystal clear recording and editing. It’s important in both cases that sound effects or other instrumentation is not overshadowing them. While this may seem obvious, one thing I noticed while spotting my song lyrics was the moments when the words said something that a certain instrument or sweetener couldn’t. This happens in visual media too, and sometimes the way that something is spoken or the choice of words hold strong on their own without support. The dialogue edit teaches me to stay aware of the most irreplaceable spoken or, in this case, sung, moments in a song.

To continue, in a post-production sound edit, Foley quite literally gives more information about the movement happening in an episode and offers a little bit of insight on the characters too. A large monster might have a heavy footstep while a small child would have a softer one, for example. While Foley is generally mixed at lower levels than dialogue and sound effects, there are moments in a show or film where the camera might change perspective to show foot movement, and then Foley has the chance to shine. I imagine the Foley of a song to be the sweeteners that drive a song from one part of the arrangement to the other. I tend to lack support from sweeteners in my production, yet I notice it constantly in current Pop songs that I reference. When I mapped out some of the lyrics and the arrangement in ProTools, I took notes of where a sweetener could come in to prepare the listener for the next part of the song and shift the perspective a little. In music, this could be a reverse cymbal or a massive bass drop that cuts into the rest of the instrumental track. These moments can provide a good chunk of the dynamic that I am missing in my production.

The last part of a sound edit I want to explore in music production is the sound effects edit. If dialogue is the meat and cheese of a show’s sound, then sound effects are the bread and butter. Impactful or detailed effects builds can give viewers clear insight into what is happening at each moment in a show. In Pop music especially, the rhythm, particularly the drum and bass parts are similarly the bread and butter of a song, providing detail and sonic experiences from moment to moment. Something I notice from my drum and bass creations which tend to be the most robotic and repetitive element of my production is that I am not considering what each part of the rhythm is doing at any specific point in time. I tend to see rhythm as MIDI notes along with a graph, which results in instrumentation that is sturdy but not taking care of the music or the song as it moves through time and space. I think that seeing each collection of drum parts and bass as its own “sound effects build” in each measure or group of measures would offer a more linear image and encourage patience as I’m making my tracks. The beat can loop at certain points, but how is it helping the song if two sets of four measures are expressing different emotions in the lyrics? If there were two explosions on screen, for example, and one was right next to the characters and destroyed buildings, it wouldn’t sound like the explosion off in the distance on a rural hill. Drum and bass deserve the same kind of awareness.

Ultimately now that I’ve mapped out this explorative connection between two departments of sound that I love, I’m excited to see how each one can influence the other. In this instance, I’m observing the development of a song in a new format that can yield the results I always want but struggle to achieve.

 

Thoughts On War and Peace and Music

Well, this month’s blog sees the start of spring which is normally a time when our attentions turn to thoughts of renewal, growth, change, and maybe a time for getting out more, even travel:

 

Whan that Aprill with his shoures soote
The droghte of March hath perced to the roote,
And bathed every veyne in swich licour

Of which vertu engendred is the flour;
Whan Zephirus eek with his sweete breeth
Inspired hath in every holt and heeth
The tendre croppes, and the yonge sonne
Hath in the Ram his half cours yronne,
And smale foweles maken melodye,
That slepen al the nyght with open ye
(So priketh hem Nature in hir corages),
Thanne longen folk to goon on pilgrimages,
And palmeres for to seken straunge strondes,
To ferne halwes, kowthe in sondry londes;
And specially from every shires ende 
Of Engelond to Caunterbury they wende,
The hooly blisful martir for to seke,
That hem hath holpen whan that they were seeke.		 When April with its sweet-smelling shower
Has pierced the drought of March to the root,
And bathed every vein (of the plants) in such liquid
By which power the flower is created;
When the West Wind also with its sweet breath,
In every wood and field has breathed life into 
The tender new leaves, and the young sun
Has run half its course in Aries,
And small fowls make melody,
Those that sleep all the night with open eyes
(So Nature incites them in their hearts),
Then folk long to go on pilgrimages,
And professional pilgrims to seek foreign shores,
To distant shrines, known in various lands;
And specially from every shire’s end
Of England to Canterbury they travel,
To seek the holy blessed martyr,
Who helped them when they were sick.

Thus wrote Geoffrey Chaucer at the start of his Canterbury Tales in the 14th Century.

Now, wouldn’t it be nice if, after more than two years of suffering Covid 19 and all that it has entailed, we could look forward to a real flowering of our humanity and our art, and be out and about more freely?  The UK recently lifted its travel regulations to allow people to fly in and out of the country.  But… Ci mancava solo quello, as we often say in Italy.  That’s all we needed: a war!  So, as nice as it would be to inhabit Chaucer’s mindset; after two years of often crushing and depressing living, adapting to life in the face of a worldwide pandemic, I ask myself: when is this all going to end?

As if all this were not enough, a combination of personal losses pushed me into a deep depression; something I’ve not really been bothered by before.  As a result, I felt nothing, nothing gave me joy and, therefore, I did nothing.  Well, that’s not quite true.  I worked hard with the feminist group Non Una di Meno in preparation for International Women’s Day 8th March, which we called Lotto Marzo, not a day of celebration but a day of activism to remind the world that there are still many battles to fight and to win.  A short clip of an event during our march in front of the main railway station of Turin, the theme, in this case, was women’s health issues.

 

This is our war; our fight for gender equality. 

 

The other war: what is it for?

Carla Lonzi, in her Manifesto di Rivolta Femminile of 1970 said: War has always been the specific activity of man and his way of displaying his virility.

Virginia Woolf, in her Thoughts on Peace in an Air Raid, said: in The Times this morning—a woman’s voice saying, “Women have not a word to say in politics.” There is no woman in the Cabinet; nor in any responsible post. All the idea makers who are in a position to make ideas effective are men. That is a thought that damps thinking and encourages irresponsibility.  Apart from a few notable exceptions, this is still the case today.

Thoughts on Peace in an Air Raid by Virginia Woolf.  https://newrepublic.com/article/113653/thoughts-peace-air-raid

It’s hard to believe that one man, could have really contemplated a war in Europe after all the slaughter, bloodshed, and suffering of two world wars.  It really is beyond belief.

I’ve just started listening to Apple music and came across Górecki’s Symphony of Sorrowful Songs, which I hadn’t listened to in a long time.  Now I admit that I am often easily moved to tears by things, but it was just the intersections of what I’m seeing and hearing in these last six weeks that got me, yet again.  We are lucky to be women, working in music, which is such a powerful life force.  On the other hand:

 

The man that hath no music in himself,

Nor is not mov’d with concord of sweet sounds,

Is fit for treasons, stratagems and spoils;

The motions of his spirit are dull as night,

And his affections dark as Erebus:

Let no such man be trusted…

From The Merchant of Venice – William Shakespeare

 

 

Turin has had a sizeable Jewish community.  Around the streets of the center, we often see these brass plaques set into the pavement outside the entrances of where these people used to live.  You’ll notice that they are slightly raised so that you cannot fail to notice them.  They are in memory of the Jews who were taken from their homes in Turin and deported to Auschwitz in Poland; as an aside, Poland has been taking its share of refugees from neighboring Ukraine.  Anyway, look closely at what happened to the Valabrega family: mother and father were assassinated within two months of being in Auschwitz, while their daughter Stella, who was only 20 years old when she was deported, survived.  I shudder to think how a young woman in such dire circumstances would have managed until the end of the war.  I mean, is this really happening again?

Back to the Symphony of Sorrowful Songs, and I remember when working in a Primary School in Oxfordshire, using part of the third movement, which is beautifully sung by one of my favorite sopranos, Dawn Upshaw, as a dance movement for a very talented young girl.

This very short text held such significance for me as I leave my ‘Black Dog’ and come into the light:

Mamo, nie płacz, nie.

Niebios Przeczysta Królowo.

Ty zawsze wspieraj mnie.

Zdrowaś Mario.

No, Mother, do not weep,
Most chaste Queen of Heaven
Support me always.
“Zdrowas Mario.” (*)

The text is a prayer inscribed on a wall of cell no. 3 in the basement of “Palace,” the Gestapo’s headquarters in Zadopane; beneath is the signature of Helena Wanda Blazusiakówna, and the words “18 years old, imprisoned since 26 September 1944.”)

(*) “Zdrowas Mario” (Ave Maria)—the opening of the Polish prayer to the Holy Mother

Yes, this one moved me.

https://open.spotify.com/track/4iCn374fZg5UbGD1xFNo1m?si=8c599225c4264cf6

 

The good news is that Helena survived, she was rescued by a group of partisan fighters who took her into the hills and reunited her with her grandmother.  She later married and had five children…  I just couldn’t find out what happened to her

And what about my own personal war, or it seems like that, nine months after separation from my Mexican girlfriend, having arrived back from Mexico with just four suitcases, it still feels like a battle to free myself from the memory of this manipulative control of me and my life.  Over these last nine months, those brilliant writers of the Autostraddle website have helped me understand and accept the new realities.  I came across this in one of the articles and it chimed with me…

I loved her. We built a world together. When we broke up, that world disappeared.

I think about this all the time. How a relationship is its own time zone. How we build worlds with the people we love, and we are the only people who inhabit them. And when something ends, those worlds disappear. It’s not like love is a static place we bring new lovers to every time we feel it. Love is a creation that occurs between the people feeling it. To love someone new is to agree to travel somewhere that doesn’t exist yet together. Love is a brand-new place we choose to go every time.

This also helped…

So, all of the sadness of this last month has contributed to getting little music done, but it also made me rethink my projects.  I had talked myself out of the Song Cycle since I didn’t quite feel ready for such a huge undertaking and started rethinking the instrumental piece since I had already a bit of material prepared.  However, the unforeseen happened: I awoke one morning after having just dreamed of the poet Sylvia Plath.  I was supposed to be taking her photograph while she was sitting casually on the arm of a large armchair wearing a dark olive green cocktail dress.  At this point, I have to declare that I knew about Sylvia Plath and had read a few of her poems, but I had no idea of what she looked like.  My dream Sylvia had a small petite face, slightly pointed chin, and short hair.  So, my first mystery question is, why Sylvia Plath?  Anyway, I had to rearrange some cushions behind her, and when I was in front of her, she looked at me and kissed me on the lips, I kissed her back; it seemed the appropriate thing to do.  And the dream ended there.  When I looked for photographs of her, I found this one which is more or less as she appeared in my dream.  So, my second mystery question is how could I dream of her likeness if I had never seen her before?

 

Sylvia Plath

 

Anyway, I felt pleased and flattered that she had resolved my lack of motivation after a month-long bout of depression.  Since Sylvia Plath kissed me, I felt honor-bound to set one of her poems.  I’ve chosen Edge written six months before she sadly took her own life; she was only 30.

As a long-term sufferer of ADHD, I oscillate between procrastination and impulsivity.  That being the case, it began to dawn on me that I might do better working in a different way.

Anyone who has read my very first blog will know that returning to create Experimental music after 40 years of being busy with life, was a daunting prospect for me.  Reading the posts and seeing what my sisters are doing, gives me ‘imposter syndrome’ big time.  Especially since my technological capabilities in music production were forty years behind.  So, as I create, with a different artistic sensibility, aware of how tastes and style have changed in my chosen field, and as I try to get used to and manage the newer and more complex technologies, I face a dilemma.  Do I work through the many videos on Reaper, Logic Pro, or whatever?  Or do I avoid my tendency for ADHD-induced paralysis and start the creative process of working out how that pig of a DAW works as I go along?

And the answer is…Edge ILYSP.  I so much want to create this loving piece for a special person who was taken from us far too young. So that’s what I’m doing.  Logic Pro will yield her secrets as I go along, asking her very gently from time to time, how do I…?   Or I can use the ‘press all the buttons until something happens’ method; the ‘undo’ button is conveniently placed at the top of the Edit panel.

I can report a minor success yesterday, as I tried to combine two tracks into one (regions as Logic Pro tells me).  In Audition, I would have selected them and then a ‘mixdown’ to a new audio clip.  But Logic Pro is a child of Apple and likes to do things her way and in her language.  ‘Track stack’ didn’t work for me, and I still don’t know what it means, but having heard someone else talk about bouncing tracks, I thought I’d give it a whirl.  And yes, she was kind to me: gave me a new combined track, leaving the two originals in place.

…it began to dawn on me that I might do better working in a different way.

Yes, and this was it: start the creative process, because all the software, plugins and modular synthesizers have no point unless they allow me to be authentic in the creative process, and what could be more authentic than lovingly enshrining in music, the writing of the poet who had just kissed me?   So, since I know in my head that which I seek, I have to seek the ways to create it and, as so often happens during experimentation, we find something else that is better or can be combined or helps us understand: where to next…

One example is my experimentation with MAX MSP.  Although I don’t remember the detail, these BEAP modules are virtual versions of the EMS VCS 100 modular analog synthesizer I used in the University of East Anglia’s recording studio.

I decided that I wanted some simple electronics and thought that a couple of sine wave oscillators would give me sounds that were not too dense.  So, I patched together three variations of pairs of sine wave oscillators, experimented with settings to create frequency modulation at various registers, and then recorded them on three separate tracks in Logic.  Through further experimentation, I now know that I could combine tracks 7 and 9, using automated volume and panning to create shifting sounds within the drones.  Track 8 proved less suitable for this piece – this is the middle patch of the MAX MSP patcher.   since oscillator 1 feeds directly into oscillator 2 the changes are more dramatic.  Incidentally, I shall probably rerecord the FM oscillator tones, but at least I do that with a better idea of what I want to achieve and what is possible.  The third patch on the right proved to be my favorite: four oscillators in pairs, each going into the left or right of a stereo output gave me a lot of variation in gentle steps, which I like.  For further experimentation, I may want to pass the sine waves separately or in combination through a filter (maybe a notch filter) to modify the sounds further, making changes as I record.  As good as Max is it would be very difficult to control in live performance through a trackpad for example, though I have seen some artists using other triggers.

 

MAX modular synth

 

The Logic Pro screen illustrates to an extent, the use of a DAW in the compositional process.  In respect of composition, especially with .wav audio sources, my first love, Audition is intuitive and gives me the sensation of working with tape back in the late 70s; it even has a virtual razor blade and, just like the tape days you can move the tape head back and forth by hand until you hear (as well as see now) the point at which you want to splice; Logic Pro doesn’t allow this, or at least I haven’t found a way to do this yet.  However, in the absence of getting my hands on a real chamber organ, Logic pro has a remarkably good midi version.  I chose the Baroque organ in preference to the others for my ostinato since it has a nice ‘reedy’ sound and I thought it sounded a little out of tune at one point, which I like.

 

Logic Pro

 

This next screenshot, in praise of Audition, shows one of its strengths at the stage of treating audio samples. This is a separate waveform editor (I’m sure that Logic Pro has one hidden away somewhere, waiting to be discovered) with the waveform above and the spectral view below. I’ve zoomed in enough to make a splice and you’ll notice that the play head is a little way ahead of the waveform and yet, as I move it backward and forward by hand, I can hear the first sound, so this is where I could splice, for example.  You’ll notice at the top left-hand corner that you can switch between waveform editor and multitrack view very easily. So, for processing physical sounds this would be my preferred option still.

 

So, in answer to my question from my first blog in January: I’ll be writing about trying to juggle working between Audition, Reaper, Max MSP and maybe Logic Pro… or is it ‘make your mind up’ time?  It looks as if I have settled on both Logic Pro and Audition, even if I am still undecided about which to use for the final mix, with MAX MSP for sound synthesis.

So, despite April’s sweet showers engendering growth and renewal, we are still stuck with unresolved Covid 19, the senseless war in Ukraine: ci mancava solo quello! Non Una di Meno’s war with the patriarchy will be a long one: as Virginia Woolf said: All the idea makers who are in a position to make ideas effective are men. That is a thought that damps thinking and encourages irresponsibility. We in NUDM just think that men shouldn’t be in charge of so many important things, especially if it involves armaments. Then there is my own personal battle to move on after personal losses this is gradually resolving itself, and dedication to creating music helps a lot.

“You know, a heart can be broken, but it still keeps a-beating just the same.”

Fannie Flagg, Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle-Stop Café. I tell myself this regularly and yes, it’s still a-beating.

So, just like the weather in Turin which is looking sunny and spring-like for the next few days, I’ll put these darker thoughts behind me and indulge myself in my musical setting of Edge.

I love you, Sylvia Plath.

And let’s not forget that Helena escaped from the Gestapo’s headquarters in Zadopane and that her indelible mark inspired a remarkable piece of music.

Love to you all from a sunny Torino

Frà

Superbia_ Will it Happen?

Superbia – set in a world where people are devoid of emotions and glued to their TV screens, one man “defected” as having emotions finds a music box that may have the power to bring change.

Seeing as you clicked your way onto this article let me give you the short answer: it is definitely possible, but as of this minute I don’t see it being produced. So the straight answer, for now, is, well, no.

Now if you want to stick around for the long answer, get comfy! Maybe see about a cup of coffee or some herbal teas – comfortable? Great!

Jonathan Larson is one of the most influential individuals in my music journey. I can vividly remember a younger Kim watching RENT on DVD every weekend, by six I had practically had Maureen’s lines verbatim. He drew from the raw realities of the human condition and our lives and yet shared such a positive message, yet his time was so short, He would die just as RENT was opening in 1996 due to an aortic aneurysm at the age of 35.

To get Superbia released you would need to get permissions from various sources, but most importantly the Larson family, and say you got the permissions much of the script would need to be reworked, So while it is possible it isn’t happening right now as of the publishing of this article.

If you ask my opinion, anything John Larson will be a success. Take the relatively-recent Netflix movie musical Tick Tick Boom. Directed by Lin Manuel Miranda and written by Larson it follows John’s journey and eventual rejection of Superbia, along the journey we meet friend Michael and John’s girlfriend, Susan. The movie is based on the reworked version of the original 1991 performance performed by none other than Johnathan Larson himself. The 2021 movie is generating traffic, people are curious about Superbia, and despite a couple of songs you can find on Youtube not much is out there. You could request access to the workshop recording in the Library of Congress, but not everyone can just go and do that for various reasons. So what’s the option here?

It has been over 25 years since the death of Larson. He has impacted hundreds, possibly thousands of lives. I don’t want to live with regret by not saying what I think needs to be said, all of Larson’s work should be released in some format. RENT and Tick Tick Boom had their chance in the sunlight, and while I’m not naive to the fact that Superbia may need work – I think it is worth it… if we give it the chance it deserves.

If you agree with me, tell people Johnathan Larson’s story. Have them watch RENT and Tick Tick Boom, tell them about Superbia. The more people know that Superbia is real and are interested to see and hear more the better.

Mix With the Masters Scholarship Available- Craig Silvey

SoundGirls Members have the chance to receive a 2,000€ scholarship provided to SoundGirls members from Mix With The Masters.

There is one scholarship available for the week-long session with Grammy and Multi-platinum Producer/Mixer Craig Silvey. (Travel and remaining tuition balance not included)

This is a week-long seminar valued approximately at 4,000€ and includes lectures and workshops, accommodation within the mansion, catering (breakfast, lunch, dinner) the fitness room, swimming pool, and shuttles from Avignon to the studio. (Travel and remaining tuition balance Not Included)

You must have an advanced understanding of audio and work as producer/mixer/engineer to attend Mix with the Masters.

Session Dates: May 20 -26, 2022

Apply for the scholarship here

Deadline to apply is April 17th

You are responsible for Travel to France and the remainder of the balance to Mix with the Masters.

Session Includes

  • private bedroom, on-site within the mansion for 6 nights
  • Full-board accommodation with meals prepared by gourmet chefs on-site
  • Return shuttle services from Avignon to Studios La Fabrique
  • Unlimited drinks and snacks throughout the week
  • Approximately 50 hours in the studio with the guest speaker
  • One-on-one time between you and the master to assess and work on your own material
  • Professional photography done throughout the week, including portrait shots of you with the Master
  • Hundreds of full-resolution photos shared with you afterward via download link, to keep and use as you please
  • A certificate of completion issued on behalf of Mix With the Masters and Studios La Fabrique, signed by the Master if you wish
  • Exclusive MWTM merchandise given only to seminar attendees: embossed Moleskine notepads, pens, mugs, t-shirts, USB keys and stickers.
  • Use of the La Fabrique swimming pool, garden, fitness centre, and scenic walks
  • Nearby access to the enchanting town of St. Rémy de Provence

About Craig Silvey:

Craig Silvey is a London-based record producer and mix engineer from the Bay Area of northern California.

He first set foot in a recording studio as the keyboard player of a high school band. The facility was owned by his bandmate’s father, who allowed the use of his equipment but wouldn’t go as far as operating it for the group. Silvey was keen to accept the challenge.

He soon became an apprentice engineer at Russian Hill Recording in San Francisco, taken under the wing of George Massenburg. In the early ‘90s, Silvey progressed to working at Skywalker Sound for Lucasfilm, where he got involved on records and movie projects for Mariah Carey, Linda Ronstadt, Jennifer 8, and Rising Sun.

In 1994, he co-founded Toast Studios in San Francisco, where he worked with a diversity of artists including R.E.M., Money Mark, and Suzanne Ciani. In 1998, Silvey moved to London, basing himself initially at Konk Studios and then The Garden. His reputation as a top-flight mixer began to grow as he completed landmark projects such as Portishead’s ‘Third’ and Arcade Fire’s ‘The Suburbs’.

He has since mixed records by Arctic Monkeys, Bryan Ferry, Florence + The Machine, The National, and Noel Gallagher. As a producer, he has worked with Baxter Dury, Bear’s Den, and John Grant.

Program

The process of greatness fostering greatness has long been recognized and is the reason why masterclasses are organized. The Mix With The Master’s seminars is part of this tradition, offering an exchange of in-depth first-hand studio experience and knowledge that is unparalleled and not available anywhere else. Each seminar is conducted by one of the world’s top music mixers and producers, ready to share their professional secrets with a select group of a maximum of 14 carefully-screened, professional-level participants, who come from all over the world.

One factor that contributes to the enormous success of the seminars is that all tutors support the general MWTM ethos, which is about the love of music, music technology, and want to help others. Participants also are in part selected on displaying similar, positive attitudes. The fact that the seminars last a full week is another major contributory factor because it offers tutors the time and space to go into real depth, and the participants the opportunity to spend a prolonged time watching a master at his peak, and to ask any question they can think of.

The tutors share exclusive, insider information on any subject: detailed technical knowledge, how to run sessions, how to handle artists, how to manage a career, the right attitude, how to remain successful, and more. The tutors also assess the work of the participants, by listening to their mixes and mixing recording sessions that they bring, and providing extensive feedback to each participant on where they are at, and how they can get to where they want to be. This is invaluable and offers participants wanting to become world-class professionals in their own right a unique advantage.

Another primary factor in making the MWTM seminars exceptional is that they take place at La Fabrique, a large, comfortable, high-end recording studio located in a picturesque historic building, surrounded by huge, lush grounds, and set in the south-east of France in one of the world’s most beautiful environments. The secluded and idyllic location offers the participants and tutors a lot of space to relax and recharge, far away from the hustle and bustle of daily life and the all-demanding intensity of their regular professional environments.

Because the courses are residential, the participants and tutors work, eat, socialize, and sleep in the same environment. While tutors, and participants, will at times opt to retire to their private quarters, there is ample opportunity for social interaction outside of the studio environment. Participants interact extensively with each other and the tutor, making it easier to assimilate the intangible qualities necessary to be successful at the highest level—presence, focus, social skills, intelligence, creativity, the right attitude, and so on.

In short, for seven days participants can experience mixing with a master in both senses of the phrase, mixing and interacting with them. Get more information about Studio La Fabrique

 

 

Maria Grever: The Most Famous Unknown Person You Know

 

Around two years ago, I discovered Maria Grever. She was a Mexican composer whose career started around the early to late 20s and continued up until her death in 1951. If you google her, you will find the same impressive stats. She composed around 800 songs (some places say 1000). Not only contemporary songs for the big movie houses – Paramount, MGM, Fox, but she wrote musicals, operas, and here’s where the light bulb will go off for some of you: She is the composer of “What a Difference a Day Makes”  Is your mind blown yet? Mine was. What a Difference a Day Makes is one of my favorite songs, so why didn’t I know a woman, a Mexican woman, had composed this song in 1934? And so I began a quest to learn everything I could about her.

It was very random how I happened upon Mrs. Grever. My son who at the time was two years old was Face-Timing, my mom, a lot during the pandemic. She was singing this lullaby whose melody was familiar to me, but I don’t ever remember singing it. My son has this crazy ability to retain melodies and lyrics, so I had to dig around the internet for the lyrics so I could sing them with him. I eventually found it, Te Quiero Dijiste aka Muñequita Linda – music and lyrics by Maria Grever. I remember being excited it was a woman, but Grever didn’t automatically say Latina to me. When I realized she was Mexican, I became obsessed. If you’ve been following along with my blogs, you’ll know that my parents immigrated from the Dominican Republic. So that whole, “If you can see it, you can be it?” Right there! A Latina in NYC with two kids in the early part of the 20th century. What a discovery!

So who was Maria Grever?

Maria Joaquina de la Portilla Torres was born in 1885. (You’ll find various dates online, but according to official sources and public records, this is the most accurate). She was half Spanish and half Mexican and spent most of her childhood traveling back and forth between Spain and Mexico. She was a child prodigy. It’s documented she wrote a simple Christmas carol at the age of four. Nothing official, but it showed she had talent from a young age. She studied with Claude Debussy and Franz Lehar; her parents were supportive of learning from the best. They were a wealthy family, so they had the means for her to travel. Once her father passed, the family moved permanently back to Mexico. Maria Joaquina was about 15 years old.

In 1907, she married Leon Grever, an American businessman, and they had four children, only two of which survived past childhood. Maria Grever was writing some music in Mexico, but in 1916, everything changed as she took her two children to New York City. Leon stayed behind for work. This is right in the middle of the Mexican Revolution, so you can imagine it was a difficult moment in history to travel. The Mexican Revolution was primarily a civil war, but the United States got involved. So there was a lot of tension between the U.S. and Mexico. Nevertheless, Maria Grever arrives in the big apple, an immigrant, a woman, and a single mom (sort of).

Remember this is 1916, women still didn’t have the right to vote. And even when they did in 1920, Maria Grever was still an immigrant. If you do some digging, her leaving Mexico is documented as having fled due to political instability during the Revolution. But New York City isn’t a random target as an artist – especially a talent like Maria Grever. You went to New York City because you want to make it here. Because that’s where Tin Pan Alley was. Because that’s where the record companies were. Because everything was happening here. There was no internet then; you had to be physically here. So as I began to research, I started to piece together so much more. I’ll get to that a little later.

For now, here are some more facts on Maria Grever

She started performing in NYC fairly quickly. The earliest Newspaper clipping I found was from 1919 in the New York Tribune. It’s a review of a performance at the Princess Theater.

Newspapers.com Spanish Soprano plays Recital

 

She’s getting her name out there, not really performing her music just yet, but as anyone who is a musician knows, the best way to get heard is to make a name for yourself. And that she did. According to a book written by Maria Luisa Rodriguez Lee titled Maria Grever: Poeta y Compositora, she was writing between 1920-25, but the manuscripts have been lost. The first song to really make international headway, is a bolero titled “Jurame” published by G. Schirmer in 1926. Getting your song published was a big deal back then, since sheet music ruled the industry. It was basically the MP3 or LP of the day.  The song gets picked up at a music shop by a famous Mexican tenor, Jose Mojica, and he releases his recording of the song in 1927 which fully establishes Maria Grever.

https://archive.org/details/78_jurame_jose-mojica-maria-grever_gbia0034799a]

From there she begins to get published with more frequency. She wrote “Cuando Vuelva A Tu Lado” in 1934 which was translated into English by Stanley Adams as “What A Difference A Day Makes.” This gets recorded by some of the biggest artists of the time – even artists like Bing Crosby

At this point, she joined ASCAP in 1935 and was a very active member according to newspaper clippings. Here she collaborated with some of the biggest lyricists of the day to translate her songs. Lyricists like Raymond Laveen. (Note just for translation! Maria Grever wrote all of her music AND lyrics!) Her biggest hit was “Ti pi Tin” released in 1938 translated into English by none other than Raymond Laveen.

 

 

It spent 6 weeks on Your Hit Parade which was that time’s Billboard Hot 100.

NYPL Horace Heidt sensation

Ti pi tin is actually fascinating because despite the success Maria Grever already had at that point, the publishers didn’t want to publish it. So Maria Grever created her own publishing company, Portilla Music publishing. What do you do when someone says no? You do it yourself. In the book by Rodriguez Lee Maria Grever is quoted as having said:

I had such a strong faith in the song, but the publishers thought I was crazy. I have been 20 years before an audience, and as a sensitive artist, I feel the vibrations of the public. I knew this song would be a success. So I published it myself (Lee 59)

Courtesy of New York Public Library. NBC Research Clipping Files, Maria Grever.

At this point, Maria Grever was everywhere. She’s sought out by the big movie houses and starts composing for them. She’s getting radio play all over the country.

Radio Transcripts

She’s performing at Carnegie Hall, and in 1941 she writes the music for a Broadway Musical called “Viva O’Brien” The producers spent something like $80,000 on this musical – which in inflation translates to $1.5 million, but the play bombed. It was not open for long. The only thing that didn’t bomb was the praise for the music.

The new and outstanding personality of the production appears to be Marie Grever who wrote the music… Her dance numbers are lively and original and I suspect you will be hearing a good deal from her songs. [New York Daily News October 10, 1941]

In 1944, her song, Te Quiero Dijiste, the lullaby I discovered, was picked up for a movie called Bathing Beauty starring Red Skelton and Ester Williams. The tune, renamed as Magic is the Moonlight, is used throughout the movie as the theme, not just a part of the soundtrack, and it was a commercial success. She translated songs for Cole Porter. She even developed a program to teach singers Spanish through song – helping them with their diction. Maria Grever really did it all.

Courtesy of New York Public Library. NBC Research Clipping Files, Maria Grever.

At the end of the 40s, she suffered a stroke which left her paralyzed on one side. She traveled to Mexico in 1949 to receive honors, the medal of Civil Merit, and the Medal of the Heart of Mexico. She remained active until her death in 1951 and in 1952 was declared Woman of the Americas by the Union of Women of the Americas. Mexico made a biopic about her in 1954 starring a very famous Latina actress of the time, Libertad Lamarque whose album in 1956 titled Libertad Lamarque “Canta Canciones de Maria Grever” or Songs of Maria Grever was a huge success. In 1959, Dinah Washington recorded her most famous cover of “What A Difference A Day Makes” and that earned a Grammy for Best R&B Performance that year. It was Washington’s first top 10 hit on the Billboard Hot 100. Maria Grever also has a scholarship named after her in Mexico City.

But who was she really? What I learned through my research

As a person, Maria Grever is somewhat of a mystery. In working on her story for PRX’s Latino USA, I was able to locate her family which was in and of itself a journey to find a living relative who would have enough information to speak about her.

“She was sort of a mystery … But even then, comparing stories that my father understood with stories that my tio understood, there were either gaps or completely different stories,” Stuart Livingston

Stuart Livingston, her great-grandson, works in the music industry. He told me that the family lore was that a well-known group of entertainers came to Mexico and convinced her to move to New York City. This tiny piece of information regardless of documentation or not changes her trajectory quite a bit. In the early 20th century, it was known that people traveled to other countries to mine talent, so it is possible that it’s true. The Maria Grever narrative then becomes, an aspiring composer leaves for New York City with her kids to make it in the big apple. Regardless of if her husband supported her endeavors, or what kind of support he may have given her in the early years. Once she was in NYC, she did it alone.

“You know, she had left Mexico, she left her husband behind. She was a single mother in a time where that was certainly not who you were supposed to be. And she was pursuing a career which was not the perceived right way for a woman to act,” Stuart Livingston

Maria Grever never reunited with her husband. Stuart says it was clear there was a separation. And in my research of public records, they very clearly never lived together again. So for someone like Maria Grever to achieve everything you read above, imagine the hustle she had to do. There are newspaper clippings from The Brooklyn Daily Eagle which say “Maria Grever is the busiest woman in all New York.”

She had to be in order to survive because if you know New York City, it really hasn’t changed all that much and she had two kids to feed. This was 100 years ago, when wiring money wasn’t a thing. Where it would’ve been very difficult for Leon Grever to send her money. So it was up to her to make ends meet.

“She oftentimes sold her music as opposed to keeping ownership and collecting royalties. It was due to her genius that she was able to make it work” Stuart Livingston

Maria wrote so much music that is not tied to her name because she did buyouts. That is why the number you find across the internet is so vast. According to Stuart, they have only about one-seventh or one-tenth of her music in her catalog that collects royalties.  Nevertheless, it’s still an impressive body of work.

Her family is also quite impressive. Her son, Charles Grever, created Grever Music Publishing which became Grever International and housed a huge Mexican music catalog. It was because of the weight of Maria Grever’s name that they got that catalog. Her grandson, Bob Grever, was known as a Tejano music giant and was one of the biggest players in the Tejano music scene. He signed Selena Quintanilla when she was 12 years old (yes that Selena). His company, Cara Records, eventually joined Zomba records in the aughts, which was part of the powerhouse that brought you all your favorite boy bands – yes I mean Nsync, Backstreet Boys…oh yea and a young Britney Spears. Stuart Livingston was a partner of the label that took over the Fania records catalog, the Motown of salsa records. Her legacy and ear for music lives through them.

Why she is important

Maria Grever is important because she reminds us that women really can do anything. We all know how hard it is to work in the music industry today, and Maria Grever did what she did in a time when she had one sliver of the freedoms and rights we enjoy. She not only dealt with difficulties as a Mexican in New York but as a woman on top of that in an industry notoriously dominated by men. Men like Irving Berlin, Gershwin, Ernesto Lecuona from Cuba, and Carlos Gardel from Argentina. She was the first Latin American woman to receive international acclaim in the early part of the 20th century. We need to see people like her – people who have an accent, who left home, and who became one of the top composers of her time. Maria Grever’s story needs to continue to be told, and the only way that’s done is by keeping it present through the generations. If the stories of men in this business throughout history can be told, then we can certainly find the space to continue to keep Maria Grever’s legacy alive.

Working on this story connected a lot of dots for me. When I first moved here, I was doing a lot of archiving and restoration. So one of the first places I went to piece together her story was my old boss. He specializes in really old restoration projects – analog tape,  lacquer discs, even metal discs. We had conversations about RCA/Victor, how the old recording industry worked, the classical music industry at the time, and what it was like at the beginning of the 20th century in NYC. And that wasn’t the end of my overlap. Towards the end of my production, I was looking for permissions for a song that ended up being owned by Sony/BMG. The song was on this album that my husband found a mint condition LP of (because he’s really good at finding that sort of thing).

A lot of Maria Grever’s catalog is owned by Universal Music Group (all of that is searchable through ASCAP or on allmusic.com), but this particular version of the song, “Cuando Vuelva A Tu Lado” was not. I started checking out the liner notes and details and realized it was RCA/Victor, and I had a vague memory of it becoming part of Sony. So I called up my old boss because we used to do (and he still does) tons of projects with Sony. And the person we used to interface with was in the department that works with licensing! When I emailed he had said he had recently wondered what I was up to, so it was a pretty big full-circle moment. It just goes to show that you really never know where you’ll end up. Sometimes it’s not the job you thought you’d end up doing, but you have to trust that in the end, the dots will connect.

Working on the Maria Grever story was so much more than just telling her story; it was an opportunity to really pull all of the pieces of everything I’ve worked on since I arrived in NYC together. As a mom in New York City, who oftentimes feels overwhelmed in this industry, it made me feel super proud to see another Latina who may have walked the same streets I have. I saw her running around to sell her sheet music, trying to get published, trying to have someone hear her out.

I’m so thrilled to share her with you. You can read more about her life in Maria Grever: Poeta y Compositora by Maria Luisa Rodriguez Lee. And I encourage you to check out the podcast on latinousa.org and hear from her family, more about her life and her legacy.

 

Audio Education – That Doesn’t Break The Bank

I’d love to go back to school for audio, but I owe a lot of money to the federal government. Okay fine, it’s student loan debt. For a long time, I felt like that huge and haunting sum meant that I could never pursue an education beyond the degrees I already hold. Debt, lack of funds, an overabundance of responsibilities: they all present very real barriers for many of us wishing to acquire new skills. But we can access the internet. And thanks to some incredible free and low-cost organizations that exist to empower women/gender non-conforming folks and allies in the recording industry, I have been learning to competently record and mix music for myself and others, no FAFSA needed.

Women-led organizations

 

Women’s Audio Mission

Women’s Audio Mission (WAM) was the first resource I encountered when I began looking to grow my skills in audio, and it remains dear to me. A nonprofit based in San Francisco/Oakland founded by Terri Winston, WAM offers courses, internships, an afterschool program called “Girls on the Mic,” recording/mixing/mastering services at their women-owned and run studio, and more. I’ve studied all of their on-demand online curriculum, from the science-based SoundChannel content to their YouTube channel WAM Everywhere. Most of the gear that I own I’ve purchased upon their recommendation. The virtual and in-person conferences I’ve attended have introduced me to new perspectives and, in some cases, new-to-me creative fields within audio. Perhaps more importantly, they’ve introduced me to others with similar goals who have become both friends and collaborators since. There is a small annual fee associated with membership, but it’s more akin to the cost of a t-shirt than a textbook, and the perks more than justify the expense.

Omni Sound Project

After having taken classes through WAM, Lisa Machac became inspired to form a community for women+ in Austin, TX, where she lives, and Omni Sound Project was born. The pandemic brought that effort to the virtual sphere, and they now host online one-hour Intro Courses as well as three-hour Workshops. They also offer Signal Gain, a week-long event held in November consisting of panel discussions and other learning opportunities. Omni Sound Project’s classes and events are either no cost or inexpensive, and membership itself is free. Additionally, course attendance may even bring you into possession of a fine piece of equipment courtesy of an Omni sponsor — I myself have been the recipient of a Lauten LA-220 microphone, which I treasure. The real gift at Omni, though, is the highly approachable and experienced faculty. I’m proud to say that one core faculty member, Jam Phelps, has both mixed songs for me and mentored me as I’ve been learning to mix on my own.

Mix Like a Girl

Other than Jam, I have found an excellent mix mentor in Mix Like a Girl founder Caridad Espinosa. During periodic and affordable hour-long sessions with Caridad, I have learned what to listen for in a mix and how to improve the quality of my own recordings through her honest, specific feedback. In addition to private lessons, Mix Like a Girl has offered group courses, including their Summer Boot Camp, Vocal Production Course, and The Art of Film Scoring and Post. They are currently working on a comprehensive guide, created entirely by women, that will explain recording, mixing, beat making, and mastering in beginner-friendly terms.

SoundGirls

It would be ridiculous to write a blog about affordable education in audio in which I don’t mention the very organization I’m blogging for: SoundGirls, co-founded by Karrie Keyes and Michelle Sabolchick Pettinato! You need only click around a bit to see what an amazing resource SoundGirls is, from its newsletter to its virtual conference to articles my fellow bloggers contribute to this website. Really, that just scratches the surface of what it offers. There is so much more. And if you’re reading this but hesitating to commit to membership, there’s no need — it’s free!

Editors Note – Michelle Sabolchick Pettinatio has developed an online course Mixing Music Live and SoundGirls members received 50% off, email us for a discount code. soundgirls@soundgirls.org

This is by no means a comprehensive list, but it’s a worthy start. At the very least, it’s a bit of direction in the rudderless realm of the internet. At best you’ll embark upon a path, follow it with ever-increasing satisfaction, and look back to see that each step has brought you where you’ve always wanted to go: into mastery and the arms of an affirming audio community. And with far less debt.

You can find more options for audio education here

Breaks are Important

 

When the events industry finally reopened last August and work came flooding in, I found it very hard to say no to anything. Although I already know that I am not a person who can work for weeks straight without any time for myself, and am usually very careful about that, it was very tempting to try and build my bank account back up as quickly as possible by pushing myself as far as I could go. As freelancers, we are responsible for our own schedules, and no one but ourselves is going to step in and say hey, maybe taking all that on isn’t a great idea. The instability caused by the various COVID variants circulating also made it extra tempting to overbook myself and say yes to everything – it was unclear many of those shows would end up actually happening.

I have coworkers who go weeks or months without a single day off, but I already know that working like that is simply not sustainable for me. The short-term benefits would not outweigh the massive burnout I would end up feeling.

The strategies I have found that work best for preserving some time for myself when working are the following

I’ve started putting days off into my calendar in the same way that I put workdays. Sometimes I list them a specific activity like ERRAND DAY, sometimes I just leave it as DAY OFF. Having it in writing makes me less likely to change it. 

I’ve been in this industry long enough to know that in regular times, I need time to recharge after working 5 days straight. When scheduling work, I try not to go past blocks of 4-5 days on, 1 day off, or 6-2 at most. Obviously, this isn’t a hard-and-fast rule, but it also helps me mentally to know I am planning some breathing room into my schedule if it’s a really busy month.

I’ve often felt conflicted and reluctant about blocking off time for vacations, family events, etc. far in advance when I don’t know what my work opportunities for that time period look like yet. But in the scheme of things, there will always be more shows, there will always be more opportunities, and it won’t be the end of the world if I miss one. 

As I said above, the rules I have for myself aren’t unbreakable. But for me, it helps to have a clear reason why I am going to push myself beyond what is healthy for me. Maybe there’s a show I really, really want to work on that extends a string of shows from six days to seven. Maybe my venue is offering overtime when it usually doesn’t, and I want to take advantage of that. Maybe it’s an opportunity with a new company that I can’t pass up. Maybe I need the money. Knowing that there is a concrete reason I am overworking myself and that it is only temporary helps me stay focused and get through the work at hand.

 

An Introduction to Classical Music Production

Many classical musicians have been dedicated to their craft since childhood: they’ve spent thousands of hours perfecting their playing technique, studying theory and harmony and history of music, taking lessons with awe-inspiring (and occasionally fear-inducing) professors, and developing a richness of sound that can fluctuate deftly between dramatic passion and subtle nuance, to make even the most hardened of hearts shed a tear of emotion at such sonic beauty! How do we capture in audio the complex compositions of classical music and the natural resonance of these acoustic instruments, and do justice to the sound that classical musicians and singers have worked so hard to create? Goodbye overdubs and hardcore effects processing: classical music recording and production is generally all about finding the most flattering acoustic space to record in, and capturing the musical instrument or voice in a way that best brings out its natural sonic qualities.

Recording session with chamber music ensemble Duo Otero.

Pre-production

One of the most important aspects when planning a classical music recording is finding a space with acoustics that will cradle the music in a glorious bath of reverb – not too much and not too little. When recording many other genres, we’re often striving for a dry-as-a-bone, deadened studio acoustic that will give us the most control over the sound so we can shape it later. Classical music, on the other hand, doesn’t require overdubbing, and so it’s in our best interest to record it in a nice-sounding space. For example, when listening to a live choral performance, isn’t the experience made so much better by those epic cathedral echoes? We also need to find a quiet place without too much external noise – there’s nothing more annoying than having to stop recording five times because five fire trucks have decided to pass by just at that moment! It’s important to do some research on the instruments and the music to be recorded, to be able to prepare an appropriate recording setup. Whether it’s a solo instrumentalist or a full opera production with orchestra will affect our choice and placement of the microphones, and the number of inputs needed.

Recording

Our aim is to capture a performer or ensemble playing together in a great-sounding acoustic – so the workflow is more linear or horizontal than it is vertical. We’re not overdubbing and layering new sounds on top, but we can capture several takes of the same music and then join the best takes together until we have the whole piece, so it sounds like one performance. Because of this way of working, it’s essential that the performer is as well-prepared as they can be, as we can’t make detailed corrections of pitch or timing as we can in other genre recordings (autotune is a no-no!). As we’re recording natural acoustic sounds that can’t be “fixed in the mix” (did I mention no autotune?), it’s important to choose microphones and pre-amps that will do an excellent job of capturing that audio faithfully without colouring the sound too strongly. When placing microphones, we should think about how and where the sound of an instrument is generated, and how it resonates in the acoustic space. A common basic technique is to use a stereo pair of microphones to capture a musician or a whole ensemble within its acoustic, and then to add “spot mics” – microphones placed closer to individual instruments – to capture more details. If there’s the luxury of an abundance of microphones, we might sometimes add an extra pair of microphones even further away from the sound source to capture more of the acoustic space, and then we can blend all of these microphones together, to taste.

Post-production

Mixing classical music usually involves finding a pleasing balance between the recorded channels (for example, the stereo pair, spot mics, and ambient mics), applying suitable panning, noise reduction, and light EQ, and limiting as necessary (perhaps compression for overly-excited percussion or other highly dynamic instruments). If it’s a large ensemble recording, we might use automation to bring up solo parts if they are shy and need a little help, or to highlight interesting musical details and textures. Often using a touch of digital reverb can add a smooth and satisfying sheen. Especially if a perfect-sounding recording space is just not available (it often happens): some epic digital reverb can help to glow up a flat and boring-sounding space.

Aside from live concert recordings, a lot of classical music post-production lies in the editing: often there’ll be several takes of the same material, and the challenge is to select the best performances and stitch it all together in a seamless way so that the transitions can’t be heard – while maintaining the original energy and pacing of the performance, and not going overboard on crazily detailed editing, as that’s kind of cheating (see TwoSetViolin’s hilarious video 1% Violin Skills 99% Editing Skills)! It is an advantage – and probably essential in some situations – to be able to read music scores. It’s really helpful to follow the score as the musicians are playing, to write notes on the best (and worst) takes, to guide them and suggest what they might like to repeat, change or improve, and to make sure that all parts of a piece have been recorded.

In summary

The world of classical music production is an exciting space where audio engineers, producers, and musicians collaborate closely together to immortalise wonderful compositions in audio so that a wider audience can hear and enjoy them. If you’d like to get into classical music production, there’s no better way than to learn by jumping in and practising doing lots of recordings – try different mics and positions in different acoustic spaces, listen to lots of classical music recordings, read up on the different instruments, and use your ears as your most important tool. You’ll soon be Bach for more!

 

 

2022 Leading Women in Audio

The Sound of Strength Conference

On a surprisingly mild February weekend, I attended the 2022 Leading Women in Audio (LWIA) conference at Elon University in Elon, NC.  The theme for this year was The Sound of Strength focusing on the voices that one can hear in performances and the silent voices that create the art.  In the current era of COVID-19, this conference was held as a hybrid event of in-person panels and live-streamed attendance options.  Panels and presentations were recorded for future viewing opportunities.

In changing the face of audio, the LWIA conference focused on High School and College students.  Students were invited to attend a studio tour, a conference dinner added to the ample networking opportunities for presenters and students to mingle, and there were panels for alumni and early career professionals to bridge the gap between dreams and starting out in audio.  In the past I have attended student-centric summits while enrolled in college, but this time I went as a guest of Christa Giammattei, both a presenter and vendor at the conference, to help out her Command + S Apparel booth.

Sabrina Smith, a sophomore from Elon University, who volunteered as the Public Relations Director for the conference, helped me gain insight into the event.  While it was also her first time attending the event, this is the LWIA’s 4th year.  Smith noted that it’s empowering to bring a variety of women in demographics and industry together to push through the stereotypes and to see what we are capable of in highlighting our contributions.  The panels that caught Smith’s eye were Jasmine Battle’s “DJ Techniques” and Marcella Araica’s “Mixing Vocals.”  Networking was also important to Smith, both with peers and panelists.  In the future Smith wants to DJ and to give back to her local community in Charlotte, NC.  Just like the people she grew up with, Smith wants to show people there’s always a way for you to belong.

In many of the conferences I have attended before (the exception of the SoundGirls conference) the only all-women panel was also the token diversity panel.  At LWIA the “Diversity, Equity & Inclusion” panel was less about how hard it is to be a woman in the Audio Industry, but instead how to thrive in a positive environment.  The entire career arc was covered from having a day job and leaving a toxic workplace, to defining success and avoiding burnout.  However few work alone and as panelist leader, Aurelia Belfield stressed, “You heard of the boys club?  Make a new club.”  There’s plenty of work to go around, recommend your peers who are better for a certain job.  Have each others’ backs, our failures, and successes happen as a team.  LWIA gave me lots of hope for the future of Audio.  We are in this together, let’s help each other up.

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