Introduction The idea of a ‘record producer’ is a slippery one. As Mike Howlett tactfully puts it, “at its simplest, the producer’s task is to produce a satisfactory outcome” (2012, p.190). Elsewhere more noisily described as arranger, co-writer, industry interface, mix engineer liaison, mentor and more – a producer at the helm of a team assumes […]
practice-based research
Toward a musical monograph: Working with fragments from within the improvisation-composition nexus
This paper examines the pre-production stages of a new album of original music entitled Monograph. The project firstly uses the recording studio as an resource analysis device to interrogate a database of live improvisations which have been collected over time. The following phase of the project orients around the research question: how to best move beyond in-the-moment improvisation, to being able to distil, refine, arrange and orchestrate the essence of attractive ideas in fixed recordings? This paper details emergent methods as part of an overarching practice-based research approach to the problem.