MTF Week 9 (May 10th, 2007) "Genre Based Production"

Genre Based Production

Each genre has a particular way to bring out the life that determines what that genre is. In this week’s forum Steve Fieldhouse once again went into genre based production. This has already been explored in other weeks for electronic music and hip-hop in particular, but I am always eager to learn all the facets involved in each genre, particular the one’s I myself enjoy.

I touched on the idea involved in genre based production and asked the question of how would a world song sound if recorded using metal/rock techniques[1]. What constitutes the boundaries how far one can go with this? For example: Jazz is acoustical, with little compression, so does this mean that if you record it with compression it will sound unlike Jazz? I think that the area of understanding the ways in which o record styles of music is really important, but I also think that experimentation should always be kept open, and ultimately what ever sounds good, sounds good.

Another interesting element that was mentioned by Steve that American Funk and British Funk are very different. Why is this so? I think that culture has a major role to play in how music is recorded. American Funk is bright where as British is darker – maybe the climates of the two countries have a part to play in this, and I make it clear that I do stand for that point.

Having said that experimentation should be kept open, I think that it’s probably a good idea also to not go too far with it, as genre based production is crucial to recording. As seen with metal and rock, where “size does matter.”[2] Let’s face it; if you recorded rock without having this concept in mind, the whole human perception of “rock” would diminish. The same applies with any genre I think. Funk is beaty, Reggae is percussive, beachy and bright, Metal is big and full, Blues is somewhat acoustical yet overdriven. Forgetting these concepts would render the idea the word genre unusable in the recording arts industry.

References:

1. http://taylormemer.blogspot.com/2007/03/role-of-producer.html Reference from my blog, viewed 16th May 2007

2. Fieldhouse, Steve, (2007). Genre Based Production, presented at the University of Adelaide, 10th May