IS IT WORTH IT?

What makes something worth recording? With the advances in DAW technology, including the development of virtual instruments and through recent changes in manufacturing processes, it has become progressively easier for music makers to commit their ideas onto some form of medium that is ready for duplication. In addition to this, through the immediacy of Internet distribution, such ideas can be made available for public appreciation within minutes of conception.

We may say that all music has value, no matter how simple or derivative, although some may question whether all music is worth sharing. If a sound file is like a picture, what makes it worth showing to others? In the past, recording was mostly a collective effort, with teams of composers, performers, engineers, producers, etc. working towards a (mostly) common goal. This, like the case with writers, directors, editors and producers, in some instances helped widen the scope of a final product that represented the combined effort of many individuals (perhaps functioning as the diary of a ‘tribe’). At the same time, throughout history, some artists have preferred to work in isolation or in very small groups, aiming to preserve the purity of the their vision. Regardless of the size of a production team, it seems that the most resilient examples of art in the form of recorded sound came from just that: a ‘vision’ or the need to express an emotion.

It may be said that in the past decades, due to the development and refining of non-linear editing tools and through a perceptual shift regarding the importance of the mixing stage, the general approach of recordists towards their craft has changed. It is currently not uncommon for producers, engineers and musicians to settle for ‘average’ performances rather quickly, as these may be ‘improved’ subsequently through tuning, time stretching, looping, etc. Maybe some of these individuals would benefit from listening to the multitrack recordings of songs that are regarded as ‘classics’, where a great mix is at times achieved when the faders are simply brought up.

To answer the question of what makes something worth recording, we should perhaps revisit the idea that to commit a song to a medium means to conserve it, to keep it from being lost. With this in mind, as long as a performance has meaning it deserves to be captured and this holds true even in cases when the performer is the only one who can see it. As a final thought, maybe the secret to ‘good’ music production lies in adding meaning to the recorded moment, or reminding those involved in the process that everything may in fact be unique and that the final product, much like a picture, will serve as a register of who they were at a given moment in time.