2009-01-21/ 星期三,洛城飞往台北的班机上

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1 F  发表于 2009-2-1 16:50 | 只看该作者 | 倒序看帖 | 跳转到 »
刚刚在LA度过了两个礼拜的密集制作期,我正登上飞回台北的班机。这两个礼拜之所以会如此的紧凑,是因为我同时间要搬出LA的住处,要处理一堆规划装箱的事宜。过去这几年,好像我只要回到洛城 (虽然停留的时间不长),我就会被一堆庸碌琐事淹没。尽管我希望可以多享受一些轻松时刻,但是似乎就只是不停的劳碌奔波。我的混音工程师、好友Craig形容得好,我是把「一周当一年过啊」。如此的生活可以过得像是精力十足、精彩十分似的,但是很明显的,这并不是我所想像或想要的样子。不幸的,结果就只是事情太多、时间太少。那有啥新鲜事吗?  

我心里一直在思考著专辑的制作与概念,上个礼拜,我已经在Burbank的Glenwood录音室开始跟几个乐手进行专辑的器乐录音。专辑制作的初期就好像一场恋爱的开端。你还摸不清自己跟对方的关系,甚至不了解自己在想甚麼。情感丰富却又戒慎恐惧,深怕自己犯错或失去所有。很多事被放大夸饰,经常会失去对事情的观察能力。如果「爱是盲目的」这句话是真的,那对我来说则是创作过程常会让我在制作的时候变得盲目。就像谈恋爱一样,我心里充满类似的情绪 : 热情、恐惧、得意与困惑。於是,「折磨」就成了艺术与创作的同义词。  

我们一开始的前两天是先录鼓手Shawn Pelton的部分。我大概从八年前就很欣赏他的鼓技,直到现在才有合作的机会。有些人可能不熟悉专辑制作流程,尤其是跟乐手合作的模式,所以我先解释一下这部分。雇用这些顶尖乐手,并不保证一定会成功,或者会如你所愿。你可能找到一个功绩彪炳、技艺高超的乐手,但他并不适合你的音乐。有些乐手则是专擅某种曲风,当他们在演奏其他类型时,便会显得有点憋手憋脚的。几年前,我曾经为了一首歌要找一位木吉他乐手,有一个朋友介绍了他的吉他教授。这位吉他教授颇负盛名,同时他也任教於美国一流音乐学府。这应该不会有甚麼差错吧 ? 嗯… 结果是错得一蹋糊涂,他并无法为歌曲设计适合的乐句,即使我哼给他听,他也弹不出来。对此他有自己的一套说法,他的态度很专业,也愿意一再尝试。然而,录音室的租用时间有限,每超过一小时,就要再多花一百多块美金,我不得已只能提早喊停,让他先行离去。最后我知道不能跟著感觉走,不应该雇用他,因为他事实上是位爵士吉他教授 (虽然我一开始就知道),而不是摇滚/流行吉他手。你也许会好奇为何一个爵士乐手无法弹奏摇滚、流行或甚至是古典音乐呢 ? 当然这没有任何定律,但是乐手 (就跟其他人一样)有自己的风格、品味好恶与个人倾向。爵士乐手可能具备摇滚音乐的弹奏能力,但不一定具备摇滚音乐的感觉或态度。因此,让适合的乐手可以跟适合的乐风相互配对是一件很重要的事,而这也是制作人要扮演的主要角色之一。这就像要帮电影选角一样,导演跟选角导演在知道一个演员是否适合之前,要先研究并摸清一个演员的细微特质。  

Shawn为了这次的录音,特别从纽约飞到洛城,所以我不想再从重蹈几年前爵士乐手的覆辙。怀著既期待又怕被伤害的心情,我先到旅馆接Shawn,然后我们在早上11点开始录音。我们先花了一个小时调校声音 (真鼓录音的准备工作包括许多的麦克风摆位、音量检测、鼓具调整、音频设定等),然后我们开始录制我们的第一首歌【Just Can’t Believe】(暂定歌名)。此时,我心中的石头总算放下,因为Shawn听起来实在太棒了,一切正是我所期待的,甚至是超乎想像 ! 他打鼓的感觉与韵律跟歌曲完美结合在一起,他的鼓有一种很鲜明的特色,而这正是我一直想要的。这也归功於Craig的好耳力与绝佳录音技术。我原本也很担心跟Shawn会不容易合作,因为纽约客的犀利态度是很出名的,但是事实上他是一个很贴心、凡事有条不紊的人,这有点出乎我的意料之外。总括来说,跟他在A棚一起工作的那两天就像是一场梦,我迫不及待想要让大家听到最后的成品。过去那一整个礼拜,我们跟许多优秀乐手合作录制了低音吉他、吉他、踏板电吉他、电风琴、电钢琴、电颤琴、甚至是真的马林巴木琴。这真的是我长期以来最开心的一次录音,很荣幸可以跟这些乐手工作,从他们身上我也学到很多宝贵的经验 – 许多人还是我第一次合作的对象。与其我娓娓道来这些细数不尽的录音过程,不如影像说明来得有用,因此我会将现场的侧录画面上传到几个网站供大家浏览。然而,最痛苦的部分是过去这几天还夹杂著打包与搬运的工作,这不仅对我的体力是个严峻的挑战,甚至到晚上我还得用双手来弹奏吉他。最后我只能缩短部分录音时间,因为我的手实在无法施力了。  
有趣的一点是这张专辑少用了许多MIDI与取样乐器,而增加了真实乐器演奏的部分。我并不是一开始就有如此打算,只是结果变成这样了。这可能是因为我想要回到我的根源,想要让一切回到摇滚乐团的现场演奏。现代的音乐人经常在争辩要用甚麼方式进行或者甚麼会是比较好的。电脑改变了音乐制作与聆听的方式,但是这并不意味著音乐因此变得更好。进入录音室录制真鼓、低音吉他与吉他(或其他需要的真实乐器)确实会提醒你音乐的本质是甚麼。每个乐器与乐手的不完美及独特触感会让音乐活起来,聆听者也许无法了解这些技术层面,但是他们的内心却是可以明显感受与欣赏的。我经常喜欢说一台普通钢琴的现场录音要比那些完美取样、容量高达100GB的电脑软体所发出的钢琴音色来得好听且有生命力。不幸的是,我们现在听到的华语流行音乐 (及多数的流行音乐)有90% 都是这个样子。许多年轻的音乐人与制作人甚至不太清楚这些乐器长甚麼样子,以及它们在乐曲中的演奏及使用方式。我们拥有的只是数位版本与实物快照。假如最后所有的东西都可以被数位复制或标记,难道这就代表隐藏在这些东西背后的意义与情感也可以被「剪贴」吗? 或者事实上,它们其实是两码事 ?  

有人说科技永远是跟创作过程并存的。然而,关键是在於它被如何使用,是否因此激发出一些原创体验。  

所有的歌都写好了,接下来的几个礼拜,我会进行歌词、电脑程式编曲及吉他录音的工作。我把这个阶段称为「丰满」阶段,在骨头上铺满皮肉,让内容更丰富。整个骨架已经安置好了,这将是呈现在我专辑中最细腻且最坚固的部分。虽然春节将近,我会花许多时间陪伴我的家人,但同时我也会继续进行专辑的制作。不知道为什麼,我喜欢在假日工作,这可能是因为只有这时候,我才不会被一堆电话、电邮及其他会让我分心的事物所影响。这是一段宁静平和的时光,让我可以完全逃离我们所居住的大环境,进入我的小世界里。我希望你们在未来的几周里面,也可以享受到同样的平静与惬意。  

我希望你们在牛年少些「吹牛」,可以拥有更多喜乐、觉醒、幸福与爱的真实时刻。  

新年快乐  
陶喆


1/21/09 Wednesday, aboard flight from LA to Taipei


Having just finished two very densely packed weeks of production in LA, I’m now aboard a flight back to Taipei. What made the two weeks even more challenging was that I was also moving out of my current residence in LA so there was a major amount of organizing and packing. Over the past few years, it seems that whenever I’m back to LA (however short the duration of my stay) I’m always very inundated with errands to run and things to take care of. As much as I’d like to relax and enjoy my time there, it seems more like a rat race for me. My friend and engineer, Craig, describes it best as “cramming a year of living” into a few weeks time. It can be very energizing and euphoric but it’s definitely not something I plan for nor something I necessarily always enjoy. Unfortunately, it’s a product of having too much to do with too little time. So what’s new, right?

As the concept and production of the album weighed on my mind, I officially began my overdubs last week with several musicians at Glenwood Studios in Burbank. The early stages of production of an album are very much like the early stages of a love affair. You don’t quite know how you stand with the other person nor do you know how you even feel. There is this great rush of emotion but at the same time you feel trepidation and fear in making the wrong move or losing everything. Things become magnified ten times, exaggerated, and often putting things into perspective becomes very difficult. If the saying “love blinds you” is true then in my case the creative process blinds me during production. And like in love, I am filled with all the similar emotions all at once: passion, fear, elation and confusion. Henceforth, the term “tortured” is often synonymous with artists and the creative process.  
Our first two days of overdubs was with a drummer named Shawn Pelton. I’ve been an admirer of his playing for about 8 years but only until now had the chance to work with him. Now let me clarify one thing for all of you who aren’t familiar with album production and especially working with musicians. Hiring these top musicians doesn’t always guarantee success or what you want. The musician may have a ton of credits up his sleeve and be technically amazing but he might not be suited for your music. Some musicians play a certain style with ease yet stumble through another style of music. A few years ago, I was looking for an acoustic guitar player for one of my songs and a friend of mine referred me to his guitar professor. This guitar professor had quite a lot of sessions under his belt and was also a music professor at one of the leading music universities in the US. You can’t go wrong with a guitar professor, right? Well, turns out everything went wrong because he simply couldn’t come up with parts for the song or even play the ideas I had sung for him. In his defense, his attitude was very professional and he was willing to do take after take to get things right. However, studio time was ticking at over a hundred dollars an hour and so I had decided to end the session early letting him go. In the end, I realized that I should’ve went with my gut instinct and not hired him because he was actually a jazz guitar professor (which I did know at the outset) and not a rock or pop player. You might ask why can’t a jazz player play rock, pop or even classical? There are no set rules, of course, but musicians (like any other people) have their own styles, personal likes and dislikes, and idiosyncrasies. A jazz guitar might possess the technical ability to play a rock tune but he might not possess the right feel or attitude. Therefore, matching the right musician with the right style of music is very important and one of the key roles of the producer. Just like casting an actor for a part in a movie, the director and casting director must study and understand the nuances of an actor before knowing if he or she will be right for a part.  

Shawn was flown in from New York to LA especially for this session and so I definitely didn’t want a repeat of what happened with the jazz guitar player a few years back. With both anticipation and trepidation, we started our session in the morning at 11am, as I first picked up Shawn from his hotel. After an hour of dialing in our sounds (setting up real drums for recording involves a lot of mic placement, level checking, drum adjustment, EQ’ing, etc.), we started on our first track “Just Can’t Believe” (working title). At that point, all my concerns were relieved as Shawn simply sounded amazing and just like I had hoped for and more! His feel and groove was laid back sitting perfectly in the track and his drums had a very signature tone that I’ve always craved for in my productions. Kudos also to Craig for his great ears and engineering! I had also worried that Shawn might be difficult to work with especially since New Yorkers are known for their edginess but he was a sweetheart and also very methodical which I didn’t expect. All in all, the two days with him in Studio A were a dream and I can’t wait for you guys to hear the final results. Over the course of the week, we did bass, guitar, pedal steel, organ, electric piano, vibraphone and even real marimba overdubs with some incredible musicians as well. It was the most musical fun I’ve had in a long time and it was such a pleasure and learning experience working with all the musicians-many of which I’ve worked with for the first time. I could go on and on in detail about the sessions, however, a picture is worth a thousand words and, so, I’ll be posting video up on various websites for you to watch. The most painful part, however, was that I was juggling packing and moving the last few days which not only was tough on my body but also on my hands which I needed to use in the evenings playing guitar. In the end, I had to cut a couple sessions short as my hands were simply out of strength.  
It’s interesting to note that this album has the least amount of MIDI and sampled instruments and more of the real stuff. I didn’t purposely choose to go this direction but it’s just the way things turned out. Perhaps I felt I was returning to my roots and playing in a rock band that I wanted to keep everything live. Musicians now live in an age of constantly debating which way to go or which seems to be better. The computer age has definitely changed the way music is made and heard but it doesn’t always translate to better music. Going into the studio and recording live drums, bass and guitars (or anything real instrument for that matter) really reminds you what music is all about. The imperfections and individual touch of each instrument and musician breathes life into music and which is something the listener might not technically understand but definitely feels and appreciates on a gut level. I often like to say that a live recording of a not-so-great quality piano is still better and more organic than perfectly sampled 100GB software generated piano. Unfortunately, in Chinese pop music (and the majority of pop music for that matter) that is what we hear 90% of the time. It has come the point that a lot of younger musicians and producers don’t even know what some of these musical instruments look like let alone how they are played and used in music. What we are left with now are digital copies and snapshots of the real things. If everything eventually can be digitally cloned or imprinted, does that mean we can also “copy and paste” the meaning and emotions behind them? How does one thing exist without the other? Or are they, in fact, separate things?
With that being said, technology has always co-existed with the creative process and it forever will be. The key, however, is how it is utilized and whether it in turn generates something empirically original.  

All the songs have been written and I will be working on lyrics as well as some programming and guitar overdubs over the next few weeks. This is what I call the “fleshing out” phase at which I put the meat and skin on the bones. The skeletal framework has been laid out and it’s some of the finest and most solid work that’s appeared on my albums. Even though Chinese New Year is around the corner, I’ll be working through it while spending quality time with my family. For some strange reason, I enjoy working during the holidays, as it seems like the only time I’m not blanketed with phone calls, emails and other distractions. It’s a tranquil and quiet period in which I can completely escape into my little world from the big world we live in. I hope many of you can experience this sense of serenity and relaxation during the upcoming weeks as well.  

I wish the Year of the Ox brings you less “bull” and more genuine moments of joy, awareness, prosperity and love.  

Happy Chinese New Year  

DT
on my way to see my friends who lived a couple blocks away from me as i walked through the subway

 
2 F  发表于 2010-4-26 10:08 | 只看该作者
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