Mixing Musically: Expanding your musical vocabulary
Originally published in Worship Musician, April 2021.
Quickly name your top five songs of all time. Jot them down or take a mental note. Now think about how you’d describe their genre or basic musical style. Repeat the exercise with your top five albums (remember those?) of all time. Do you sense a pattern? There isn’t a right or wrong answer here of course, but perhaps a particular genre or vibe starts to emerge.
For me, my top five songs include ‘Lawns’ by jazz pianist Carla Bley, ‘Pancho and Lefty’ by Merle Haggard & Willie Nelson, and ‘The Golden Age’ by Beck. There is likely a Chopin piano prelude in there, too. It’d be tricky to narrow it down, but the list would be rounded out with a cut from John Coltrane’s ‘A Love Supreme’. A bit all over the place genre-wise, but all share a particular relaxed and reflective mood. Album-wise, I’m a sucker for Wilco’s ‘Yankee Hotel Foxtrot’, Bill Frisell’s ‘When You Wish Upon a Star’ and Jon Brion’s ‘Meaningless’. Probably Dire Straits ‘Brothers in Arms’ and Brad Mehldau’s ‘Largo’ would likely make the cut. A fairly wide spread, but still they still all live in a similar musical land.
Now think about the last time you listened to — really listened to — an album in a genre that was completely outside the norm for you. Heard any good 1970’s Highlife or Afro-funk lately? How about deep Vaporwave or Lowercase? You are probably thinking, “Ok, Jeff, where the heck are you going with this article?” right about now, but stick with me.
“if you don’t listen to it, it won’t come out in your mix.”
As audio engineers, we are entrusted with mixing and enhancing and massaging various sound sources together into the most effective and engaging and tasty sonic experience. Professional musicians (particularly studio musicians) continually push the art and craft forward as artists by expanding their listening horizons and bringing in new elements to their playing. Jazz musicians are known for reaching out to other genres and incorporating bits and pieces back into the ‘straight ahead’ jazz vernacular to keep it fresh and steadily growing and evolving. How can we emulate these practices as engineers? We can’t build out our mixing toolkit if we limit ourselves to listening to only a narrow range of musical styles and moods — to paraphrase jazz legend Charlie Parker, “if you don’t listen to it, it won’t come out in your mix.”
“Ummm…ok? I don’t think our pastor is going to appreciate me mixing the worship band like a 1940’s Dixieland band.” Good point. I’m not suggesting that you jump to extremes and completely change your Sunday morning mix, but it is a valuable (and enjoyable!) exercise to treat your ears to sonic palettes that are completely different. I’m also not suggesting that you throw out your current top five faves and toss those albums aside, either. The point here is to acknowledge where those favorites and your listening tendencies might reside — and purposely explore in new areas now and then.
Let’s take that Dixieland example. Note how the acoustic guitar (or banjo) usually acts much more like a percussion instrument in the mix? Hear how the bass (or tuba) is generally mixed waaaay back and almost seems to be subtly bringing a faint pitch to the bass drum vs. standing out as its own instrument? How cool would it be to try approaching the blend and balance of your rhythm acoustic guitarist in more of this manner? Maybe the concept of side-chain compression (and what you could do with it) starts to solidify a bit more for you as you ponder this Dixieland bass/bass drum melding?
The times they are a-changin’ — and we are expected to keep up.
When is the last time you had to balance a choir, rap vocals and solo soprano saxophone in the same track? As I write this article, the 2021 Grammy for Best Contemporary Christian album was just awarded to Kanye West for his ‘JESUS IS KING’ album. Cue the album track ‘Use This Gospel (featuring Clipse & Kenny G)’ and turn it up. While Kanye and his Sunday Service Choir may not be visiting your church any time soon, it does seem like the definition of what is readily accepted as being in scope for Contemporary Christian musical styles and approaches continues to grow. In the early 1700’s there were particular musical intervals that many in the church deemed off limits as diabolus in musica — yet today we readily welcome the ‘goes up to 11’ overdriven electric guitar and 4-on-the-floor driving bass drum to kick up the energy and close out the worship set. The times they are a-changin’ — and we are expected to keep up.
So how do we seek out new mixing styles and keep our ears fresh and our musical mind open? Well, I’d certainly invite you to check out the songs and albums that I referenced as my favorites above. Nothing too far off the beaten path, but maybe a genre or a mix approach that is not your usual bag. I really dig https://radio.garden/, a collection of internet radio stations from around the world that boasts a bit of every style under the sun. I’m currently listening to Audio Noir Radio from Chicago, a 1940’s radio thriller with some insane organ (and cigarette commercials). One quick click … and now it is El Mandara, North African grooves from Ras Jebel, Tunisia. I’m digging the reverb on the female vocals and how they are juxtaposed with a string section mix that is much drier than I would hear in most pop music tracks here in the US.
Here is where the exercise gets fun. Pop over to something random on Radio Garden (or click on an Apple Music genre or Spotify playlist that you’d never otherwise choose) and quickly ponder the following questions:
If I walked into the sanctuary and this exact musical selection was playing as part of the service, what instrument or channel in the mix would I treat as the ‘money channel’? What instruments do I hear? How does it sound like the instruments are miked? Are the drums close-miked or is there a ‘room’ sound along with it or it all room (assuming there are drums)? How would this musical selection work in the physical space you normally mix in? Can you pick out particular instruments or frequencies that might be troublesome if this was the band you’d have in place of your usual praise team?
In short, begin to listen to these new tracks just as a trained jazz musician might listen — focused, intentional listening. Don’t get hung up on trying to decide whether you think the music is ‘good’ (or imagining the reaction of the congregation if the worship team was suddenly switched out with a polka band), but think about how you’d mix and where you’d start on the console and how you’d put your skills into action from the first beat. This sort of approach is very familiar to engineers who regularly mix festivals, but may be a new way of listening and thinking about mixing for folks who mix the same basic instruments in the same space on the same console week to week. Hopefully with this active listening expansion exercise, we can build a more fully formed sonic vocabulary and bring some freshness to the gig even if the elements on stage from week to week don’t necessarily push us to grow those ‘big ears’ that we all should strive to acquire. Happy listening!
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Originally published in Worship Musician, April 2021.
By Jeff Hawley
Jeff Hawley currently heads up the marketing for Allen & Heath USA. Jeff has a diverse background as a musician, engineer and trendsetting industry executive. In addition to performing and producing everything from noise music to disco and Afro-Cuban jazz to avant-garde klezmer, Jeff has designed award-winning music industry products and accessories and directed the branding and marketing functions for a number of top musical instrument and pro audio brands. He enjoys spicy foods, debating the merits of various metaethical philosophical theories, and mowing his lawn with a reel mower.