The Music
Imagine someone listening to music for one hour. The person will experience nineteen records, each lasting three minutes. That makes fifty-seven minutes worth of
music.
The question is: Which record is that person going to put on twice?
That’s the record I want to make!
So is it a good mix that makes someone play this record again?
Is it a virtuous instrumentation?
Is it a brilliant arrangement or clean production?
All these things might make someone want to hear your song again.
But I am absolutely convinced that if our listener is in one mind with the idea of the song, if they understand the emotion in it, if they believe in the spirit that is transmitted, then there is no question about how they will spend the remaining three minutes after having listened to the other eighteen records.
The Producing
In producing, one tries to catch the soul that comes out of the artist’s body. Somehow like catching a firefly in a jam jar. With technical means we catch it, we
translate it and we make it accessible to the listener’s ear.
This allows us to give the firefly to anyone in the world. And if it flies out, just the way it flew in, we have done good.
The producer is the guy who makes sure that the spirit of the song, this little firefly, remains safe and unharmed at all times.
The soul is very timid and rare. Since it rather lives between shapes and definitions, the main work is to build the jam jar around the firefly.
Because these little spirits are totally unique, so to say, no one has ever seen them, or in this case, heard of them before.
So to capture one we need to find out what the essence of it is and how we can make it appear. As if the spirit of the song comes alive as soon as the both of us know exactly what it was and how it sounds like.
An idea in one mind is just an idea. The same idea in many minds is a reality. The beauty of music is that we can build this reality. And as a producer, that is what I aim for.