A new dimension
for musical training
at The University of Calgary

Musical performance is a complex art. Drawing upon a lifetime of physical, aural, and intellectual training, a performer strives to project the mysterious world contained in the notes, a world designed by the composer to beguile the senses, challenge the mind, and enrich the spirit. Musicians devote their lives to the seemingly unattainable task of gaining mastery over their instruments, of refining and controlling the nuances of musical expression. Through the subtle manipulation of tempo, timbre, and dynamics, performers turn the raw material of notes on a page or melodies passed on through tradition into musical phrases and gestures that are the vehicles for the sublime delights that can only be found in music.

Until the twentieth century, music was an ephemeral art. Performances were captured only in the memories of the listeners. Today, the music lover has two very different modes of experiencing music: as a member of an audience at a concert or as listener to a home stereo system. Audiences forgive a performer's miscalculations, mis-timings, and outright mistakes if, over the longer span of a piece, these do not interfere with the overall appreciation of a composition. Indeed, an audience's awareness of the dangers inherent in the performance of a challenging work often serves to enhance the excitement of listening to a virtuoso in concert or recital. Music may be an abstract art, but it is not without drama.

The recording has completely changed the demands placed upon the performer. Tiny mistakes that may go unnoticed in concert become intolerable when they occur on a recording to which people listen repeatedly on their home stereo systems. Since a flawless performance is a virtual impossibility, performers must acquire the additional skill of working in the collaborative realm of the recording studio.

Recognizing the importance of recordings in the careers of musicians, John Peter Lee Roberts, Dean of the Faculty of Fine Arts at The University of Calgary, created UNICAL Records. Working in collaboration with the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation and the Calgary Centre for the Performing Arts, faculty and students in the Department of Music have been recording repertoire for compact disc release. Recordings by the Hertz Trio, Donald Bell and Charles Foreman, and the Red Band have already been distributed internationally. A fourth recording featuring the University of Calgary Wind Ensemble (UCWE) was released in February of 1995. A description of the process leading to the release of this last project is the focus of this article.

After the project proposal by Dr. Glenn Price, Associate Professor of Music and Director of the UCWE, had been approved by UNICAL's Artist and Repertoire Committee, preparations for the recording session began on two fronts. The musicians rehearsed the music and gave numerous public performances in Calgary and on various tours. The production team, led by CBC music producer Richard Fenton, booked the recording venue and the mobile recording studio. Two recording sessions were planned: the first in the Reeve Theatre at the U of C and the second in the rehearsal room at the Calgary Centre for the Performing Arts.

Recording an ensemble the size of the UCWE requires a large space with a minimum of extraneous sound. The musicians must be able to hear each other in order to be able to deal with the musical challenges of intonation and balance however, the recording engineers must be able to control the amount of sound that is picked up by the microphones so that the proper levels of sound go to the tape. The amount of reverberation and the relative volumes of the frequencies contained in musical sound are carefully manipulated and enhanced by the recording engineers. Put in the crudest of terms, a 'live' hall is better for a musician, and a 'dead' hall is better for an engineer. A compromise is worked out by the artists involved, but the greatest adjustment must be made by the musicians. They must learn to work in an unfamiliar environment

The UCWE was recorded live to two-track stereo. Geoff Rowland, the engineer, placed a number of microphones throughout the ensemble as well as a stereo microphone some distance in front of the ensemble. He then mixed the various signals through the mixing board, ultimately sending the appropriate sounds to either the left, right, or centre of a stereo tape. Roughly, this means that some signals were sent only to track one, some only to track two, and some equally to both tracks. This creates the illusion for the home stereo of a large ensemble with music coming from a variety of sources in the home musical space. The major problem facing the engineer is the fact that the sound of a large ensemble does not sound realistic if it is only captured by a single microphone, nor does it have sufficient clarity to really carry the nuances of specific instruments unless these instruments are recorded more directly. Placing a microphone in front of every instrument is not the solution for a variety of technical reasons. Suffice to say that the successful recording of a large ensemble requires the careful placement of exactly the right number of microphones in exactly the right position within the ensemble, a position that will change from composition to composition. The musician is totally dependent upon the expertise of the engineer, whose judgment in these matters often appears arcane but which is the result of an artistic and technical training no less demanding than that of the performer.

The music is recorded in a number of takes. Once the engineer and producer are satisfied that the levels they are getting from the microphones are correct and that the electronic enhancements to the sound (equalization and reverberation) are appropriate to the music, the recording session begins. For the musicians, the challenges are unlike any other that they have encountered. They must give their best performance on every take, even though there is no audience present. Because no single take will be used as the final product, they must play at the same dynamic level every time that they play the same phrase, whether it is the second or the fortieth time. They must also play at virtually the same tempo every time that they repeat a phrase. They must endeavour not to make a single mistake. And, above all, they must play with all the musical expression that they can, every take.

They must do all of this in an environment which, to their own ears, does not sound particularly musical. The reality of the recording session is that what the musician hears is not what the tape hears. The musicians must wait for a playback to hear what they sound like then, they must make an immediate translation between the recorded sound and their memory of what they sounded like in the studio when they made that sound. The demands placed upon the concentration of the musicians are enormous. Not only must they quickly adjust to hearing in a new way, they must also develop a fully professional way of dealing with the pressures of a recording session. The quality of performance required cannot be simulated in a classroom, nor does it really compare to what they are used to on the concert stage. There is no applause, only the sound of the producer's voice over an intercom saying, "one more time," for the tenth time. All of the students responded well to the experience all of the students understood the benefits of the rigorous session to their development as professionals.

Once the producer decides that there are a sufficient number of good takes from which to build the final product, the recording session ends. The music director and the producer decide which of the takes are the best and then the producer and the engineer edit them together into the proper order. It is unlikely that these takes will have actually been recorded in the order that they are ultimately compiled. They may not have been recorded on the same day. That is why so much attention is paid during the recording session to matching tempo, dynamics, and expression.

UNICAL projects are recorded to digital audio tape (DAT.) Essentially, digital samples of the sound being picked up by the microphones, along with any equalization and reverberation added by the engineer, are recorded onto the tape. The list of selected takes becomes an editing map for the producer and the engineer. Two samples are loaded into a computer, an editing point is selected, and the two samples are united by the software with a short amount of cross-fade time added so that the transition between them is smooth to the ear. Because it is possible to penetrate into the recorded sample at the level of microseconds, the producer and engineer listen to the edit to ensure that the final result is musical. A musical ear can detect when a phrase has slipped out by microseconds, so a great deal of precision is required on the part of the engineer and the producer. When they are satisfied with the edit, they load up the next selected take as a sample into the computer and add it to the previous material. They repeat this process until a complete composition has been stitched together. The final product is then recorded to a new DAT tape, and the next composition is then edited in the same manner. Once the compositions have been edited, a master DAT tape is created with the compositions placed in the programme order.

The master tape is then sent to the manufacturer who will create a master CD that will be sent to a plant for the reproduction of the multiple copies that will ultimately be distributed. For the UCWE recording, UNICAL Records sent the materials to Doug Wong of Canada Discs (previously Canada Cassettes) in Calgary. The master CD was given to the musical director and UNICAL's executive producer for final approval. With this recording, one final technological enhancement was required. The first track on the CD is a quiet piece. The music director felt that the volume of this piece needed to be boosted a small amount so that it would balance the relative volumes of the rest of the tracks. Before digital editing, this would not have been possible however, the entire CD master was once again loaded into a computer, the volume of the first track was boosted 5 dB overall, and everything was re-recorded to a master tape without any loss of fidelity. Ten years ago this was unimaginable. It took one half hour to do, and most of that time was taken up waiting for the tape, with approximately a gigabyte of information, to be loaded to the hard disk of the computer and then back to the tape.

The final product includes cover art designed by U of C alumna JoAnne Schachtel. The graphic image is a detail from a photograph of a sculpture by Ray Arnatt, Professor of Art at the U of C. The CD will be available for purchase at the U of C Bookstore as well as in record stores across Canada and by mail-order worldwide.

Unlike McGill Records, which uses production staff from its masters programme in recording engineering, UNICAL Records relies upon the CBC for its technical expertise. This means that, whereas faculty have been in the editing suite during the course of UNICAL projects, music students are not yet able to participate in the final component of the recording process. However, students who are interested in this aspect of music production are able to gain some experience by taking courses in electroacoustic music. Dr. David Eagle, Director of the U of C's Electroacoustic Studio, has just been named the new executive producer for UNICAL.

Experience in the recording studio is vital for the development of the modern musician. UNICAL Records has begun the process of educating some students in this complex and demanding medium. The University of Calgary is one of only three universities doing this work in Canada and the only one doing so without its own studio and full-time recording engineers.

For more information, contact Allan Bell, 220-5725, e-mail: agbell@acs.ucalgary.ca