Introduction:

It is a common misconception that making effective music (music which influences culture) is easier because of virtual work spaces like Pro Tools. But because everybody has access to music production software, everybody now has the ability to make processed, manipulated, perfect sounds that were once the product of strenuous studio hours without highly modular equipment or auto-tune. So the question remains: how does the homogenous availability of software change the playing field, and what are people doing to maintain artistry?

Since I was in middle school, I have been interested in knowing how a large number of discernible auditory components come together to make one cohesive song. When I was a sophomore, I downloaded Audacity software which has basic recording capabilities: multi-track recording/playback and some basic effects like Delay and Reverb. I then recorded demo-songs for an album which I had written.

Last year, I started using FL Studio to make electronic music, using mostly virtually-created instruments and melody lines and looped drum samples.

The process of making a song that effectively conveyed meaning became more complicated when I took an introduction to Critical Theory class at BASIS where I studied about the hegemonic power structures which surround culture. I learned that they often ultimately determine what is “good” and what is “bad.”

In that class, I deconstructed Rolling Stone’s 500 Greatest Albums of All Time to show how the magazine faultily assumed absolute power in determining “good” music.

I hope to use the internship I have acquired at Luna Studios with producer and engineer George Nardo (who has been recording music for over twenty years) to learn the process of making a successful song in a music studio. I wish to learn about both the recording and mixing process of making successful-sounding music to apply it to my own music, as an end-product.