Tufts Beelzebubs'

Here’s one of the big issues I’ve heard presented about using recording to define excellence: the group on the CD is often NOT the group that winds up selling the CD, so at best, the recording at hand is a decent marker of the old incarnation of the group, and does not necessarily make a positive statement about the group’s consistency or performing capabilities.  

And of course, there is the most obvious, and repeated argument (repeated almost to an annoying degree) that a group can cover up being bad because of the existence of pitch-correction/auto-tune, and other fun happy studio magic tricks.

But the main argument that’s been made for the other side?  A mediocre group would have an impossible time putting on an energized, musical, and in-tune performance, and while you can maybe fix the last part, you CANNOT infuse musicality or energy into a performance no matter what kind of technology you’re working with.  And this is absolutely true.  

For one thing, if your group’s musical director is in charge of the CD, it’s time for them to do some homework, because odds are the average group MD doesn’t know a HUGE amount about the art of recording.  Another thing is that the recording members need to understand that there is more to making a great recording than singing your part right as far as notes and rhythms are concerned; dynamics, musicality, and dare I say it, some real emotion will take your “accurate” tracks and make them “amazing”.

Recording requires the ability to get inside yourself and deliver a knock-out performance that a studio engineer can really work with to make some thing special.  Getting an emotional, dynamic performance out of a group in a studio is tough, tough, tough, especially when it's the 5th or 6th time they're running something. It's just not easy to maintain that kind of energy when you're standing in a room with a microphone.

Plus, to go on to the other point (about a new group membership selling the CD of an older group membership), there are two things to be said to contradict that. One, what I have often seen on CDs is a few different “groups” represented on one CD (as in, recorded over a couple of years, so that there are different combinations of people on the final product).  Having each song (and as a result, each different group) be consistent and on the same level would definitely speak well for the abilities of the group over the years.  And also, if the newer group selling the CD can still put on a great performance like the old group did on said recording, then that would also bode well for both new and old groups, and for the “name” the group makes for itself overall.

And that’s it in a nutshell for recording.  Next time, I’ll look on the other side, and talk about how live performance fares as a defining characteristic of group excellence.  See you next time!

Candice Helfand is a Rutgers alumna with a degree in Journalism & Media Studies. She directed the all-female a cappella group ShockWave, for which she also arranged, percussed, and managed their website (http://www.rushockwave.com).  

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