Around the campfire @ Old School Music House #5

Romantics vs. Classics

I added to the vibe; We learned how to live our lives a long time ago, at about 2 years old.  Zen master Bernie Glassman said it’s easy …Row, row, row your boat GENTLY down the stream. MERRILY, merrily, merrily life is but a dream. As I finished the quote and our laughter faded into the desert night Donnie’s phone rang.

Those of us fortunate enough to have lived a life in the entertainment business know magic. My children grew up to hear this repeatedly “…the only people who don’t see fairies are those who don’t believe in them”. By the look on Donnie’s face, as he was listening to the caller, you could tell that Donnie had just seen a fairy.

Don Sciarrotta’s most notable student of recording arts and science was Roger Nichols. In 1972 Donny finished my short introduction to the recording console with “…and the rest is all magic Scotty. If you have it, it’ll happen for you. If you don’t, it never will”. The magic Don Sciarrotta spoke of was in abundance this night at Richards Ranch.

"She’s back, tired and hungry"; it was Donnie’s teary eyes that told the story. His old feline friend Baby just returned home after a long worrisome absents. "It really is a magical night" Donnie added to the discussion.

This is what I don’t see coming into our industry today Paul adds. I don’t see people who are interested in the show, the magic. I had one young engineer come to me from a major school in Florida. He just wanted to "learn to mix”. Paul continued. One night he took pictures of my eq section because he liked the way my show sounded. He used that picture to set-up his console for a show he was assigned to mix in another location at another time. He didn’t understand why his mix sounded so bad. I said …well, for one thing I was mixing a rock show and you were mixing jazz.

I said there is the difference between Romantic engineering and Classic engineering. I spoke of a Florida kid I worked with, Dave, and how it broke my heart that I could not repay him for his generous sharing of information during my rebirth as a DAE operator. It’s because he is a Classic in his analytical thought process where I’m a Romantic.

I continued …Romantics deal with the necessary evil of the tools in order to perform for the show. Classics deal with the necessary evil of talent and the show in order to use all the cool tools our industry offers. I added that Classics balance more toward the logic side of the Logic / Emotion scale where we magic believing Romantics balance more toward Emotion.

Wow ...! Paul adds …you are exactly right. I’ve never heard it put like that before. I commented that, to take from George Carlin, "you don’t think this stuff up on coffee". And that is exactly what it is, Donnie chimes in. We get so caught up in all that we can do we forget what we should do. We should inspire a positive vibe. That is what makes great sounding music.  

Paul strums a note on his guitar and says, you know we are all co-dependent. Think about it, he continues, we need approval. We need the audience to clap or the producers to think we’re brilliant. Oh my, I add, as far as I’m concerned you are exactly right. We are expected to transcend a lot of personal abuse to capture the perfect vibe from those who are paying us to bear our souls …and we’re not even allowed to yell at the computers. Donny laughs, dials his cell phone and puts the phone with Mike on speaker in the middle of the table.

Next vibe …How we learned what we learned …Under Fire!