On Listening

an introduction

Dear friends, 

I have been talking to Sophia (my collaborator in music and in life, for those who may not know) for years about writing a more regular newsletter about music, listening, and applying the skills and techniques I have gained from my work as an audio engineer to one’s daily life. I’ve finally decided to give it a go. As you’ll see, I’ve switched to Substack as it will be a bit easier to use on my end. Part of my approach to music, engineering, and life, is to remove as many obstacles to creativity as I can. There is also a paid option for this newsletter, which I’ll talk about more at the end. 

But first: 

Troy Listening Room is back- we’re hosting improvised music trio Seven Count (whose last record I mastered) and the wonderful multi-instrumentalist and songwriter Emily Pinkerton on May 24th. Doors at 7, show at 7:30. Reply to this email for the address!

Sophia’s track “The Seas That Made Us” (engineered by me and produced by Sophia and myself) is being re-released as part of the Opia Community compilation album on May 16th! Sophia will be sharing more information and thoughts about the album in her newsletter on the 16th, when you will be able to listen to it on your preferred platform (here).

On Listening

In this first newsletter, I want to start by posing some questions: 

• What does listening mean to you? 

• Does listening include interpretation or understanding, or is it separate from cognition? 

• How do we direct our listening – are we listening actively or passively, up or down, side to side? 

• Do we draw conclusions from what we listen to, whether it’s music or conversation, or do we take the sounds for what they are, disconnected from meaning? 

These are all questions I think about regularly, and they drive my daily practice as a musician and engineer. I have started to think of myself as a professional listener, because deep, thoughtful, technical, and intuitive listening is the starting point for my entire craft. 

Listening as an audio engineer has a lot of similarities with listening in the midst of a conversation. If you’re not a good listener, a speaker’s intended meaning can be misconstrued and misunderstood. A curious and intuitive listener can glean a great deal of information from a conversation, as long as the language itself is clear. 

And that’s where I see my role as an audio engineer – to help musicians convey their musical language and emotional intention with clarity and impact in order to guide the listener through a piece of music. A recording that’s muddy or unbalanced will be confusing and tiring to listen to. But a recording where each element sits comfortably in its place, where the listener’s attention is guided to the lead vocal or primary melodic instrument, will feel easy and enjoyable to take in. Achieving that goal of emotional translation is elusive and can be tricky to talk about, much less accomplish, but that is the central question I plan to discuss in the coming newsletters. My hope is that you will find the conversation interesting and perhaps even find a new way of listening to the people, environment, and sounds in your own life. 

Lastly, a quick note about the paid option of this newsletter: for the time being, I plan on sharing these newsletters with both paid and free subscribers alike and there will be no difference in what you receive. That may change in the future, if I end up doing special editions for paid subscribers with a more in-depth look into a specific track, for example, but for now all editions will be available to all readers. If you would like to support me, you are welcome to join one of the paid subscription tiers – it really does go a long way ($5/month for this newsletter ends up earning me more than 1,600 streams on Spotify would, for example). Whether or not you choose to join as a paid subscriber, I am immensely grateful for your being here! 

Until soon,

Sam

Currently listening to: Mirror Music by Michael Muller and my cat Bella’s sleep-purring (snoring?)