I recently had the privilege of being invited to speak at the Springboard South Music Festival, Conference, and Trade Show. I was on a panel of 3 producers. We spoke about the importance of pre-production in the success of a recording project, and then fielded questions from the audience.
All in all, it was a great experience. The other 2 producers (Eric Jarvis and Josh Applebee) were great. Had a lot of fun meeting them and discussing different production techniques.
We all agreed that pre-production can make or break a recording project. It is so important to arrange the songs to best connect with your audience, and to trim away all unnecessary elements that can detract from the main theme of the song. Sometimes artists and bandmembers get attached to a particular part or section of a song, even though it doesn't help to support the theme. It's important to learn how to be more objective about what helps the song and what doesn't, and to be ok letting some parts go.
This important point helps to underscore the role a producer plays in a recording project (not a shocker that the producer brought it back around to how important we are!) Producers, when doing their job well, help the artist connect with their listeners through the song in a more direct way.
It's just like storytelling.
When someone tells a story, if they bombard you with too much unnecessary information it is extremely hard to stay interested.
-Storyteller - "So it was last friday. No wait, saturday…or thursday. Maybe it was thursday..."
-Listener's internal monologue - "Who cares? Get to the point! Tell me the story so I can react or relate to it on some human level!"
Songs are much the same way. It's a craft that can be beautiful when done correctly. Pre-production deals with the important task of designing the story (through the music and lyrics) to connect with the audience in the most intriguing, emotion-filled, human way possible.
Only then can we move on to getting the performances in the studio that put meat on the skeleton!
-Ty