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Bruce Brubaker on all things piano

Master

December 3, 2008 by Bruce Brubaker

From Florida, Bob Katz has sent a test CD of the mastered version of part of my new recording. This morning I’m listening. He’s sent along a list of many clicks and noises he removed. There’s question about the basic sound. He’s chosen a dither he likes and done a bit of EQ and stereo image shifting. The underlying recording was too diffuse, he thought. He wants a bit more “edge” and a clearer sense of where the piano is on the stage. It’s veering toward being too brash I think. Now it’s “like a Yamaha instead of a Steinway,” I write him in an email. This recording includes music by Philip Glass and William Duckworth. In his own piano recordings, Glass favors a very pop piano sound. The mics are suspended right above the strings of the piano. Before my first recording of his music, he suggested I might use that kind of mic position. Here, I want a less analytic sound (more “classical”?) that gives more sense of the space of the auditorium. (This present material was recorded in a hall seating 1200.) Especially for Duckworth’s pieces, which feature long lingering drones, I want to hear the room.

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Over a long period, recordings have become clearer and more detailed, just like the sounds heard in newer and newer concert halls. It is partly changing technology, and partly aesthetics. What’s the causal relationship? Pop is a strong influence. Each generation of listeners learns to hear recorded sound (as we learn to “see” photographic images). The sound of acoustic 78s gave way to electrical recording, then to LPs made from magnetic tape, CDs, and now MP3s.

I based some of my editing decisions last summer (which I drew onto a score for Nick Prout, my editor in New York) on listening to MP3s. All the takes from the recording sessions were loaded onto an iPod — perfect I thought, for the weeks I spent in Mongolia. To continue working all I had to do was keep the iPod charged — not so easy it turned out. I recognize a certain timbre in MP3 piano sound, but as the process of comparing takes is about their relative qualities and compatibility, it seemed it could work. (At times, I have worked from DATs, CDs, and even cassettes!)

There’s no other “producer” for these solo recordings. No one picking takes or edit points, or — in the recording sessions — telling me to do another take, or, more likely, telling me I do not need to do more than the many, many takes I already have! It pleased me to know, from Robert Philip’s book, that in the pre-editing 78 period, Mr. Rachmaninoff recorded Mendelssohn’s “Spinning Song” twenty-three times during a session…

The making of recordings depends on live playing. But as movies are different from plays done on stage, sound recordings can be and should be very different from the experience of live concerts. Classical musicians can be dumb when it comes to recording. Often, the mastering process — the finishing of the actual sound and the careful assembly of the finished art work, crucial steps — is handled very casually. I’m aware of classical projects, in which mastering is “bypassed.” An edited recording is just sent to a CD replicating factory where some default settings control the final sounds!

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: Glass, mastering, Rachmaninoff, recording

Bruce Brubaker

Recordings like the new American piano music albums I make for ECM, InFiné, Bedroom Community, and Arabesque reach millions of listeners, and break through some old divisions of high culture/pop, or art/entertainment. My fans are listening to Billie Eilish, The Weeknd — even the occasional Mozart track! Spotify, Apple Music, YouTube are allowing music lovers to discover music they could not have found so easily before. Live performances begin to reflect what’s happening online. My performances occur in classical venues like the Philharmonie in Paris, the Barbican in London, at La Roque d’Anthéron, at festivals such as Barcelona’s Sónar and Nuits Sonores in Brussels, and such nightclubs as New York’s (le) Poisson Rouge. Read More…

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PianoMorphosis

Music is changing. Society's changing. Pianists, and piano music, and piano playing are changing too. That's PianoMorphosis. But we're not only reacting... From the piano -- at the piano, around the piano -- we are agents of change. We affect … [Read More...]

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BB on the web

“Glassforms” with Max Cooper at Sónar

“Glass Etude” on YouTube

demi-cadratin review of Brubaker solo concert at La Roque d’Anthéron

“Classical music dead? Nico Muhly proves it isn’t” — The Telegraph‘s Lucy Jones on my Drones & Piano EP

Bachtrack review of Brubaker all-Glass concert

“Brubaker recital proves eclectic, hypnotic, and timeless” — Harlow Robinson’s Boston Globe review of my Jordan Hall recital

“Simulcast” with Francesco Tristano on Arte

Bruce Brubaker hosts 4 weeks of “Hammered!” on WQXR — “Something Borrowed,” “Drone,” “Portal,” “The Raw and the Cooked”

“Onstage, a grand piano and an iPod” — David Weininger’s story with video by Dina Rudick

“Bruce Brubaker on Breaking Down Boundaries” — extensive audio interview at PittsburghNewMusicNet.com

“Heavy on the Ivories” — Andrea Shea’s story for WBUR about Bruce Brubaker’s performances and recording of “The Time Curve Preludes” by William Duckworth

“Feeding Those Young and Curious Listeners” — Anthony Tommasini in The New York Times on the first anniversary of the Poisson Rouge

“The Jewel in the Fish” — Harry Rolnick on Bruce Brubaker at the Poisson Rouge

“The Post-Postmodern Pianist” — Damian Da Costa profiles Bruce Brubaker in The New York Observer

Bruce Brubaker questioned at NewYorkPianist.net

“Finding the keys to the heart of Jordan Hall” — Joan Anderman in the Boston Globe on the search for a new concert grand piano

“Hearing and Seeing” — Philip Glass speaks with Bruce Brubaker and Jon Magnussen, Princeton, Institute for Advanced Study

Bruce Brubaker about Messiaen’s bird music, NPR, “Here and Now”

“I Hear America: Gunther Schuller at 80” — notes and programs for concert series, New England Conservatory, Harvard University, Boston Symphony Orchestra

“A Conversation That Never Occurred About the Irene Diamond Concert,” Juilliard Journal

Bruce Brubaker plays music by Alvin Curran at (le) Poisson Rouge

Bruce Brubaker

Recordings such the new American piano music albums I make for ECM, InFiné, and Arabesque reach many listeners, and seem to break through some old divisions of high culture/pop, or art/entertainment. My fans are listening to Cardi B, Childish Gambino, Ariana Grande — even the occasional Mozart track! Spotify, Apple Music, and YouTube are allowing music lovers to discover music they could not have encountered so easily in the past. Live performances begin to reflect what’s happening online: this year I play at the International Piano Festival at La Roque d’Anthéron, traditional concert venues in Los Angeles, and Boston — as well as nightclubs in Berlin, Hamburg, Paris, Lyon, Geneva, and New York’s (le) Poisson Rouge.

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