Music Production; from idea to complete record

Abstract: This examination paper investigates how the producer assignment works focused on which musical questions that appears and how you make decisions for those. For several years I have tried to convince Kjell Öhman to make a Christmas record, and together we developed the idea of me producing one. I want to investigate which musical questions will arise in a music production project. Which musical decisions will be made in the process? What controls the decisions? In this report the following questions will be discussed; the genre of music, language, choice of songs, keys, arrangements, instruments and the organisation of songs. I have read literature about music psychology and musical processes while I have got practical experience by planning and implementing a music production. The result is a Christmas record with some Swedish jazz musicians. Music psychology could shortly be described as experiences related to music. Music is a living work of art and a communication process is appearing when we are involved with music. Music could be a symbol of emotion because it often symbolises feelings and affects our emotions. The structure of music is important to our emotion experience and there are many factors in music which affects our music experience. In January 2006 I contacted the contributory and they did all give me positive feedback. I searched for and brought song material while the arrangements were written by Kjell Öhman. We recorded in May 2006 and the musicians were all easy to co - operate with. It is important daring to make decisions when questions come up. This can be a challenge for someone who is a young and inexperienced producer but the communication between me, the sound engineer and the musicians were never a problem. I decided to make a Christmas record with in the genre of music called jazz, which could be identified as notes combined with improvisation – playing by ear. When deciding which musicians will be a part of the recording project, the contacts matters. Which instruments that will be used, is decided by the arrangements. The American range of Christmas songs decided the question of language and the choice of songs resulted into a mixture of known as well as unknown material. Arrangements were written to all the songs, keys are decided by the register of the instruments. An important establishment is the organisation of in which order the songs will sound on the record. One question is how much a producer shall let herself/himself be affected by others opinions.  There are thin lines between being sure of an answer and being open for others advice. To dare to stand up for a decision was no hard for me thanks to professional and helpful musicians. It is important to be clear in a leadership, otherwise the leader may not be taken  seriously. The most important question is how you make good and “right” decisions to people that already are professional. I have tried and this is the result, the record we have done is called “Walking in a Winter Wonderland”.