Why do people refer to themselves as "Producers" and not "Composers"?

T

Tekhed66

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Why do people refer to themselves as "Producers" and not "Composers"?

Hi all

I've just finished reading a fantastic book called "Good Vibrations - A History Of Record Production" by the author Mark Cunningham. It's an old book (1996) but its a fascinating read of how modern recording practices developed.

It starts with Les Paul working out how to modify his reel-to-reel by adding another recording head and inventing multitracking in the late 1950's, and gradually works its way through the years looking at different producers (George Martin, Glyn Johns, Tony Visconti, Joe Meek, Trevor Horn et al.) and it describes how they were limited by firstly 4 track recording , then 8 track, no outboard gear or effects and then finally migrating to huge 72+ track digital desks. It ends just as digital recording becomes to be used but it's a brilliant and relevant read.

Some of the chapters concentrate on how iconic pieces of music were stitched together (Bohemian Rhapsody, Tubular Bells, Good Vibrations etc...) ... editing consisted of a sharp razor and a roll of tape to cut and splice the tape in order to create what we all take for granted.

So this got me thinking... these guys who are producers had the ability to take a sometimes rough idea and cut/splice/polish it into the final product... they didn't write the music ie. they didn't compose the original piece, they produced a brilliant cut diamond from a rough stone.

These days, it seems everyone is a producer ... this website is Future Producers... isn't it fair to say that we must first be composers if we're writing our own music? ... has composition gone by the wayside since it's so easy to grab pre-recorded drum/synth loops and mish-mash them together? In the book, they describe how a band wanted to add reverb to an instrument part so they had to place a speaker at the bottom of a stairwell and suspend a mic a couple of floors up to record the playback... that's production - not composition.

After reading this book, I can't help but shake my head at posts who say they've been into production for X months etc... the heavyweights in the book would leave them for dead.

So an open question to the forum - do you consider yourself a composer first and a producer second or isn't there a difference anymore now that everything is in the box?

Any finally, I thoroughly recommend the book... don't now if it's in print but there may be second hand copies floating around.
 
You make some really really good points...maybe the term producer has just evolved since those early days. you make a great point that doing thinks like creating reverb back in those days was an important production task. i suppose calling oneself a composer always carried the idea that you've composed a really complex piece of music. We who call ourselves producers certainly make our own music, including our own melodies and harmonies, but maybe we dont consider them complex enough to be able to call ourselves composers. It's like if we called ourselves composers we'd be comparing ourselves with the likes of Mozart and Beethoven and so on.
 
as far as i am aware composers don't concern themselves with recording (at least much, if at all). composers traditionally write sheet music for orchestral situations, lead sheets for jazz ensembles, etc. composition can be an element of music production, but some producers rely heavily on composers/arrangers for records. there are many distinctions i could make but this is a start.
 
digitalcratez said:
as far as i am aware composers don't concern themselves with recording (at least much, if at all). composers traditionally write sheet music for orchestral situations, lead sheets for jazz ensembles, etc. composition can be an element of music production, but some producers rely heavily on composers/arrangers for records. there are many distinctions i could make but this is a start.
Click to expand...

Granted SOME composers are pure song/music writer and happily churn out songs for other artists to record ... this goes all the way back to the Tin Pan Alley days ... some songwriters hardly ever set foot in a recording studio except to maybe clear up a point regarding the melody.

Lots of Motown songs were written by house composers ... Elton John was a pure songwriter for years and only recorded rough demos of his songs so "proper" songwriters could listen to them before they themselves made the final recording... lots of songs for artists like Beyonce/Rhiannon/Bieberetc etc etc etc are written for them by songwriters but once in the studio, the producer(s) take over

But that line can get blurry ... Lennon and McCartney would not have been happy just letting anyone record their songs... they wrote the songs for The Beatles to perform and had an idea as to how the song should sound but for this they relied on their producer, George Martin. The Beatles started the ball rolling for what would one day become modern-day recording practices ... George Martin was constantly challenged by the band to make the music sound different and as a producer, he helped to create sounds and music never heard before ... one specific example (of many) there's a section of the song "Being For The Benefit Of Mr. Kite" where you hear a swirling circus organ/noise effect backing the main melody ... this part was created by George Martin by taking a section of 'normally' played organ, cutting the tape into 30cm lengths and then throwing all of the sections in their air ... he then randomly picked up each section and stuck them together with sticky tape and what you heard on playback was a psychedelic glitchy swirling wash of abstract noise ... THAT'S PRODUCTION .... Lennon may have written the song (composition) but Martin made the magic happen (production).

I think it still applies today.... if you write your own material, you are a composer first before anything else happens.
 
Home studios rule the modern world. Anyone writing and recording their own music at some point produces it.

At the same time, two additional points:

1. We're inherently lazy - "IMO" it's a lot easy to say/type "producer" than it is "sound designer-writer-producer" ;P

2. "producer" sounds way tougher than "composer". It's like the difference between "hit-man" and "dog groomer"...

:)
 
That is confusing tbh, what if you use drumpads/keybed for simple stuff and the mouse for complex stuff?
Piano roll or sheet is composing on a desktop but doing stuff by hand foggies up the term.
Beatmaking/sound mangling/design/arranging etc.
 
Producer has different connotations depending upon the circumstances. Historically, producers often hired musicians to fulfill the roles needed for parts of the tunes. I agree with your historical perspective that the book was talking about.

In more modern times, electronic music and the cheapness of DAWs means that everyone can experiment with both production and arranging and composing and mixing and editing... and they don't need to be done by different specialists for each role, like in the past.

It also depends upon the type of music. A lot of purely electronic music composition is dependent upon the effects and editing and mixing techniques. Certain sounds that the composers want can only be achieved in those ways. So now sound engineering and synthesis and sound design are all a part of composing for many of those artists. They still might have specialists come in to improve things for the albums though. And similarly, if they can't play a part, they might hire session musicians to come in and they record that into their DAWs for samples or sections of music or whatnot. The sky is the limit really.

As for amateurs, everyone has to start somewhere, even the pros used to be amateurs. Don't blame people just for being young in the field. They might be big in the future.

Personally, I see myself more as a composer even though my sound engineering skills are much better than my composing skills. But they compliment each other. I actually graduated from a collegiate sound engineering program, but I didn't study as much music theory even though I did take piano lessons and a few college courses. I see myself more as a composer who uses sound engineering techniques to get better sounds. And then I mix and master my own material that I edit and record. I'm not unique that way though. Tons of us do it all. That's just the modern musical landscape.
 
I myself had this discussion in many different chat rooms and in public with other musicians. I'll say this much. Every person who creates the main melody line and chords. Are the composer of a song, no matter the style or genre. When you start to add additional instruments to the melody line and chords, you now become the arranger of that song. When you start to take that arrangement and reeak it how you want it. You're the producer. And give yourself the engineer hat also. So we producers play at least 3 to 4 different rolls. Rappers who write lyrics only. Are lyricist. But if they compose main melody lines also, then they're what we call songwriters. Same with singers. To my knowledge a songwriter is a person who combines the job of a lyricist and composer together. I thought of the word composer meaning something big or greater, but it is simple. In Mozart's days. That was a hot skill. You can compose threw recording, improv or writing notations on paper or in the DAW. These job titles are confusing but, they are as simple as when we say them. Lol. A person who writes nothing but lyrics, verse, chorus, bridges, intros, is a lyricist. The Composer writes nothing but the bare bone melody line of a song, or score, or sonatas, etc. Songwriter does both. If you dont do both, then stop calling yourself a songwriter. Lol. Peace Out Chief.
 
Can you become a composer by printing the sheet music out of production program? I know some programs let you transpose the information from your song into sheet music. That's pretty sweet.
 
I dont see a problem with doing it that way. Composing on keys first. Then print out. Dope! I heard theirs composers who cant write music or read it but they are still an amazing composer.,
 
tubular bells was the first release of Virgin Records

it became iconic as a dark vibe thanks to the exorcist, a christian movie about the devil
and made me wanting to buy a keyboard so I could play the song myself.
it's a name that I used to save a file when my keyboard was down, so I just copy-pasted an autosave name from the list, but it's unique!
I don't produce, yet, but compose using MIDI.
I think I am getting good enough, but still need to work on my recording and sounddesign skills.

you can check my soundcloud to hear some compositions.
just google:

Autntitlove

it's a name that I used to save a file when my keyboard was down, so I just copy-pasted an autosave name from the list, but it's unique! And will bring you right where you want to be,
on my soundcloud
 
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I agree with what was said above.

I think of producer as the big cheese, the overall creative mind in the studio - like the director for a movie. The producer is the one who decides if a vocal take is a keeper or needs to be redone. Who tells the drummer to wait until the second verse to enter the song. Who tells the guitarist what kind of lead line he should invent. Who coaches the singer towards a better performance. The producer is the mentor and organizer of the entire creative aspect of the project (and sometimes the business side of a project as well).

When I make my own stuff, I'm songwriting, certainly. But my melodies and textures couldn't be shaped without some sound design happening along the way. And I largely mix as I go to decide what's missing. Adding what is missing makes me an arranger.

I admit, it bugs me a little when someone says "I'm a producer" when all they do is make beats. Same way it bugs me a little when people lump mixing and mastering together, or seem to have zero concept of what mastering is other than making something louder.

But if someone truly is the composer, the lyricist, the arranger, the sound designer, the recording engineer, the musician, the mixer, and the producer, then I think it's fair to shorten it to "producer". I'm looking at it as "one who produces" or "one who creates".

Could there be another term, to separate the two types of producers?
 
I agree with all these points. I have seen producer apply to so many different kinds of people. Some of them I would call composers. Some like DJ Khaled just pay homies for beats and pay some rappers to sing. The old school producers at capitol records were basically mix engineers. I guess I feel its a bit of a catch-all that means very little, but most of the time these days I assume its a computer musician!
 
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