JAVS Spring 2013

then like, seven different variations and say like, “Start on beat two and play your phone number,” or whatever (ex. 4). There were a lot of games. NM : On the spot games. It is sort of like clapping games or word games where it’s best done—I have a very strong belief with musicians’ ability to impro vise within a structure. And then when I had Abby Fischer in the studio, I was like, “Okay, now say everywhere you ever lived,” you know, then that will have emotional content, whereas if she had thought about what she was going to say, that wouldn’t have worked. That piece turned into Mothertongue . Example 4. An example of “free money” music by Nico Muhly

big-budget string quartet is identical to the language they would use in the concert hall; the performance style doesn’t necessarily change because the whole idea on classical recordings is to replicate the experi ence of the concert hall. But when you have a sensi tive condenser mic all up in your face, picking up all of your burps and stuff, it’s like putting a magnifying glass on your sound and suggests a different way of playing. NS : Keep in Touch was the first time I was ever mic’d that closely—and I had no idea. I didn’t know that it was going to sound like that, and actually the first time I ever heard Valgeir’s recording of Keep in Touch that ended up being on Nico’s record, I was like, “I sound terrible!” I was so freaked out at the concept of me being mic’d that closely—I had no idea. NS : It was basically in my viola. That was an incredibly freeing moment for me. I listened to that recording maybe seven or eight times and was like, “you know what’s amazing?” What you can hear . It was really similar to my experience of actually play ing it—from my perspective. And that’s not some thing that other people have access to. Being some body who is somewhat of an expressive breather, for example—that’s not something you’d get necessarily in a concert hall, but really you do when you’re amplified. I now play close amplified a lot, and that’s definitely changed a lot of the way I play in a lot of respects. When we talk about recording-stu dio fluency, it’s also just knowing how to make sure you have edits covered—stuff like that, so you can really be a helpful person to your engineer. On this last record I just recorded, it had nothing to do with the way that a string quartet might be recorded. Hey, I think we should stop this because it’s getting kind of loud in here. NM : It wasn’t just close . . . NM : And that’s the crazy thing. Keep in Touch must have been the first time—

NS : Right. If you were like, “Homework assign ment: think of everywhere you’ve ever lived and then sing it to me on notes,”—you don’t want that. NM : you’ve developed a gradual, as we all have, flu ency in the language of the studio, which is entirely different from the language of the concert hall and entirely different from the language of the practice room.

NS : And not something I learned in school at all.

NM : Okay! What else is there—yeah, stay in school—

AO : But the language of the recording studio for a

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