Mixing technique and artistry, students of McGill's elite sound recording program prepare forexciting careers in music.by Howard Bokser
Michele Ciment is ready for takeoff. Headphones on and poised in front of a lavish 40-channel recording console, digital and analogue tape recorders, a pair of metre-long speakers, and miscellaneous electronic machines, microphones and wires, Ciment looks prepared to pilot a spaceship. Instead, she adjusts some knobs and monitors sound levels, fully concentrated on the jazz musings of the Isabelle Wolfmann Trio emanating from the adjoining studio.
Ciment is sitting in the McGill Faculty of Music's Control Room A, in the "recording" phase of the four-step process of recording music. She's in her last year of McGill's two-year masters in sound recording program. After working with the musicians to capture error-free, pitch-perfect musical renderings, Ciment will mix the music using state-of-the art equipment, equalizing and compressing, possibly adding background vocals, playing up the bass line or percussion, and so on. Fellow student John Sorensen says that this process "takes as much time as we have," which could mean working through the night. The next step, editing, is done by splicing digital bits and bytes on Macintosh workstations. This is a key part of the process for classical music, typically recorded live from a concert hall. There can be "thousands of edits," admits student Virginia Read, "hopefully none of them audible." In the final phase, known as mastering, the engineer puts the finishing touches to the music while transferring it to DAT (digital audio tape). Wieslaw Woszczyk, chair of McGill's Graduate Studies in Sound Recording, describes mixing and editing as "taking recorded music and like a giant puzzle scrambling the pieces then reassembling it. The goal is that the medium be transparent."
Partly due to that transparency, the musical artists ñ Midori, Metheny, Madonna, Metallica ñ own the fame. But the input of sound recordists (or sound engineers, as they're also called) in bringing music from the stage or studio to your living room is essential. Advancing technologies ñ computers, CDs, DATs ñ and the high cost of professional studio time ñ around $3,000 a day ñ demand these sound engineers be highly trained. North American record companies have long recognized McGill as one of the best sources of such sound recording talent.
Evidence of the McGill students' prowess can be found, with a bit of digging, in the box full of awards hidden amid records, magazines and cartons in the cramped office of Woszczyk. His relaxed, charming manner belies his reputation and accomplishments: Woszczyk helped found the master's program, the first of its kind in North America, after arriving at McGill in 1978, and has led it ever since. A native of Czestochowa, Poland, he completed a master's degree in Tonmeister studies at the Frederic Chopin Academy of Music in Warsaw, then left for New York City in 1974 where he worked as a sound engineer for, among others, progressive rock producer Brian Eno, and on tour for Harry Belafonte. "But something was missing," he says. "I wanted to do more research and investigative work." Woszczyk enrolled in the PhD program at the Chopin Academy ñ studying microphone techniques ñ and accepted former music dean Paul Pedersen's offer to come to McGill. At that time sound engineers in Canada and the U.S. received only technical training, if any ñ many were self-taught. Woszczyk set up a program based on the European "Tonmeister" model, which seeks to merge technology with musical artistry to create a higher-level expert in the presentation of music for mass consumption. In Tonmeister, the sound recordist assumes an integral part in the creative process.
For Tonmeister education, only musicians or those with bachelor degrees in music (or the equivalent) need apply. The selection process is rigorous: although 20 out of about 30 applicants per year are accepted into a qualifying year of undergraduate technical courses, only five move on to the two-year master's program. Richard King, MMus'91, now a senior recording engineer with National Film Board in Montreal and a course instructor in the McGill program, says, "It's a very valuable experience because it's so intensive. You spend a lot of time in the studio, which prepares you for the professional world." Students need not look far for motivation. Woszczyk says matter-of-factly, "All of them find employment." Not even a McGill MBA can guarantee that. Woszczyk proudly displays the list of McGill alumni working in music and media institutions the world over, whose starting annual salaries are about $40,000.
Yearly tuition ranges from $2,200 for Canadians to $8,400 for international students. The course load includes classes in theory, such as Technical Ear Training and Digital Studio Technology, but it's in the studio where students are encouraged to "bring out their musicianship," says Woszczyk, "free it from uncertainties and worries of how to handle things because of lack of knowledge." Like student painters or sculptors, "we prepare and teach everyone in a scientific way, but the artistic side has to take over." Student evaluation, based on a final recorded work, is quite subjective. The sound recordists put their personal spin on each recording ñ there's no "correct" mix, says Woszczyk. "You just know when it feels right." There are about one dozen master-level programs now in North America. Richard King, whose work includes recording the chamber music for the Beethoven film Immortal Beloved (1994), says, "McGill is still pre-eminent in the classical field." Woszczyk adds, "Our focus is classical out of choice and setting. We happen to be in a very good music school in a city with a great orchestra and a lot of great music going on."
Woszczyk and the program's four other professors stay abreast of changes in the field through research, participation in conferences and associations, and by staying in touch with industry, mostly through former students. Industry ties have benefited McGill in tangible ways: suppliers lend or donate the sophisticated and expensive equipment, costing tens of thousands of dollars, and often send visiting lecturers. Among the many sponsors are Sony and Dolby Laboratories in San Francisco, and deals with Japanese manufacturers Matsushita and Pioneer are pending. The return for their benevolence is the work by the master's students, "which advances knowledge of the understanding of the entire field," says Woszczyk. "We are creating a pool of experts in jazz, classical, pop, sound and picture, and theoretical research."
Currently, the Faculty of Music also offers master's and
doctor of music degrees in composition. It hopes to obtain
approval for a new graduate-level program ñ Music, Media
and Technology ñ by 1996-97, integrating sound recording
and computer applications and providing students
opportunities to "work with vision as well as sound." This
is where Woszczyk sees the discipline headed. Yet despite
the omnipresence of computers, video and multi-media,
music will always remain about something more. "Music
communicates feelings," says Woszczyk. "The best students
must know how to plug into those honest, genuine feelings.
They need the knowledge, but they also need talent, the
gift of music." 
Professor Woszczyk lists examples of well recorded CDs:
Pop: Annie Lennox, Medusa, Arista/BMG; Boyz II Men, II, Motown.
Jazz: Jazz at the Pawnshop, Prophone PRCD 7778; Stan Getz/ Joao Gilberto, verve 810 048-2; Danovitch Saxophone Quartet, Celebration, McGill Records.
Classical: Antonio Vivaldi, The Four Seasons, The Drottningham Baroque Ensemble, BIS CD-271; Arvo P”rt, Te Deum, Estonian Philharmonic Chamber Choir and Tallin Chamber Orchestra, ECM Classics; Beethoven Piano Sonatas, Volume II, John O'Conor, Telarc.
