The Art of Music Production
Berklee Global Connections / CAC Puerto Rico 2021
Summary and Scope:
Berklee’s Global Connections will host two masterclasses and three coaching sessions for students and musicians participating in the Berklee in Puerto Rico summer program. These two sequential masterclasses, will be led by Latin Grammy-winning producer/engineer and Berklee professor, Enrique Gonzalez Müller. The main focus of these interactive masterclasses is to delve into the art of music production focusing on practical tools aimed at maximizing the contributions of producers, musicians, engineers, arrangers and composers alike. Students will choose a demo to work on before the first masterclass and, using the tools and concepts covered in this experience, submit an improved version of this production to be reviewed during the second masterclass.
Speaker: Enrique Gonzalez Müller
Dates:
- Masterclass and coaching sessions:
August 23 to 26 – 6:00 pm - Final Session:
August 27 – 5:00 pm
Enrique Gonzalez Müller
After graduating from Berklee College of Music in 1999, Enrique Gonzalez Müller started his career as a music producer and engineer at the Plant Studios working with artists like the Dave Matthews Band, Joe Satriani, Joan Baez, MC Hammer, DJ Quik, Les Claypool, and members of Metallica. In his home country of Venezuela, he’s produced many chart-topping albums for Caramelos de Cianuro, Desorden Público and Viniloversus to name a few. In 2009, his collaboration with Los Amigos Invisibles won the band a Latin Grammy Award for their album Commercial and this collaboration later earned them a Grammy nomination in 2018 and another Latin-Grammy win in 2020. In Italy, Gonzalez Müller has also produced, arranged, and mixed albums for L’Aura and scored a no. 1 hit with “Teach Me Again” from Elisa and Tina Turner. In the U.S., he’s continued to work with Nine Inch Nails, Victor Wooten, Kronos Quartet, Jason Newsted (ex-Metallica) and toured with Wynton Marsalis. In 2015, Gonzalez Müller was the recipient of Berklee’s Distinguished Faculty Award for his innovative work as an educator and in 2018 became the program director of the Master’s in Music Production for Berklee Online.
Preparation materials for students:
Please watch the Youtube playlist “EGM – Music Production & Engineering” to better prepare for the two masterclasses ahead. These YouTube videos will give you the foundation of what you will learn from the session.
Special guest coaching by some of the industry's TOP producers!
Project details
Before Masterclass 1, students will choose one song to produce. After the first masterclass, all students will have three days to prepare a recorded project utilizing the topics in the session, improving upon their own simple, preselected demo. These production projects may be as simple as a smartphone recording all the way to a complete, full-fledged in-studio production. The main scope of this experience is not to produce a commercially-competitive professional production but to demonstrate substantial improvements to your original demo using the concepts covered throughout this experience:
- Use the “Tools of the Producer” (songwriting, arrangement and aesthetic tools)
- Emotional objective of the song: (macro) and sections (micro)
- Defining tempo, key and structure
- Repetitions (familiar vs new)
- Rhythmic “feel” and subdivisions
- Telling the emotional “story” through the symbiotic relationship of sounds:
- Frequency footprint (bright vs muffled / note range)
- Dynamic footprint (loud vs quiet)
- Spatial footprint (narrow vs wide / far vs close)
- Defining artistic & production references and intended audience
- Striving to be unique & “worthwhile”
- Envisioning the finished record
Students will be coached and mentored by CAC’s production program faculty and some of the industry’s TOP producers during 3 online sessions where they can fine tune their projects. Eventually, the five most outstanding projects will be chosen for review during the second masterclass
Coaching Sessions Link:
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/86334519666?pwd=OHIzaERNSDRlb1dGWFJOVEt0ZVN0QT09
Meeting ID: 863 3451 9666
Passcode: 744050