Zaki Gordon Cinematic Arts Center Introduction from Liberty U Cinematic Arts on Vimeo.

Paul Davidson | California Dreams from East West Productions on Vimeo.

Timelapse Reel | 2011 from East West Productions on Vimeo.

Arranging and Painting

A classical artist starts with a canvas that he/she can create a 2 dimensional painting on. Similarly, an arranger has a sonic canvas to create a musical work of art. This sonic canvas is referred to as the frequency range of human hearing. Typically humans can hear distinct frequenciess between 20 hertz and 20,000 hertz. For those who have no idea what hertz are (no it’s not 20,000 rental cars) Rane offers a free pro audio reference guide at http://www.rane.com/digi-dic.html. One can think of a piano as an easier way to visualize the canvas an arranger has to work with (although a piano only goes up to about 4,000 hertz).

A painter has a palette of colors to place on the canvas to draw the viewers attention to a particular place or idea. Arrangers have notes to place on the sonic canvas to draw the listeners attention to a particular theme or melody. Great painters know that more of one color they use, the less effective that color becomes in drawing the viewers attention to it. Similarly, arrangers know that using too much of a frequency can overcrowd a particular range (ie. highs, mids, lows). Great arrangers and painters alike strive for clarity in their art by using notes and colors appropriately.

Mixing and Photography

Mixing is less of a creative art than arranging/composing. It requires a different set of technical thinking skills. When talking with my brother-in-law, I realized that videography and photography offer a third dimension that is often not as noticeable in classical painting (although it does exist). That third dimension is depth of field. In mixing depth is achieved by creating space in the mix by using tools such as compression, eq, reverb, and delay. These tools allow a mix engineer to bring certain musical elements to the front focal point and others to the rear or background focal point. This translates into clarity, which happens to be a common description of a good mix. In photography/videography artists use tools such as aperture, shutter-speed, lighting, frame-rate to achieve similar visual results. These tools draw attention to particular points of interest in the image and also represent clarity.

There are many more similarities between these arts. It is important to understand that mixing and arranging is an art, not a technical skill (although technical skills are needed). Michael Stavrou wrote a great book that explores many artistic aspects of mixing. It’s a great read and a must for anyone pursuing a career in audio engineering. That’s all for now!

Michael Stavrou – Mixing With Your Mind