Associate Director of Conservatory Audio Services and Associate Professor of Recording Arts and Production Andrew Garver, who has been nominated for a Grammy, and double-degree second-year Riley Newfield, who is studying Recording Arts and Production, sat down to discuss one of the Conservatory’s newest and least-spotlighted departments.
These interviews have been edited for length and clarity.
What brought you as Recording Artists to Oberlin?
AG: I got a degree in electrical engineering from Milwaukee School of Engineering, but I had always been in the music business, working with bands in Chicago to keep their gear running, MIDI working, and shows going smoothly. In the ’90s, I went out to Los Angeles and got a job as a runner at A&M Studios. I became an assistant engineer, then a mastering engineer. I also started teaching audio engineering at USC as part of their music industry program there. In ’94, my parents retired and moved to Oberlin. I’ve got clients all over the world that send me stuff to master — no one really cares where I work from — so in 2018, I left everything behind in Los Angeles and moved here. Then, this position opened.
RN: I actually applied to the College Early Decision, so I was committed to coming here before I even got into the Conservatory. First, I was a TIMARA applicant, and only after I had started my application, I received an email about the Recording Arts program when it was created, and I decided that was what I wanted to do.
In high school, I played in a rock band, and we had the opportunity to record our original music in a studio with a professional engineer. Seeing how that process worked from that side made me really interested in learning how to do that from the other side, originally thinking I would record myself and my friends. The following summer, I did a recorded music program at NYU, which was really fantastic, but I realized that I didn’t just want to do that, which is why I decided that Oberlin was my first choice because of the variety it offered.
Also in high school, I started doing sound with the theater department and saw connections between music recording and sound for theater. Especially once I got to Oberlin, I started focusing my interests in theater sound and live sound, applying what I’m learning in the Recording Arts major to that. Right now, I’m sound designing for As You Like It, which is going up in the Kander Theater this weekend. The director, College fourth-year Evelyn Walker, wanted to record a choir performing a piece that College fourth-year Max Lang wrote for this show, so three other Recording Arts students and I rented out some microphones from the Recording Arts department, and set them up for a recording session. I got to combine the Recording Arts major and live theater sound.
What was the process of creating this department?
AG: From what I understand, Oberlin was originally going to do a one- or two-year certificate post-grad program for Recording and Engineering. But right when it was about to launch, COVID-19 hit. When they looked to start it back up, it didn’t make sense to have it as a certificate. We started this four-year Recording Arts and Production B.M. program two years ago now, and it’s off and running. We instill the foundation of the music as well as the technology of the studio. It’s one of those things that people usually see and think, “This is pretty simple: you plug in a mic, you get a signal.” And yeah, when it’s all working, it’s pretty simple, but there are a lot of details you really need to understand. A lot of the expertise comes from doing it — having different things thrown at you and adapting so you’re not getting in the way of the process of getting the art recorded.
I think it’s great that the Conservatory added this. I know when I was teaching at USC, these were all really popular programs because so many people have the access to music making software on their laptops now.
I think one of the issues with a lot of the modern stuff we’ve got is that it has this false sense of ease. It’s easy to make music, but are you making music that you’re happy with, that anybody else would want to listen to, that’s not derivative? We know those plug-ins, we know those drum sets, so how do you make things that can express what you want to in a new, interesting way that people find fun and enjoyable?
It seems like the campus is still really unaware of the Recording Arts department. Do you feel like you’ve been incorporated into the Conservatory lifestyle?
RN: Because we are still required to take aural skills and music theory classes, that’s allowed me to mesh into the Conservatory. I will say, we aren’t part of any ensembles, so there is some separation from performance majors. But because of Oberlin’s size, at the beginning of my first year I became friends with a bunch of Classical Voice majors just because of where we were during orientation events. There are still opportunities for us to find people and make connections.
I think that will be even more true when we’re finding small ensembles for our junior and senior year projects.
In your first two years, have you seen the program evolving at all?
RN: Definitely. A lot of what we do as Recording Arts majors is recording, live streaming, and archiving large ensemble performances in the Conservatory — Oberlin Orchestra, Chamber Orchestra, Contemporary Music Ensemble, and Oberlin Jazz Ensemble. Last year, the first-year class was always assisting with load-in and teardown. This year, we’re taking some more responsibility, kind of directing the first-years, so we are stepping into new roles each year. Prior to the Recording Arts Major, all the recording and the planning that went into that was done by faculty, assisted by students who worked for Conservatory Audio. The Recording Arts majors have allowed more interesting and labor-intensive recordings.
Another thing that is starting to happen more this year is an emphasis on one-time events.
A few first-years went into Cleveland on Sept. 25 with Assistant Director of Conservatory Audio Services Graham Rosen to observe him working live sounds for a Bela Fleck concert. Opportunities like these are starting to pop up because the music recording and live sound worlds are pretty small, so professors and faculty have connections.
AG: The popularity of it was a surprise. We originally thought we’d have three or four students, and in the first year there were about 50 applicants, basically with no advertising. Last year we had about 90. We have six students in each class, and we’re hoping at some point to offer a minor. Right now, students outside of Recording Arts and Production can take some of the intro classes that I teach. We have people with all different levels of experience in it. In some cases, people come in and say, “I already know all this,” and then they realize they didn’t understand why. Everybody that’s doing anything online needs to make it sound decent.
And it will continue to evolve. The fundamentals of audio engineering recordings haven’t really changed, but the equipment and the methodology have. You’ve got musicians in a room, and you need to capture that performance. How do you make them comfortable? How do you make it so that they’re as creative as they can be? How do we use that technology without it getting in the way of the art you’re trying to capture?
