I spent most of my free time the other week reading Geoff Emerick’s Here, There and Everywhere: My Life Recording the Music of The Beatles. What an incredible read. Not only did I learn even more about the Beatles but there sure are valuable recording lessons amongst these pages.
“So many of the sounds in today’s recording studios come out of little boxes that merely imitate the sonic innovations of the past. The range of choices is vast but, in unimaginative hands, it seems to create fewer surprises.”
An opening quote, written by Elvis Costello, sets the tone for the story to come. In the 1960s, Geoff Emerick along with George Martin, Paul McCartney, John Lennon, George Harrison, and Ringo Starr would set in motion some of the most popular recording techniques used today. Close miking, tape loops, sampling, even kick drum dampening were all pioneered by Geoff Emerick and the Beatles. Their work would change recording history.
Think about this with me for a second. This man is responsible for recording techniques fifty years later that go almost unnoticed. When was the last time you saw a kick drum used anywhere that didn’t have some sort of dampening? When I was a kid and my parents got me a kit the first thing I did was stuff blankets inside the kick drum! Now, if you were to have asked me why I did this prior, I wouldn’t have been able to tell you.
What’s more, Here, There and Everywhere contains a plethora of wisdom that is the psychology of working with musicians. Again, this to me is yet another overlooked facet in the art of recording today. Yes, there are plenty of pages written about the stress Geoff faced with the Beatles’ in their later years. But even before that, Geoff Emerick finds fascinating ways to work with each Beatle as each of their personalities were different. Lennon, for example, hated the sound of his own voice and often made requests in an abstract manner. Paul knew what he wanted and sought perfection. George Harrison was the ‘little brother’ yet he became more confident in his music. And believe it or not, Ringo was picky with drum sounds.
The subject of this book might be misconstrued as nostalgia but that just isn’t the case, at least not entirely. Here, There and Everywhere is like sitting at the back of EMI Abbey Road on the first week on your way to becoming an engineer.