On a session a few months ago, Felix McTeigue, a great producer, played a mental trick on me in order to get a better drum track. I had listened to the song in the control room a few times, charted out the structure, and went into the studio to take a pass at the track. I played the track “perfectly” to my chart. The pocket felt pretty good.
Felix said, “hold on Mark. I’m coming in to talk to you for a minute.”
He pushed through the double doors and stood in the doorway.
“Ok, that was a good take. Let’s do another. THIS time, I want you to pretend that every time you play a fill, it will cost you five hundred dollars.”
“OK,” I said.
We did another take that was vastly superior to the first one. I hardly played any fills, and the track grooved far better.
One skill that separates OK producers from great ones is the ability to communicate with musicians in a way that inspires or excites them. An inexperienced producer, or simply one with no charisma, might have just said, “you played too many fills.”
Hearing that feedback, some musicians might feel criticized and we know that there are many artists who don’t deal well with criticism. But Felix’s genius was making it a game. I didn’t feel criticized at all. I was given a challenge and a puzzle to solve. I was made to feel that I could solve it, that the people hiring me had all the confidence in the world in me and were asking me for a different way of approaching it.
I know this might sound kind of like a new age positivity rant, but I truly believe that handling the psychology of musicians well is a key to getting great performances. And Felix knows how to do this.
This trick could work with any instrument. All the producer has to do make adjustments for the situation at hand.
