TA2's Sisters of Sound – Details, episodes & analysis

Simone Torres is a Multi-Platinum, Grammy Nominated, engineer, vocal producer and vocalist. She was born and raised in Long Island, NY and began singing live with her father at the age of 9.

“Because I’m a singer, I tune like a singer and not like an engineer.”

After highschool, she went on to study at Berkeley and excelled. When she was 19 she was a competitor on the X Factor, where she realized that perhaps maybe performing isn’t her thing, and instead took to engineering.

Listen to hear how she met 5x Grammy winning Producer Kuk Harrel. She has been working with him ever since, with artists like Jessie J, Camila Cabello, Cardi B, Sia, Kane Brown, Usher, Superfruit and The Backstreet Boys.

This episode of Sisters Of Sound has us hanging with Jenny Reader, President and CCO of Fearless Records. We Skype her in from Culver City, California, where the alt-rock label is celebrating 25 years.

Jenny grew up in England with a love for writing, creating and designing. She got a degree in design and media management and worked in publishing for a few years, later becoming freelance. An opportunity came up for her to write for England’s SkyTV’s new music alt-rock channels, which lead into the music ‘biz at the time when emo culture was popping off.

Listen to hear about her years later at Victory Records in the UK and her move to the US, where she eventually landed and worked her way up to run Fearless Records.

Lori Beckstead, Audio + Digital Media Professor at the Ryerson’s School of Media tells us about the fascinating capabilities of sound! Including the purpose of sound design, the importance of considering sound and music earlier on in the creative process and ideas for projects that will leave you feeling inspired to make your own! Lori is also an interactive installation sound artist and has designed projects that reveal telling data about the industry.

“People still have a need for radio and it fills a different need in our lives than visual media does. It’s an intimate medium… we listen with headphones or earbuds (I always think of earbuds as something you actually insert into your body) so it’s quite intimate in that way. Hearing a human voice talking to you over the radio is a very intimate connection”
“The pictures are better in sound media because we paint a picture for the listener or the viewer and they bring the best possible conception of what that looks like to them.”

About Lori: http://ryersonrta.ca/people/lori-beckstead

http://g1313.org/4821/lori-beckstead-interview-with-matt-galloway/

The Murmur Project: http://murmurtoronto.ca/

The Singing Road: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E6Nl53bCC78

Backline and Guitar Tech: a concert literally could not happen without those dressed-in-all-black-figures that you always see setting up the stage. Enter Claire Murphy, a woman who claims that anyone can do the job if you know the right techniques.

Claire Murphy has toured with bands like The Raveonettes and Vance Joy. She talks about what it’s like to be a woman in that position and how there aren’t many others like her.

On working with an all-girl crew: “This shouldn’t be an anomaly. It should be like this more often. I’m not all ‘Pro-girls! We should always get girls!’ It should be whoever is best for the job. I just wish there were more girls available to chose from. Especially in doing guitar tech and backline. I rarely run into anybody which is crazy.”

If you’ve wondered who is responsible for making your favourite concerts happen, this episode is for you! Claire tells us her ultimate remedy for surviving on the road and the difference between working festivals and venue shows.

Claire’s company: http://trash-tours.com/

Have you ever wondered where those creepy alien sounds in sci-fi movies come from? Clara Venice tells us all about the Theremin, an instrument that you play by “waving your hands around 2 antennas”. It’s the pioneering instrument of electronic music and believe it or not, onlookers have a part in playing the instrument too!

In Episode 2, we get a detailed walkthrough of the history of the instrument as well as how the heck to play it! She is one of the only theremin musicians to use it in pop music and has opened for the Bare-naked Ladies.

“While it is the oldest electronic instrument, it hasn’t had it’s moment yet and I’m really excited to be a part of that”

As a woman obsessed with technology, Clara aims to constantly push the envelope in her performance with technological advancements. This year, she launches Twitter shoes and even has her EP on a wearable USB! The episode finishes with my very own private lesson with Clara.

www.claravenice.com

Clara’s TEDx Talk: www.youtube.com/watch?v=e3im1HUbPjE

Clara Venice wearing her USB-Necklace-EP: www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z1K3ef1jtog

More about the theremin: www.imdb.com/title/tt0108323/

Have you ever wondered if babies can hear music in the womb? I spoke with Professor/Director of the Berkeley Music Perception & Cognition Lab Susan Rogers – the same woman who engineered some of Prince’s records including Purple Rain.

“No one made records the way Prince did. At that time his output was so prolific we worked so fast that I actually had to un-learn Prince when I left him.”

With a unique understanding of the science of music, Susan tells me about her experiences producing, recording, mixing and studying music with a trained ear. This fascinating conversation shines a light on how she got her start as a technician, what it was like working for Prince and what she teaches at Berkeley College of Music.

Your fellow music femme,

Arianna Benincasa

TA2 Sound + Music

On Episode 16 of SOS, we Skype with Brooklyn, NY local Caroline Sanchez. She is a freelance musician, audio technician, and technology consultant who’s landed some pretty exciting gigs throughout her career thus far.

She’ll tell us how the audio ball got rolling with a Bachelor of Music in Sound Engineering Arts from William Paterson University. She then jumped at the opportunity to intern at Bonnaroo, which lead to more high profile jobs like working for SNL, Good Morning America and even The Grammy’s.

“I don’t get super star struck easy. No matter how iconic of a show, I try to take every call like “ok, this is really cool, it’s a big job, it’s a big client. But what is the job? What are the things I need to know? How can I prepare myself before I show up?”

Listen to hear her story plus her tips on how to make it happen as a freelancer.

Lorraine Segato: is an accomplished pop singer-songwriter, filmmaker, event producer, artist director, lecturer and social justice activist. Her career spans over 3 decades. She’s best known as the lead singer and principal songwriter of the Toronto new-wave pop rock group The Parachute Club. Their hit “Rise Up” was a national hit in 1983, and is hailed as a unique achievement in Canadian pop music.

Lorraine’s story begins as the lead in Toronto rock band Mama Quilla II in the late 70’s. She tells us what life was like for feminist artists on Queen St West and how the Parachute Club formed shortly after. The Parachute Club went on to receive five Junos, five BMAC’s, five Casbys, two Platinum and one Gold record as well as a SOCAN Classic Award for “Rise Up.”

“The song cut through everything and became this crazy anthem.”

Throughout her career, Lorraine shed light on issues important to her, and incorporated her activism into her music and productions. We talk about gentrification and how it affects not only Toronto’s music scene, but also the neighbourhoods we live in.

Sisters of Sound is produced and hosted by TA2’s Morgan Sheppard.

The radio industry is no doubt an exciting place to be. It could be the best fun you could possibly ever have working a job – literally, your job is to make people happy most of the time. At the same time, the working competition is cut-throat, which doesn’t offer much stability for professionals. It goes without saying that the ones who are making it all happen on and behind the air are hella talented.

Throughout my time working in radio, I found the male/female disparity a little striking, mostly in terms of leadership or technical positions. In almost 7 years starting my career, I had never met one single female radio Producer in my field.

So I did some digging to find one. My network proved resourceful, and lead me to episode 12’s guest in my own city of Toronto, Elisabeth Hart.

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Elisabeth is the Imaging Producer at one of the largest sports station in the country, Sportsnet 590 The Fan. Don’t worry, she’ll explain what that means. Her career started here in Ontario where she, like many, worked in several departments of radio before settling into production.

Elisabeth gives us the low-down on how she landed where she is now, creating sounds to hype up listeners for the biggest sporting events of the year. She shares what her day-to-day is like and why despite being a lady in a man’s world, her gender hasn’t really mattered all that much. She’s naturally the biggest sports fan, which was effortless to prove.

Stories are a part of our lives from the very beginning. They come to us in many forms; a daily group-chat, the evening TV news or a perhaps a podcast. Almost half of the US population has listened to a podcast now, and that’s still on the rise. But what about books?

E-readers were the first technology to disrupt paperbacks. And now, it’s audio. But it’s not a bad thing for publishers. They’re switching things up quick, and are now publishing their books in both paper and sound.

Our guest for Episode 12 is Ann Jansen, Director of Audiobook Production for Penguin Random House Canada, where 90% of their adult titles, fiction and narrative non-fiction, published are coming out in audiobook format, as well as print and e-book editions.

Stories can come across vastly different in audio form over the written word.

“It’s like taking a book and making it into a film. Something changes, something gets lost, something gets gained.”

Ann tells us about her time working for CBC, where she lead their iconic Canada Reads program for 10 years. Ann read a lot of books in that time, so it’s safe to say she knows what’s good when it comes to bringing stories to life through sound. We learn how audiobooks are produced, her top three books you should listen to (authored by women) and why it’s such an exciting time for the audiobook industry.