Students toil with industry greats in a Berklee studio.

By Sarah Murphy
Berklee.edu Correspondent
October 27, 2005

Producers Elliot Scheiner (wearing glasses, left) and George Massenburg (right) work the board during a session in Berklee's Studio A.

Photo by Phil Farnsworth

Sensing an unprecedented opportunity, the powers that be came up with a plan. Mattea would record a song written by Berklee students. An ensemble comprising student musicians would accompany her in the session. And Scheiner and Massenburg would coproduce, assisted by a team of student engineers.

The session began auspiciously around noon. Mattea settled in at the mic. Scheiner stationed himself at the console, while Massenburg prowled the control room. Tape started rolling, the drummer counted off, the band made its entrance, and then, seconds later, one of the producers cut in, sounding annoyed.

"How about that thing where we're going to play it in time?" Massenburg said, dry as toast.

The musicians exchanged nervous glances and the studio fell silent. Then Mattea leaned into her vocal mic. "Wow," she said. "He's strict."

It was the opportunity of a lifetime, and the session of these students' dreams, but it would be no picnic. Working with three supremely talented veterans would drag them—by force if necessary—to a higher level.

A Trio with Track Records

For over 20 years, Mattea has been one of Nashville's finest song interpreters and most expressive voices. She has taken home Grammy awards for Best Country Vocal Performance by a Female Artist and Best Country Gospel Album. And as the students would soon learn, she is a consummate professional. Not only does she know her way around a studio, she knows exactly what sound she seeks, and will not settle for anything else.

Scheiner's lengthy career is one of the few in the music industry that truly merits the word "legendary." The winner of five Grammys, he has helped craft some of rock's most acclaimed and beloved recordings, including Van Morrison's Moondance and Steely Dan's Aja. More recently, he has set the standard for 5.1 channel surround sound, mixing the Flaming Lips' Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots, and Beck's Sea Change, among many others. He is an engineer's engineer, with an ability to hear and shape sound that borders on the paranormal.

Student bassist Matt Utterback takes a break during the session.
Photo by Phil Farnsworth

But Massenburg, the session's taskmaster, kept the mutual admiration to a minimum. At times, his cranky demeanor was as over-the-top funny as it was intimidating. He showed no mercy, though, to any musician or assistant engineer who failed to measure up.

During the previous night's rehearsal, Massenburg laid into the students for unsteady time and missed chord changes. While the band's performance during the tracking session showed improvement, Massenburg did not hesitate to hurl blunt criticisms at anyone in need of them.

Though it may have stung at times, Massenburg's forthright manner with the students proved the ultimate compliment. He didn't treat them as undergraduates, but as professionals. And his interest in their education was both obvious and sincere. In fact, Massenburg has committed to a Herb Alpert Visiting Professorship, teaching on campus for six weeks over the course of three years.

Composition of a Mentor

Mattea, too, has an interest in teaching. After two decades of recording and touring, she feels a strong urge to share her experience with aspiring musicians. Recently, she became infatuated with the idea of teaching a master class and perhaps writing a book. Inspired, but unsure where to begin, she decided to run the idea by her friend Pat Pattison, a professor of liberal arts at Berklee.

But the very day she came to that decision, Pattison called her, inviting her to spend a week at Berklee teaching songwriters and vocalists. For Mattea, this seemed more like providence than coincidence. "The universe was conspiring to help me," she says.

In honor of Mattea's visit, students were invited to write songs for her, and pitch them in person. Mattea would then choose one song to record. The writers brought their demos to a pitch session, where they took turns playing their tunes, awaiting a thumbs up or thumbs down from Mattea.

	Student songwriters Jared Salvatore (left) and Erin Berra (right) with Kathy Mattea (center).
	Photo by Phil Farnsworth
	Listen: "Matter of Time" Student Performers: Matt Prior (piano), Maeve Gilchrist (harp), Andres Espinoza (percussion), Matt Utterback (bass), and Steve Sinatra, (drums). Guest Performers: Kathy Mattea (vocals, pennywhistle) and Bill Cooley (guitar).

When the song ended, Mattea looked around the roomful of student songwriters, and demanded to know, "Who wrote that song?"

Erin Berra and Jared Salvatore, cowriters, were taken aback by her reaction. "It was totally surreal," Berra said. "My heart was pounding."

Berra and Salvatore sat in on the rehearsals and ensuing recording. Watching an artist of Mattea's caliber perform their song, under the production of Scheiner and Massenburg, was a professional fantasy brought to life. "I feel like the luckiest student at Berklee right now," Berra says.

It also was a rare glimpse into the professional world they hope to be a part of someday. "It's really cool to see someone else's interpretation of what you wrote, and to watch someone else take creative control," Salvatore says.

For the 16 students of the Music Production and Engineering Department's Masters Engineering Lab (MP-475), working alongside Scheiner and Massenburg was just as enlightening. Watching them work, hearing the way they hear, even listening to them disagree about recording technique was an eye-opening experience.

"It's very rare in the professional world that you get two of these icons, and different points of view from the kind of people that set the benchmark," says Rob Jaczko, chair of the Music Production and Engineering Department. "For the students to see the tag team [between Massenburg and Scheiner] was one of the most powerful experiences we've ever presented.

"And then to throw in having a world-class artist involved—there's nowhere else in the world that can pull this off the way Berklee can."

Scheiner, for one, is inclined to agree. He has visited Berklee many times, and his son studies music production and engineering at the college.

"I love this place. Isn't it unbelievable?" Scheiner said to Mattea, during a short break in the session.

After four hours of tracking, and with a long editing session still ahead, fatigue was creeping in. But, as the subject turned to Berklee, both seemed to light up. Seated together at the console in Studio A, they traded stories of time spent with Berklee students. And by the looks on their faces, it was as much a thrill for them as for the students who hold them in awe.

Sarah Murphy is a Boston-based freelance writer.