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Outside the Wall
Mei Han, Outside The Wall
Za Discs • 2005
Synopsis by Jay O’Keeffe
Artist Profile
As an exceptional musician, Mei Han is in a unique position to redefine the classical performance practices of the Zheng. Her intellectual approach to the instrument, combined with her sensitivity to the rich history of ancient music, allows her to be highly expressive.
Similar to the bold innovations and interpretations that Julian Bream brought to classical guitar and currently, Maxim Venegrov brings to the violin, Mei, through her dedication and approach to the instrument, is boldly re-defining the Zhengs role in classical and contemporary music.
Mei’s diverse and unorthodox approach to the Zheng presents an interesting juxtaposition of ancient and contemporary performance techniques, reshaping the cultural context of China’s rich musical heritage.
Session Notes
Working with Mei Han is always a tremendous pleasure. She is always well prepared, focused and most importantly recognizes when fatigue is compromising her performance.
As an album this record is very important to Mei, she wants to showcase both her musicianship and explorations at the frontiers of musical innovation. As a musician Mei wants to move beyond the hierarchy of Chinese classical works for the zheng, yet at the same time remain reverent and respectful to the long rich history of the music of China.
We initially recorded 6 pieces during a session in February 2004. In this session Mei played numerous works well known in the classical repertoire. The sessions went well however after a couple of months both Mei and Randy decided to abandon these recordings, sonically they felt that the tracks had too much ambient room tone and they both felt that the performances were conservative and precious.
Mei wanted to find the balance between the ancient and the contemporary. During the intervening months Randy and Mei chose and rehearsed a wide range of works that collectively celebrated innovation and invention.
When tracking resumed we had a very condensed recording schedule of only a few days. As this session occurred during the hiatus of a much larger project recording in the facility, there was no opportunity for leisure. Not only were we book ended by other sessions, Mei was leaving on tour, followed by a teaching engagement which would not allow us to complete the tracking until the fall of 2005. This provided for some extremely long days that stretched Mei to her physical limits.
Desperation is the mother of invention. On the last day of the session we began recording the title track Outside the Wall when we hit disaster. The piece, composed by Randy Raine-Reusch relies heavily upon improvised passages interspersed amongst the composed sections. The musical elements of the composition are comprised of a series of motifs, be they melodic, rhythmic, modal, technical gestures or other compositional invention, it is expected that the artist would interplay between these motifs.
We had spent several hours recording the piece and no one was satisfied, Mei was tired and frustrated, Randy was perturbed that the spirit of the music seemed obtuse and I felt that it sounded forced and contrived. We were out of time as the band was in the anteroom awaiting our departure. There was no opportunity to complete.
I suggested that instead of Mei attempting the composition as a complete piece that she approaches it as a theme and variation, with each motif being a theme. I also suggested that we record the music as a series of vignettes, focusing only on one theme at a time. Both Mei and Randy liked that idea, as it would allow Mei greater opportunity to focus on the improvisational elements of the work.
Graciously the group let us continue for a couple of more hours. During that time we recorded seven vignettes, each between one and four minutes in length. Immediately all three of us could hear the performances and compositional possibilities as it quickly became evident that we would have a piece. Although over forty minutes of music was recorded for the title track, Outside the Wall, we knew that not all would appear on the final release.
During mix, Randy and I spent a lot of time listening to the various components, discussed how best to shape the various motifs into thematic sections and edited the vignettes down to more manageable lengths. I felt our first complete edit was really strong, retaining the spirit of Randy’s original composition. However when we returned to listen with fresh ears the next day, although I still thought it was great, Randy felt it was too long and that we could sculpt something better.
Randy suggested a radical re-edit. We re-arranged two sections, elided together a couple of more. Further condensed the few that were remaining and completely removed what we both felt was one of the strongest movements. I thought he was nuts, “It doesn’t fit with the rest of the piece, trust me it will sound better”. Having said the same to Randy on numerous occasions, it was only fair that I return the courtesy.
We listened back nervously, our fragile confidence shaken that we had gone too far. With my best solemn poker face I turned to Randy during the dying notes of the final refrain. “I don’t know Randy…” pausing for effect as a stifled my smirk, “but it sounds pretty fucking excellent!” After hurling invective in my direction, we had a good laugh.
He was right, the re-edit was a vast improvement.
While recording John Oliver’s Purple Lotus Bud, at the Chan Centre for the Performing Arts, we were faced with the challenge of capturing as many takes as possible within a very limited amount of time. We had only four hours in which to set-up, rehearse and record Mei with the Borealis String Quartet, as the piece is over fifteen minutes in length, if lucky we might get eight complete takes. We only managed five, and a couple of extra passes at the more difficult passages.
Due to the time constraints I recorded the piece in a very conservative manner. I used Neumann KM 184’s on each of the string instruments, positioned about four feet away. On the Zheng I used AKG c414’s as both top and bottom mic’s.
I also used a pair of B&K 4006’s, graciously lent by CBC Radio, as a spaced pair, 18 inches apart and hung about 15 feet in front of the stage apron and flown to a height of about 25 feet. These were to be my saving grace mics, if all else failed I knew that I would achieve a broadcast quality recording with the B&K’s.
Initially Randy and I were going to edit Purple Lotus Bud, together based upon John’s notes. Even with score in hand, some of the passages were difficult to evaluate, it quickly became evident that collectively we three could make stronger choices.
Mixing and editing in the presence of the composer is always a challenge, there is often a clash between what is compositionally correct and what will sound good on record.
John has a large amount of experience with recording and editing so at times we would have philosophical differences on how to solve a problem. He was initially aghast at what he called “guerrilla editing techniques”. As I explained, this was the down and dirty edits, I would do all of the boring finesse stuff on my own. Mei and Randy had to encourage John to trust me and with time and results, he felt much better about the process.
We did a series of edits on the tracks during the first session but did not manage to complete. At the end of the session John was not very happy at the time with the blend of the instruments, nor the imaging. I assured him that I would get the mix into far better shape prior to our next session.
When we returned to the project, John was immediately ecstatic with what he heard, he felt that I had attained a exceptionally good balance between the strings, that the quartet sat well with the zheng and was nicely garnished with the room tone from the main pair. With some refinements to the imaging, tonality and levels we essentially had a completed mix. All that remained were some very complicated edits.
For the final mix of Purple Lotus Bud, I used some Rock ‘ n ‘ Roll tricks to get the blend that we desired. The first being the use of compression.
On this recording there was a tendency for Patricia on first violin to be very boisterous in her play and for Yuel to be overly subdued on second violin, so much so that at times his part was over powered by the players around him, even in his own mic.
Instead of trying to chase levels for the first violin, I initially compressed the track with a light 2:1 compression that had a long release time. I added a second compressor to the chain at a 5:1 ratio that was intended to reduce transient attacks when a predetermined threshold was attained. This helped to restrain the first violin during the more aggressive passages and at the same time helped with the overall blend as the leakage into this microphone had a reduced dynamic range.
For the second violin, the problem was different. I needed to find away to support the instrument as well as define its voice. The first compressor in the chain was set at a 3:1 ratio and again with a very slow release time, the track also rarely fell out of compression. EQ was then used to filter out some of the higher frequencies prevalent in the ambience from the first violin, bolster the mid range thereby adding strength to the voice, and finally a little low end roll off. This selective EQ was very minor, no more than a 2 dB cut or boost at any given frequency. Last in the chain was a multi-band limiter which again was used to further compress selectively the upper and lower registers and boost the high mids. All of this compression and EQ has to be extremely transparent so as to not create pumping in the dynamic range or sudden image shifts do to changes in the overtone relationship between the close and ambient microphones.
I also performed gentle pans within the stereo field so as to maintain a relatively even balance from left to right. This was relatively infrequent and primarily occurred to the cello so that the low end never seemed to be to heavy on one side. I di the same to the first violin so it did not appear to be stark or isolated when playing alone. As with the use of compression, panning had to remain seamless and discreet.
The final stage required the use of effects. To help broaden and balance the image of the zheng I used a very short and highly diffused reverb. The reverb had a predelay of about 26 ms and a decay time of about 0.9 sec and almost no low or mid range content, the intention being to extend and support the instruments upper harmonics. The top and bottom mics were fed into the opposite inputs of the effects units (left to right, right to left) and the outputs hard panned. It took a fair amount of time to find the right effect as it also influenced all of the leakage to the tracks as well as the corresponding relationships.
The Chan Centre is known the world over for its acoustics and natural decay. Having not a lot of time to adjust the room acoustics during the initial recording meant that I would need to further modify the room tone during mixing. On a whole I find the room tone of the Chan Centre for my own tastes a little brassier than I like on a recording. I have also discovered, having heard numerous CBC recordings using the same B&K’s that the room as perceived from that flown position has some curious reflection patterns, none of which are unpleasant.
During our edit sessions, John, Randy and I all agreed that the room tone was a little more aggressive than we desired, and tends to be a bit cloudy in the range between the viola and cello. To remedy this I added three more reverbs to the mix.
The first was designed to compensate for the lack of clarity in the lower mid range, I used only the early reflections of a Lexicon reverb tuned to enhance the lower register, this helped add weight to the viola.
The second reverb was used to help balance the early reflection patterns as perceived by the stereo pair. This effect was fed only by the main pair and was used to warm up the mid range, fill the gap between the first and second reflections and to balance the diffusion. The decay time was marginally less than the natural ambience.
As some movements were recorded in isolation, a third reverb was required to bridge the transitional sections and add some air to the quieter passages. This was achieved by using a reverb with a very long decay time. This effect was fed by the main pair, which slowly built to peak intensity a few bars prior to the desired transition and then the decay envelope would match that of the room, carrying the tonality of the tracks past the edit point. We had to fuss with this to great length until John was happy with the results.
Although classical purists may be appalled by this approach to mixing, the reality is without divorcing with convention the music would have collectively suffered.
Album Credits
Produced by Randy Raine-Reusch
Engineered, Mixed and Edited by Jay O'Keeffe
Recorded at Profile Studios
Musicians
Mei Han: zheng, bowed zheng;
Barry Truax: Granular Synthesis
Borealis String Quartet:
Patricia Shih, violin
Yuel Yawney, violin
Nikita Pogrebnoy, viola
Ari Barnes, cello
Recording Format: Protools HD 24/192, 24/96, 16/44.1
Reviews
"An eclectic musical experience of the highest quality, this CD is sure to interest traditional Chinese and contemporary art music fans." Wholenote Magazine
Listen to Purple Lotus Bud (Real Audio plugin required)
Session Photos
Mei concentrates on a difficult musical passage while recording the album
We are using a pair of Nuemann KM 184's, a pair of Royer ribbon mics, an AKG C414 and a Sass P to capture the room tone.
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Text © 2005 Jay O’Keeffe
