Bob Power On The Nature of Great Music

If there’s anyone who’s capable of articulating the substance and meaning of a great song, it’s Bob Power. In a promo for his upcoming course at NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts, the legendary engineer (A Tribe Called Quest, D’Angelo, Erykah Badu, De La Soul) and Adjuct Faculty Member of The Clive Davis Department of Record Music discusses the structure of the course while offering sage wisdom about the nature and creation of great music.

There’s an incredible matrix of possibilities.

The thing that’s in shortest supply are great songs.

A record has to be something that takes you beyond the literal experience of the music being played.

41 thoughts on “Bob Power On The Nature of Great Music”

  1. Bob Power is a legend. Wish I could sit in on this.
    Will have to revert to reading his Red Bull session.

  2. Man, I would so love to take that class! As a producer, I am really really interested in engineering techniques so I can really take my beats to another, multi dimensional level. Thanks for the redbull link 262. I will definitely check that out when I get a chance.

  3. I talked to Bob Power on the phone once, years ago. I was with an indie label and we wanted him to mix our record (it had already been recorded). So I was like “we have 30 thousand for our mixing budget.”

    everybody knew his name from all the Tribe records. I remember the phone ringing, answering it and hearing “Bob Power here” in a really deep voice.

    So, I was like “we have about 30 thousand for our budget.”

    he was like “I usually get about 30 thousand a track.”

    It was a short conversation. He did recommend some other guys that were cheaper. we ended up getting dropped from the label right after that, anyway.

  4. This video is so spot on. One of the hardest things about recording great song is figuring out the best way to tackle the thing. I frequently record a hip-hop group that plays all live instruments (drum/bass/guitar/keys/vocals), and I find that it works best to start with the drums and bass, which really are at the core of the genre of music. I have also recorded a few jam bands, and found that it is best to mic up everybody and just let them go at it.

    I think that the way you approach recording a song has a lot to do with the style of music, as well as the experience of the performers.

  5. Hmm. I heard straight from Erykah’s mouth that “On & On” was produced by Jahborn. Not Bob Power.

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