IS IT "PRODUCTION" OR REALLY "REDUCTION"
by Cedric & Victor Caldwell

Members of the African-American community have been blessed with a unique gift of expression through music. We as a people are able to make “something” out of “nothing.” For instance, Kevin Bond can bring a stale chord progression to life! Yolanda Adams can take the simplest melody and take it to a higher level with her tasteful vocal acrobatics. Donald Lawrence can take an old church hymn and enhance it with the most modern musical vocabulary. The list goes on and on. However, in some other cases we have overshot the mark. Some Gospel singers have a tendency to think “quantity” instead of “quality”. Their focus is on the “run” rather than the “pitch”. In this case reduction is more necessary than production. We have to convince the singer that “less is more” and the melody is what people will remember 10 years from now. Many songwriters are too wordy and write 4 and 5 verses when only 2 are necessary. The lyrical hook is buried in a collage of big words and unnecessary metaphors. Our role then switches to that of a record reducer than a record producer. We often see young musicians displaying their skills using blistering fast licks and misplaced ultra-contemporary chords. Chords are used to accompany and not to overpower the soloist. Licks and runs should be used to enhance the overall mood of the song. Nothing is more nerve-wracking than a piano player colliding with the organist or the vocalist fighting for center-stage. Egos need to be shattered and a record reducer is needed. Gospel music is in dire need of record reducers. The songs that last from generation to generation are the ones with simple melodies and the ones with easy to understand lyrics.

As we rapidly approach the twenty-first century, the term “Reduction” or “Downsizing” has become a household word. This business of “Reduction” has become a national trend in the big corporations. Sometimes those who own the majority of the stock in a certain industry, in an effort to make more money for themselves, will hire a team of Efficiency Experts to come in and figure out a way they can cut costs and at the same time, increase production. They will determine that many of the workers are nothing but dead weight.

Approximately 12 centuries before the coming of Christ, God ordered Gideon who was the fifth Judge of Israel, to reduce his army from 32,000 to 300 men. This says at the outset that God does not need a whole lot of people to accomplish his purposes. Many times, we as members of the Gospel music community become involved in what we sometimes refer to as the “Numbers Racket”. By that I mean, we measure our success by our choir memberships, record sales, and how many riffs and runs we can do. Just as Gideon had to remove the dead weight from his army, we as record producers have to remove the dead weight which is attached to a song.

A Record Producer is a musical surgeon. He sometimes will have to go in and take out the cancer or whatever is getting in the way of a truly healthy song. Malachi speaks of God as a refiner’s fire. When Gold is refined you have to melt out all the impurities and only the pure gold remains. Record Producers have the unpopular task of stripping the impurities out of a song. It comes with the territory. Remember, when the song has ended the melody lingers on.

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