Other Ears: Works In Progress

Every piece reaches a stage where it needs ears other than your own. Not because something is wrong, but because an outside listener hears what you no longer can. After enough hours inside a track, you stop hearing the song and start hearing your decisions. This session returns you to the music. Participants bring works in progress, a demo, a rough mix, a structure still taking shape, and we listen together as a community. The conversation moves on two levels: form and structure (what is this piece becoming, where does it gather or release?) and mixing and production (arrangement, space, texture, the decisions shaping how it's heard). Along the way we examine listening itself: how we hear differently in different contexts, what each of us is listening for, and how to give and receive feedback that opens a piece up rather than closing it down. You don't need a finished work to take part, and you don't need to share to benefit. Listeners are as essential to this room as the work itself. Open to makers of all genres and levels. A hybrid workshop: join in person or online.

Production Mixing Arrangement Theory & Process Songwriting

Instructors

Chris Botta Shahzad Ismaily

Dates

Sessions

1 session

Duration

90 mins each

Level

All levels

Language

English

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Chris Botta

Chris Botta is a Queens-based producer and engineer, and the founder of Fer Sound, a mixing, mastering, and production studio in Bushwick, Brooklyn — named for Saint Christopher, the ferryman, in the spirit of carrying artists from one end of a musical journey to the other. With his interests positioned uncomfortably between contemporary chamber, electronic, and popular music forms, he has worked with artists including Yaeji, Dua Lipa, RM (BTS), Kelsey Lu, Balming Tiger, Gabriel Kahane, Roomful of Teeth, yuniya, Emily Wells, Arushi Jain, David Lang, and the JACK and Attacca Quartets, alongside longtime collaborator Shahzad Ismaily. Chris joined the FSN team in 2016 on the Dosti Music Project, and has since worked across programs including OneBeat US and abroad (Sahara, Borneo, and Taiwan), Mosaic, and Commercial as a facilitator, producer, and recording, mixing, and mastering engineer.

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Shahzad Ismaily

I'm a multi-instrumentalist, composer and producer based in Brooklyn, where I founded Figure 8 Recording, a studio built as much around community as around sound. Largely self-taught, with a master's in biochemistry picked up somewhere along the way. I have recorded or performed with so many incredible artists including Lou Reed, Laurie Anderson, Tom Waits, John Zorn, and Feist -- across more than 400 albums. I'm one third of the Grammy-nominated trio Love in Exile with Arooj Aftab and Vijay Iyer, and have been a OneBeat Collaborating Artist since 2017. I don't believe art is made by a heroic individual alone. Music is a conversation: every note responds to another. When I'm producing a record or in a room with other players, I'm working to make the space safe enough for the most vulnerable version of the music to appear, the one usually hidden even from the person making it. I try to keep my palms open, facing the people in front of me. By giving we both grow.

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Instructor Statement

We've both spent a lot of our lives in rooms where music is being made, and the thing we've come to trust most isn't a technique or a piece of gear. It's the moment someone else hears your work for the first time and says what they heard. Not what's wrong with it. What they heard. That moment tells you what the piece already is, which is usually different from what you thought you were making, and usually better. This session is built around that moment. We're not here to fix anyone's track. We're here to listen properly, together, and to practise saying what we hear in a way the maker can use. Some of what we'll talk about is craft: where a piece gathers and releases, how space and texture shape the way it's received. Most of it is simpler than that. It's learning to be a good pair of ears for someone else, and learning to let someone else be that for you.

FAQs

Do I have to bring something? No. You can come only to listen, and the room needs listeners as much as it needs work. If you do bring something, it can be at any stage: a voice memo, a rough mix, a sketch of a structure. What should I send, and when? An audio file (MP3 or WAV, any length up to about five minutes) and a sentence or two on where it's at and what you'd like ears on, sent by [date] so we can plan the listening order. Not everything sent will fit in one session; we will let you know. What do you mean by hybrid? The session runs at Figure 8 in Brooklyn, and on Zoom at the same time. In-person and online participants listen to the same audio and take part in the same conversation. Choose whichever suits you when you register. How is feedback given? Guided and structured. We will set the frame for each piece, the group listens without talking, and then responds in turn: first what we heard, then form and structure, then production. The maker listens before replying. Is my work kept private? Yes. Works are shared only within the session and the recording is available only to registered participants. Nothing is published or passed on. What will I leave with? A fresh direction for any work you shared, and a way of listening and giving feedback that you can bring back to your own collaborators. What's the format and length? One session of 90 minutes, in person and on Zoom.