The Austin City Sound

The

Austin City Sound Ezine Spring 2022

Table of Contents Meet the Editors

8

6

By Shaayan Bhattacharya

From Music to Words

By Shaayan Bhattacharya

Austin Hit Stations

14

By Vaani Matai

Zoom to Learn the Tune

By Vaani Matai

Listen Locally 4 | The Austin City Sound

12

18

Front cover and back cover illustrated by Sahasra Adapa Inset pages illustrated by Adom Agyeman

20

By Henry Meeks

COVID in the Music Industry

24 Anatomy of a Guitar

By Henry Meeks

26

By Adom Agyeman

Capturing the Sound of Austin

30 ACL Through Time

By Adom Agyeman

32

By Sahasra Adapa

Journeys Through Indian Music

36 Music Schools in Austin

By Sahasra Adapa

The Austin City Sound | 5

Meet the Editors SHAAYAN BHATTACHARYA Hi, my name is Shaayan Bhattacharya. I have a variety of hobbies including watching movies, playing video games and playing sports. For Ezine, I wrote about music journalism and how it works in Austin. After graduating college, I plan to do something in the technology field. I am learning coding right now as one of my electives, and it seems like an interesting career choice for the future. A fun fact about me is that I have a twin sister who also goes to this school.

SAHASRA ADAPA Hi, my name is Sahasra Adapa. I love reading, especially fiction because it’s calming and helps to improve my vocabulary. I also like art, drawing and needle felting being my favorite. For Ezine, I wrote about students’ experience studying Indian music. After graduating college, I want to go into the medical field and maybe become an orthopedist. One fun fact about me is that I speak Telugu.

HENRY MEEKS Hi, my name is Henry Meeks. I really enjoy playing golf and reading books. My favorite author is Stephen King, and my favorite books by him are Cujo and Firestarter.

For Ezine, I wrote about local musicians and music business’ experiences during COVID-19. After I graduate I would like to attend college and get a degree. The weirdest thing about myself is that I am actually allergic to horses.

6 | The Austin City Sound

Photos courtesy of Adom Agyeman

VAANI MATAI Hi, my name is Vaani Matai. I like listening to music, Taylor Swift being my favorite artist. I also enjoy reading and plants. For Ezine, I interviewed music artists and teachers and their experiences of teaching during COVID online. For my ASF, I wrote some info on music artists in Austin. A fun fact about me is that I have an earring business.

ADOM AGYEMAN Hi, my name is Adom Agyeman. I enjoy playing basketball, as well as playing challenging video games.

For Ezine, I wrote about local recording studios and why they do what they do, as well as making a timeline of the Austin City Limits music festival. After I graduate, I want to go to college and pursue a career in the medical field. A fun fact about me is that I am allergic to rats.

The Austin City Sound | 7

From Music to Words

The story of Austin’s music journalism

A

s you sit down after a long week of interviewing, you sigh and look at your notes while thinking about how you can transform them into a great article. As you think about that, your mind lingers back into the events of the past week.

Memories of the amazing stories and thrilling music pour into your mind. You smile as you begin to write a rough draft.

Austin has had a long history of music. The birth of

By Shaayan Bhattacharya Austin’s music scene was the appearance of Willie Nelson in the 1970s. Austin grew from there. As more music pooled into Austin, many different genres arose including folk, blues, jazz, and more. Today, Austin has many places to see music, examples being the annual ACL festival and SXSW. The rise of music resulted in the rise of journalism.

“Austin was founded in [1839]... and one of the first groups of people to settle here were the German settlers who came into Austin in the hill country and they set up Saengerrunde, which were musical singing societies,” John T. Davis, a freelance journalist, said.

German settlers were the first group of people to arrive at Austin, setting up the Saengerrunde, which were musical singing societies.

Photo of Zac Crain’s book, Black Tooth Grin. Courtesy of Amazon.

8 | The Austin City Sound

“You had groups of people settling in Texas, and they all had their own musical traditions. And it also was geographically at

the center of all of these groups of people. So you had a lot of different kinds of music finding a home here in Austin,” Davis said.

Austin was geographically in the center of many groups of people with different musical traditions, resulting in the flood of different music pooling into Austin. There were other reasons that Austin was so appealing to many.

“I came to Austin in 1975, and I had already heard about the music scene that was going on out here…

Austin had a little mix of everything.”

John T. Davis

Headshot of Zac Crain, a music journalist for the D Magazine in Dallas. Courtesy of Dallas Morning News.

“Austin at the time, believe it or not, was very inexpensive…you could rent a big house for $250 a month,” Davis said.

Austin was a much smaller community in the 20th century, meaning that it was very inexpensive.

“You had the affordable cost of living, you had this musical fusion of country music and rock music and blues and folk music all going on down here at the same time, and you had this wonderful student population that

could go out and enjoy it,” Davis said.

With its music scene, its inexpensive cost, and a population that could listen to the music, Austin had huge potential as a music center.

60s’ and early 70s’, people that had long hair or protested against the Vietnam War got harassed a lot. If they got caught smoking pot, they could go to jail for 25 or 30 years, in the rest of

“Politically at the time, [Austin] was a much more welcoming city,” Davis said. “Back in the

Images of music magazines. Photo courtesy of A Journal of Musical Things.

The Austin City Sound | 9

Texas. Austin was a more liberal, welcoming enclave for people that might have more liberal attitudes towards life.”

Austin had more lenient rules compared to other cities like Dallas, drawing more people here. As the population grew, there were more opportunities to become a music journalist.

Jim Caligiuri, a retired music journalist, shared his odd story of becoming a music journalist.

“I kind of fell into it actually, I always liked music from when I was a little kid,” Caligiuri said.

“I started working for a music magazine as their computer person. It was a very small shop that had 10

people that work there.

Everybody did all kinds of stuff that was not necessarily in a job description, and one of the things that I did was start writing. I was working for a music magazine. They needed someone to do some writing, and I did it.”

Caligiuri transitioned into music journalism after working in technology for a music magazine, and then fell into it.

Even though it wasn’t his first job choice, he got lots of great experiences.

“There was an artist that was playing in Austin, and it was requested that I go to his hotel room before the show,” Caligiuri said. “He did that because he wanted to tell me that he’d read something that I wrote about

him, and it made him think about what he was doing. He thought that whatever criticism or praise that I gave him, was right on, and it affected him in a positive way. That was pretty cool.”

Writing about music in newspapers or magazines might not be the only thing that comes with the job. Zac Crain, a senior editor for D magazine, had the pleasure to write a book for the first time on Dimebag Darrell, a heavy metal musician.

“I had been doing some stuff for Spin, they reached out to me and asked if I would cover the funeral of Dimebag Darrell,” Crain said.

From there, Crain worked to turn the piece into 1000 words and submitted a proposal to an editor in nyc quickly. He worked on conducting interviews for over a year with Darrell’s family but they eventually lost interest.

“I think I wrote 70,000 words [out of 90,000] in a month for the first draft. I was just out of my mind…,” Crain said.

Headshot of John T. Davis, freelance journalist in Austin, Texas. Courtesy of John T. Davis.

10 | The Austin City Sound

There are always challenges that come with a job, especially journalism. Writing can take weeks, and thinking of an idea or starting point can take even longer. Although it was tough, Crain found this experience quite helpful.

“I’ve done a couple more books since then, [my first book] showed me not exactly how to do it, but what I was capable of, and what I shouldn’t do next time,” said Crain. “It was a really rewarding experience at the time. I wasn’t an expert. It showed me how to research and how to get things done.”

The more experience you get, the better you will be at your work. With this story in mind, Crain shared some more advice.

“Write and read all the time, read as much as you can, I think you’re a better writer, the more you read.”

Zac Crain

“Especially when you’re starting out, there’s things you want to emulate or bring into your own…and so a lot of times,

Headshot of Jim Caligiuri, music journalist based in Austin, Texas.

Courtesy of Jim Caligiuri.

you’re copying until that becomes part of your style,” Crain said.

Practicing your writing and reading helps you to become a better writer, and get more ideas for your story or style.

“The other thing I would say is read all your stuff out loud,” Crain said. “Writing is about rhythm, and if you can’t read it out loud, then nobody’s gonna be able to read it when it’s just on paper silently. When you read something out loud, you go, ‘Oh, wait, this word is the wrong word’ or ‘this should go here’ or ‘this sentence is just entirely not working’.”

Austin are lucky enough to be able to see when they’re just beginning to grow as artists, and we get to enjoy that very intimate scale,” Davis said.

That’s always been the best part about being a music journalist; seeing these young artists grow and spread their wings.”

Austin is a special place for music journalism, where you can see unique artists start off their journey as musicians.

“These artists have to start somewhere, and we here in The Austin City Sound | 11

Austin Hit Stations The radio station 96.7 KISS FM plays Top 40 and Pop songs. The station was created in 2001. 96.7 Kiss FM also broadcasts many of their own shows, and has even held festivals.

Meet the popular radio stations in Austin

By Shaayan Bhattacharya

102.3 The Beat includes music genres like Hip Hop and R&B and produces podcasts and shows. The station was made in 1976.

First aired in 1956, 98.7 KVET plays country music. KVET features podcasts and shows.

101.5 KROX plays alternative rock. The music station was first aired in 1976. KROX holds frequent events and contests.

Information provided by iHeart

KASE 100.7 first aired in 1969. The station plays country music. KASE has contests, shows, and podcasts.

12 | The Austin City Sound

Original image by VectorStock Illustrated by Shaayan Bhattacharya

The Austin City Sound | 13

Zoom to Learn the Tune

By Vaani Matai

Y

ou open your computer and navigate to zoom.

Logging on to the meeting, you wait for your student to log on, while you collect the sheet music you need for their lesson. You wish the computer screen was a portal so you could see your students and give them a big hug at the start of class, but alas, you can’t.

You try your hardest to teach the children, hoping they are learning.

This is the reality for many music teachers across the world.

Since COVID-19 has forced us to quarantine, almost all music lessons have taken place online.

Music teachers have tried

14 | The Austin City Sound

The experiences of music teachers teaching online during COVID-19

their best to adapt to teaching online. However, they have faced difficult challenges teaching their students and having performances.

Yvonne Davila, who was a middle school orchestra director when school first shut down because of COVID, shares her first reaction to the quarantine.

“My first reaction was about the kids,” Davila said. “My main concern was, ‘Are they okay?’

I was more worried about my students than anything else.”

Davila was more concerned about her students’ well being than how she would teach them.

“If we have to sit there and just talk, I’m okay with that.” Davila said. She thinks mental health is most important, and if she had to put a halt to the lesson to make sure the kids were alright, she would.

“Teaching the middle school students was very hard,” Davila said. “They were very shy and would not turn on their camera, so I had no idea if things were going well or not.

They don’t like being virtual.

They disconnect and it’s really hard, I try like crazy, but it’s really really hard to get them to connect and see purpose. They just want to be in person. That’s

what music is about; being in person.”

Davila had a hard time teaching the students. The students would disconnect and it was hard to teach them when they weren’t paying attention. It was hard for her to measure their progress if they wouldn’t turn on their cameras. Her students wanted to be in person. She believes that music is about being in person and being able to connect with others.

Stephen Krishnan is a guitar teacher and performer in Austin, Texas. In addition, he helps run a program called Austin Classical Guitar (ACG), a nonprofit organization that puts on many guitar concerts.

“The ACG ensemble was about 14 or 15 students that got together, or used to

to bring them on to zoom, I had to get a little bit creative with how we captured the feeling of being in a big ensemble over zoom. Obviously, you can’t hear the person sitting next to you.

I got together with a bunch of teachers with ACG and outside

“That’s what music is about; being in person.”

Yvonne Davila

of ACG and we came up with a couple of techniques.”

One of the biggest challenges for him and the other ACG teachers was trying to emulate the feeling of playing in a big ensemble over zoom and to make them feel

like it was in person. They used some techniques to solve this problem, such as putting recordings of all the students playing their parts together, with a program called Sibelius.

“Sibelius is a music engraving software where you can put in the notes into the program and it shows you what it looks like on the sheet music,” Krishnan said. “It also has a playback feature where you can have it play digital sounds that would sound like what you would play on the instrument. Over the course of the semester, the goal became not a big performance all together, but rather a recording that each of the members did, while they played along with this computer track.

What we would do at the end of the semester is put all those 15 separate parts together into one big ensemble track.”

For Laurie Scott, the director of

Stephen Krishnan, a member of Austin Classical Guitar, plays a song he wrote named North Wild.

Photo Courtesy of Austin Classical Guitar

get together before COVID every week to play and rehearse for about an hour and a half in a small room,” Krishnan said. “Over the last couple of years, having The Austin City Sound | 15

The University of Texas String Project, programs like these didn’t work as well.

“We managed to put together some online concerts using programs that synced people playing together, but that turned out to be expensive, and not great,” Scott said. “It was also a huge time commitment on the part of the teachers to make that work. At the end of the first year, instead of having a concert with people playing together, we opted to have solo recitals for everyone where people could unmute and play solos themselves. That worked out really well.”

There were different solutions for different music classes.

While online tracks worked very well for Krishnan’s studio, solo recitals on zoom were much better for the UT String Project.

Even though being online was difficult, there were some benefits.

“The positives that came out of it in terms of holding the bow, is that I could hold my hand up to the camera, and you could really see how I’m holding the bow,” Scott said. “Another benefit was having the parents have an easy ability to record the lesson online, and then play back the lesson that they recorded, which they could have done all along,

but we weren’t thinking that way.”

With a camera, the teachers could hold up their hand holding the bow so the students could see it better. They couldn’t do this in person. Being online also made parents and students think about how they could use online resources to their advantage. Some parents recorded their child’s lesson so that they could go back and practice based on what the teacher said.

Krishnan noted some benefits too.

“As a teacher, it is kind of

Laurie Scott (back row), director of the UT String Project, stands with other teachers of the project.

Photo courtesy of the UT String Project

16 | The Austin City Sound

interesting to Yvonne Davila is a violinist who teaches have a window online private lessons and was a into a student’s middle school orchestra teacher during Covid-19. practice Photo courtesy of Texas String Festival setup and home setup,” Krishnan said. “I have now, as a teacher, gathered a lot of information about what people’s home life is like.

It’s actually helped me tailor lessons and assignments.”

Krishnan was able to see what a student’s home life and practicing environment was like. This helped him to organize lessons for each child better. This helped the students learn better than what they would have in person.

Even though there were some positives that came out of teaching online, all the teachers agreed that teaching in person was more effective.

“I taught exclusively online for about a year and a half and it’s not as good as an in person lesson,” Krishnan said. “There’s always something lost with the digitization of music and our communication, but it has gotten my studio through this difficult time. I’m planning for the rest of my life that I’ll teach a mix of in person and online lessons since I have several students that may not ever feel comfortable coming in person.”

Krishnan believes that in person learning is better than online but acknowledges that some students might want to stay online. He says that he plans on teaching online and in person.

“I think, personally, I would like to be in person 100% as much as I can, because human connection is more than anything,” Davila said. “At the

talked to a lot of teachers and everybody feels like they’re so much clearer in their teaching.

Still, I think in a musician’s world, the number one priority is in person.”

“There’s always something lost with the digitization of music”

Davila wants to be back in person as soon as she can, because she believes that human connection is essential.

However, being online has taught her, and many other teachers, that they can make anything work if they put their mind to it.

Stephen Krishnan

same time, I’ve learned, you can make anything work. I’ve

“We worked really hard to make it work and really came together as an organization to make music and keep the music going.

And we did it.” Scott said.

The Austin City Sound | 17

Listen Locally A guide to music artists from Austin, Texas

By Vaani Matai

Carson McHone Carson McHone is a country artist from Austin. She released a self titled EP in 2013, and three other albums since then.

Rolling Stone Magazine has selected “Carousel”, McHone’s second album, as one of the “40 Best Country and Americana Albums of 2018.”

Information provided by Rolling Stone

Dayglow Dayglow is an indie pop project founded by Sloan Struble, a singer, songwriter, and producer. Dayglow realeased their debut album, Fuzzybrain, on Sept. 28, 2018 and its second album, Harmony House on May 21, 2021.

Information provided by The Austin Chronicle and Notion

18 | The Austin City Sound

Sara Hickman Sara Hickman is a singer and a songwriter who lives in Austin. Her genres are folk and pop. She has released twelve albums. She often donates her profits from record sales to organizations and charities.

Information provided by Sara Hickman’s website

Gary Clark Jr. Gary Lee Clark is an American musician born in Austin. His music is a fusion of blues, rock, soul, and hip hop. He has five albums and one EP. He has been awarded a Grammy for Best Traditional R&B performance for his song “Please Come Home.”

Illustrations by Vaani Matai

Information provided

by Black Past

Spoon Spoon is a rock band formed in 1993. Britt Daniel, Jim Eno, Alex Fishel, Gerardo Larios, and Ben Trokan are its current members. They have released ten albums. “Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga”, their sixth album, debuted at number 10 on the Billboard 200.

Information provided by Billboard

The Austin City Sound | 19

COVID in the Music Industry

Y

ou head to work one morning, ready to open your store for the day, expecting many patrons to come by to peruse your selection of musical instruments. However, as you

reach your destination, you check your phone and see that there is a city-wide lockdown notice due to COVID-19. You slowly realize that your store cannot be operated under these conditions. Overcome with

By Henry Meeks

How the Coronavirus Affected Those Working in Music in Austin worry, you begin to think of ways to get around this situation as you go back home.

The owner of Waterloo Records, John Kunz, the owner of Westbank String Shop, Todd People shopping at Waterloo Records.

Courtesy of Visit Austin

20 | The Austin City Sound

Aaron Stephens Band performing at LUNA, featuring Brandon Custer on the drumset.

Courtesy of Suzi Castellaw

Sloan, and a member of the Aaron Stephens band, Brandon Custer, were all affected in their day-to-day lives by COVID-19.

They had to come up with ways to make sure they could keep running their businesses and performing, but at the same time, keeping themselves and others safe. This complicated process took its toll, and in some caused worry, but all three of them made it through the worst of the lockdown and are currently doing well. Their experiences during this time are detailed here and how they were able to get through these difficult times.

Brandon Kunz is the owner of Waterloo Records, and their main focus as a business is selling music in the form of CD’s and records, though they also have in-store live music shows where people will usually promote some of their newer music, which is being sold in the store. This practice brought

attention to the store and helped them sell more music.

“There’s so many residual sales that come off of that publicity,” Kunz said. “And if that artist was so lucky as to have a couple of 100 people here, then they’re going to be talking about it, social networking about it, etc.”

However, due to the pandemic with everything shutting down, Waterloo Records moved these live performances to online.

Originally this went fine, because people were content with getting live music through Zoom or another service similar to it, but as time went on, people were more comfortable with going out to live music venues, but,

Waterloo Records still does online live music performances.

“It’s been less than normal just because during the height of COVID and before people were vaccinated, etc,” Kunz said.

“I think a lot of people were satisfied getting live music via Zoom or Facebook Live, etc. But less and less, that’s the case now as people are actually okay to go out to clubs. If we had a outdoor venue that we could utilize, that would be another thing. But we don’t.”

Waterloo Records logo courtesy of flickr

The Austin City Sound | 21

Like many other businesses, Waterloo Records had to deal with employee issues and figuring out how to pay them

“Back when COVID first hit, I furloughed everybody, including myself, we were completely closed for two months.”

John Kunz

gradually. We went to being open four hours a day, and then eight hours a day. And now we’re 11 hours a day.”

Another issue that Kunz had to deal with was the amount of people in his store at one time.

In order to fix this, Waterloo Records currently operates at 50 people, which is one sixth the fire marshal capacity. This is another reason that Waterloo Records is still not doing live music in person, and also causing less people to be able to come into the store anyway, but keeping people safe.

“Our capacity at the store, normally for the fire marshal is 300 people,” Kunz said. “So we could have up to that many people in the store for our events. But I myself set our limit at 50 people.”

during those initial confusing Some of the precautions that months. From Waterloo Records Owner of Westbank then, the store is taking, besides String Shop, Todd Sloan, has gradually performing repair work on opened back an instrument.

Courtesy of Westbank up, with most of String Shop its staff still on board.

“Back when COVID first hit, I furloughed everybody, including myself, we were completely closed for two months, and just doing business through our website,” Kunz said. “We weren’t even fulfilling it. We had one of our suppliers doing all the fulfillment for us. Then, we started 22 | The Austin City Sound

limiting people inside the store at one time, include removing listening stations, which is something that made their store so unique back when they first opened, as well as sanitizing everything and installing a high quality air filtration system within the store.

“The biggest thing is I installed, right at the getgo, a MERV 13 air filtration system throughout our store,” Kunz said. “It’s just no different from any other air filter except that the size of the particles gets smaller and smaller and the MERV 13 catches that. And not many businesses that I know did that, but that’s what all the airlines did.”

For Brandon Custer, who is a drummer for the Aaron Stephens band, the ball wasn’t in his court for this issue.

Performing music requires the person that you are performing for to have the proper

contingencies set up, and to find someone to perform for was difficult.

“In a month, realistically, I would probably get about 20 gigs,” Custer said. “And right now, I’m lucky to get five in a month.”

His experiences as a musician are different than those who dedicate themselves to the profession, however. Custer is a musician on the side, and it is not his main form of income. For others though, the lockdown and severe reduction in places to perform hurt them a lot because it was all that they did.

“I had a bunch of friends who were full time musicians,” Custer said. “It’s all they did, and to see them kind of left looking around and not knowing what to do because, they went to school, they got a degree, they were going to be professional musicians.

And then basically, there was nowhere for them to play, and they had to get creative, it was really hard for me to kind of watch that from the sidelines, I was lucky to have a side job. But a lot of these guys who followed that path, didn’t have any other option.”

Although Custer, in terms of his music career, has been able to come back and isn’t harmed especially due to it being a side job, for Todd Sloan, owner of West Bank string shop, the damages have been a bit more serious. Westbank String shop is a music store that specializes

in orchestral instruments, and has a rent-to-own program that was created with middle school students in an orchestra program in mind. With the pandemic and lockdown, many of these students decided to stop doing orchestra or to not do orchestra at all, in the case of new sixth graders who did not

“In a month, realistically, I would probably get about 20 gigs. and right now, I’m lucky to get five in a month.”

Brandon Custer want to learn and instrument exclusively through a computer.

“We lost 60 percent of our rentto-own,” Sloan said. “And that’s mailbox money. We don’t see the client, except maybe once a year and we collect. And so when Zoom Orchestra started, kids very quickly lost interest in orchestra. I don’t know about band or choir, but they very quickly lost interest and especially beginners.”

Sloan also runs a repair service within his shop, and he set up some pretty serious precautions to make sure

that everyone stayed safe and the virus didn’t spread. This method ensured that there was almost no physical contact between him and the person who’s instrument was getting repaired.

“We had a safe room in the studio, and everything that you brought in went to that safe room for three days,” Sloan said. “We had a UV light set up and a real light concentration of bleach in an aerosol, and we would spray the outside of the instrument and then open the case up and leave everything under UV lights for three days.

We would migrate that into the shop here where we would do the work. And then when we were done, then we told them, you know, when are you coming? All right, then we stage it. So their instrument’s outside, there’s no personal contact.”

All three of these men had problems to deal with during the sudden spread of the COVID-19 virus, just like everyone else in the world, but their jobs and their livelihoods were impacted, some more severely than others. Now, these problems are much less of an issue, and all three of the people that were interviewed for this article, when asked how they felt about the future of their business, had positive things to say, and were convinced that things were getting better. The pandemic seems to be slacking off, and things might be ending soon, but it’s important to still remember how scary those two years were for everybody.

The Austin City Sound | 23

Anatomy Of a Guitar An In-Depth Look At The Popular Stringed Instrument

By Henry Meeks

Headstock

Neck

Tuning Pegs Keeps the strings in tune, allowing them to create the corrrect notes.

Fret Used as a marker to know what note will be produced.

Each of the 6 strings have varying degrees of thickness, so that they are able to play different notes. The strings are one of the most central components of a guitar.

Capstan String Fretboard

Information provided by soundpure, as well as chordbuddy Original image by Adobe stock photos Illustrated by Henry Meeks

24 | The Austin City Sound

String Tuning (Bottom-Top) E-A-D-G-B-E

Guitars can be found everywhere. They are used in almost every band in existence and very widely known. It is almost impossible to find a person who doesn’t know what a guitar is, but not a lot of people know all the parts of a guitar and how they work together to create the beautiful noise present in so many songs. For a guitar to work properly, the strings need to be correctly tightened, which both the tuning pegs, the bridge, the bridge pins, and the capstan contribute to. This vibration is enhanced by the sound hole, and the notes can be changed by utilizing the fretboard and the frets, which are located on the neck. The guitar can be a complicated instrument, but that complexity helps it create the familiar noise you hear in so many songs.

Helps the vibration of the guitar strings travel farther by resonating through the open space inside the guitar.

Saddle Sound Hole

Keeps the strings at the desired height.

Secures the strings to the bridge of the guitar.

Body

Bridge

Supports the strings, saddle, and bridge.

Bridge Pins

The Austin City Sound | 25

Capturing the Sound of Austin

How recording studios are shaping Austin today

By Adom Agyeman

Man prepares to record ad libs into a condenser microphone. Courtesy of Spitshine Studios 26 | The Austin City Sound

T

he booming of the speakers, the reverberation in your headphones. There is something about the environment that just captivates you. Is it the bright led lights? Or is it the sound board with infinite possibilities?

As you step towards the mic, the producer gives you the nod. This is where you’re free to create anything that you want.

The music studio business has become increasingly popular as technology continues to advance. More and more musicians are starting to turn towards music studios to record their sound. Because of the rapid increase of popularity, music studios can be found almost everywhere. The environment of these studios is heavily influenced by the location. So let’s find out what makes recording studios in Austin so special.

Russel Pickman, the founder and owner of Austin’s SpitShine Studios has been in the recording studio business for 20 years. As a young man, Russel was captivated by the new digital recording software and hardware, so he decided to start collecting it.

“When digital software and hardware was coming out it blew my mind,” Pickman said. “I just couldn’t believe the technology and the fact that it was right there and I could record things.”I fell in love with the technology of it and I started collecting more equipment and it just evolved into a business over time”

Surprisingly, the business went very well. At the time, the only recording studios were big corporations and were very expensive. Meanwhile Pickman’s studio was a cheap alternative that was just as good.

“When digital software and hardware was coming out it blew my mind.”

Russel Pickman

“At the time there weren’t a lot of low budget studios,” Pickman said. “It was just these big expensive studios where famous artists record, and then there was me charging one third the price with a purely digital set up.”

Due to a recession in the economy in 2008. Pickman, who lived in Los Angeles, needed a new place to run his business. He chose Austin, Texas.

“A lot of our clients lost their jobs so they didn’t have money for studio time,” Pickman said. “It definitely put a lot

of pressure on me. I started researching what the best place to start a small business was. In LA it was really expensive and I didn’t have a lot of money. I visited Austin and I loved it, so moved the business here” Since most of the studio activities can be done remotely, the music studio business is great for up and coming people trying to start their own.

From Pickman’s experience, continuing the business even after moving to a different state was simple.

“Eventually I moved into Austin and just picked up from where I left off,” Pickman said. “Right away it did pretty well and it’s been growing ever since. In fact now we have two locations.”

So what does the average studio session look like for Russel Pickman? He says that at Spitshine studios the session process is super simple.

“The average session can change over time,” Pickman said. “But right now clients usually bring in premade instrumentals from a producer that they know or from online. They lease it and bring it into the studio, and after that we record their vocals.”

After the recording process Pickmans’s clients receive an email. This email contains all that the studio and the client had worked on. This seamless way of communication might be the reason Spitshine Studios has been named the best studio in Austin by Austin Chronicle.

The Austin City Sound | 27

Russel pickman inside of his music studio.

Courtesy of Spiteshine Studios

continue to do well.

Music trends change and we try to change with it and offer the right tools to really help artists with their music

Spitshine Studios has a large array of equipment that is used for recording and mixing.

Spitshine makes this equipment very accessible to the public with its very affordable prices.

“We keep it really affordable for most of the people that come in, which we know are young, new artists,” Pickman said. “They can’t afford what you know The Weekend can afford. So it’s about trying to get the same sound at a lower price.”

The equipment that the studio uses has changed over time and has evolved alongside technology. Spitshine uses many different plugins to help give artists their best sound.

“Primarily we use Pro Tools and Pro Tools Carbon which are audio software,” Says Pickman.

“On top of that we use lots of high quality microphones, 28 | The Austin City Sound

pre amps, and out board compressors.

We also use tons of plugins, pretty much all the plugins. This really helps get the sound that our clients look for” The recording studio business is also a well paying one. Whether it’s starting your own studio or producing for a studio, you can become successful with hard work.

“If you work hard at it you can definitely make a good living,” Pickman said. “It’s not going not going to make you rich right away necessarily. But my employees are making a good living and it worked out well for me.”

Russel says he feels confident when looking into the company’s future. “We will evolve depending on what our clients need, so I definitely feel confident that it’s going to

“I find that the most successful music is made collaboratively,” Pickman said. “That’s why we try to offer that extra help with many different musicians and engineers to collaborate with. I think that that has been one of the most important parts of the business” Anyone with a passion for music could enter into the music studio business. The business is one where technology and music collide.

“I love it,” Pickman said. I love music and I love technology so for me it’s just perfect. That’s my favorite thing about the business, it just taps into my passions.”

So what kinds of artists does Pickman see in Austin?

According to him, it’s whatever is culturally popular.

“Right now it tends to be whatever is popular culturally,” Pickman said. “We might see musicians that do country music, rappers, hip hop artists, so a little bit of everything.”

The demand for music studios

The classical music studio setup.

Courtesy of Spitshine Studios

is rising, and it needs young people to fill those roles. As a young person there are lots of things that one can face when starting out in this business.

clients weren’t getting sick, we tried to be extra careful to make sure that it was safe. Overall this business survived the pandemic better than a lot.”

“In the early days when I had a full schedule, knowing that there was a lot of demand for this studio business, I just felt right away that this could be a long term successful business,” Pickman said.

Starting your own studio can be very tedious at times. Whether it’s with money, trying to get the business out there in the public, or just getting customers in general. Pickman has some words of encouragement for young people who are just getting started.

A lot of music studios suffered greatly during the pandemic.

Some however, were seemingly unaffected by it and continued to flourish.

“It didn’t have much of an effect on us,” Pickman said.

We weren’t getting sick, our

a lot of people that want to do it, and as technology improves it actually gets easier to build a studio. So you just have to have that competitive advantage and sometimes you have to work really hard to have that.

“You gotta work hard at it,” Pickman said. Because it’s such a fun field and because it’s so creative. You’re not swinging a hammer or sitting in an office all day. Because of that there’s

Original image by Easy Drawing Art Illustrated by Adom Agyeman

The Austin City Sound | 29

ACL Through Time Learn about the origin and key events of ACL

By Adom Agyeman

This was a big year for many bands such as The Eagles, Phis, Muse, The Strokes, The Flaming Lips, The National, Deadmou5, Vampire Weekend, Sonic Youth and M.I.A. The food court changed its name and added Fort Worth celebrity chef Tim Love’s Love Shack and Lonesome Dove Western Bistro.

Original image by Gear4music Illustrated by Adom Agyeman

2010

2002

20022002

The first ever ACL festival hosted five stages and 67 bands.

There were approximately 12 food vendors to serve the 42,000 people that attended the event; only 25,000 were expected.

Local bands included Arc Angels, The Gourds, Grupo Fantasma, and Gary Clark Jr. performed alongside stars like Ryan Adams, Los Lobos, and Wilco.

Original image by Soundium Illustrated by Adom Agyeman

30 | The Austin City Sound

Original image by Hoffman Academy Illustrated by Adom Agyeman

Due to the pandemic, ACL was forced to go virtual in 2020. Artists such as Paul McCartney, Radiohead, Billie Eilish, Willie Nelson, St. Vincent, Spoon, LCD Soundsystem and My Morning Jacket performed virtually during this festival.

2020

2016 The lineup featured more than 140 artists, including Foo Fighters, Drake, The Strokes, Florence and the Machine, Tame Impala, Dwight Yoakam and local favorites such as Gary Clark Jr. and Residual Kid.

Original image by Pearl Drums Illustrated by Adom Agyeman

The Austin City Sound | 31

Journeys Through Indian Music

The experiences of students in Austin learning music in different styles of Indian music By Sahasra Adapa Associate director of Antara School of Indian Classical Music, Indrajit Banerjee is playing the sitar. He is playing at the Arts in Context Showcase, which is a live performance based in Austin.

Photo courtesy of SoundBetter

32 | The Austin City Sound

Y

ou have just started your first music lesson, and the first days are tough. You are moving your hands funkily, losing hand and eye coordination and messing up the most basic notes. Frustration bubbles up in you as you can’t get the instrument to play right.

You just want to throw the instrument and walk away from it. Suddenly, a warm hand rests upon your back and a voice reminds you to take a deep breath and try again.

Learning music takes many years to learn. Indian musical instruments are different from American instruments, and they are taught in Austin by many music teachers. Some of the instruments taught are the sitar, which has been around for 700 years, and the tabla, which has been around for 5,000 years. The sitar is kind of like a guitar, but it is longer and has a rounded body. The tabla is very similar to the drums, but hands are used to play the tabla instead of sticks.

Along with these instruments, singing is also another aspect of Indian music that students enjoy. In Indian classical music, there are swaras, ragas and talam. The swaras are the notes, ragas are the framework and the talam is the rhythm of the songs.

Sitar Student, Rachala Polisety is playing the sitar at Chinmaya Mission.

Photo provided by Geeta Polisety

“We start from the basic swara/note patterns and slowly progress into more challenging concepts,” Mrudula Naveen, a teacher who taught singing at Sri Shirdi Sai Baba Temple of Austin, said. “Just like when learning the English language we start with the alphabets, then words, sentences, paragraphs and so on, the curriculum is structured to ease the learner into the art form.”

The understanding of swaras, ragas and talam in Indian music is important to learning how to play the instrument. Including the basics, music should also be interesting to learn.

“One of the approaches that the kids love is, once every few weeks, we have a class when students get to sing their choice of lessons,” Naveen said. “They also have multiple opportunities to collaborate during class.

When we have recitals, students have the opportunity to perform

one solo item along with group items.”

Students liked to sing songs of their own choice and collaborate with others. Singing is not the only musical education students did. Indrajit Banerjee, the Associate Director of Antara School of Music, taught the sitar for many years.

“Just like any other teaching, we teach basics of the instrument, how to hold it, how to play on it and then exercise to make your fingers more flexible on the instrument, couple of exercises of the beginning and then you move to basic ragas,” Banerjee said.

The beginning of the instrument is very similar to the start of singing. Although it may sound simple to play the sitar, it is not as easy as it seems.

“It hurts the fingers on the left hand because it’s sliding on the string,” Banerjee said. “It needs a little more commitment and a little more seriousness, I would The Austin City Sound | 33

say, than any other instrument.

For the kids, probably vocal and tabla are the most easiest thing that they could do if they would like to learn Indian classical music. Sitar, I take students who are at least 11 years or 12 years old; I don’t take kids because it’s hard for them to play. You need a stronger finger for that.“ Sitar is a difficult instrument to play for kids who are young because stronger hands and more commitment are needed.

Since it can be hard to play an instrument, students need to enjoy the instrument to continue playing. One such student was Rachala Polisetty, a student of Banerjee who learned the sitar for 6 years.

“I think I just liked having to put in the effort, and the time to learn something and actually see the output on the spot,” Rachala Polisetty said. “If you played a note correctly you’d automatically see that this note sounds right.”

The love for the sound of the sitar allowed Rachala Polisetty to find interest in playing the sitar. Including the love of the sound, Rachala

Tabla Student, Rajat Polisety is playing the tabla at Chinmaya Mission. The person next to him, wearing the red shirt, is also playing the tabla along with him.

Photo provided by Geeta Polisety

34 | The Austin City Sound

Polisetty also enjoyed the class because of her teacher.

When asked why she liked her teacher, Rachala Polisetty said, “He was patient. There was some weeks where it was obvious that I hadn’t practiced the previous week. Obviously, he would scold me a little bit for it, but he would continue from the parts that I didn’t understand. He had patience.

He obviously knew what he was talking about. All the songs that I learned from him were composed on the spot.”

Polisetty felt that patience was a good quality from her teacher.

Like she said, it was important to devote some time to this instrument.

“You have to devote at least 15, 20 minutes to 30 m inutes per day in this kind of instrument,” Banerjee said. “Less than that is

not going to work.”

It was important to spend at least 15 minutes a day on the sitar to get better at it. After getting good at this instrument, students were able to play at concerts.

“I think I just liked having to put in the effort, and the time to learn something and actually see the output on the spot” Rachala Polisetty Banerjee said, “I do recitals.

Usually, there are musical

Original image by iStock Illustrated by Sahasra Adapa

platforms in Austin. There is IFA, India finance, they sometimes do Ganesh Chaturthi Diwali festival, so when they invite me, they give me 40 minutes for my students. I line up five students and give 10 minute performances there.“ There are many recitals that students went to and they played their music at various places.

When asked about her first concert, Rachala Polisetty said, “I don’t remember it anymore, but it was definitely nerve wracking. Still at this point, it was hard for me to play a single song without making any mistakes. When I was first starting out, it’d be every five seconds, I’d be like, I’m gonna make a mistake. I’m gonna make a mistake. And I made a mistake.”

Rachala Polisetty was really nervous at her first concert and needed a comforting hand.

“He mostly was just like, ‘Hey, make sure you memorize. Just chill a little bit. You’re fine.

These people are not sitting here judging you. It’s okay.

They’re like, Oh, this music is so pretty. Most of them probably don’t even realize what you’re

playing,’“ Rachala Polisetty said.

Her teacher helped her to feel comfortable in her environment and she continued to play the sitar.

In contrast to her, her brother decided to switch to tabla instead of sitar. “Basically I started playing sitar with my sister first and then I didn’t really like it as much as she did,” Rajat Polisetty, a student who learned the tabla for five years from Gourishankar Karmakar, said. “So my dad was like, ‘Okay, try tabla instead,’ and it was a lot more fun.”

Rajat Polisetty found tabla to be more fun to play with than the sitar.

“It was fun to listen to and then playing it was also pretty fun because it didn’t hurt as much as sitar, because sitar, you need to build calluses to play the instrument,” Rajat Polisetty said. “But tabla is just you hit it differently and it will sound different.”

The tabla didn’t hurt as much as the sitar and the sound was also fun to listen to for Rajat Polisetty. His teacher also helped him in learning the tabla.

“My teacher was Gaurishankar Karmakar,” Rajat Polisetty said. “He’s very energetic and he really loves tabla, obviously, considering he’s pretty famous for it. He loves teaching. And he’s a pretty strict teacher, but it’s a good kind of strict to where if you just don’t understand something, he’ll explain it. But you also have to learn the stuff yourself.“ Karmakar was a good teacher for Rajat Polisetty. Rajat Polisetty liked that his teacher taught him in a way he could learn himself and that Karmakar loved what he taught.

After asking about the experience of music overall, Rachala Polisetty said, “A little challenging, but it was fun.”

The education of the Indian instruments may have started off as a rocky start, but it allowed the students to find what they truly enjoy.

As Naveen said, “Not everyone will go on to be professional musicians but I hope that they can take with them the love for the art form and the memories that we make in the process.”

The Austin City Sound | 35

Music Schools in Austin

Music schools and where they are located in Central Austin

By Sahasra Adapa

Takelessons This is a virtual academy that mainly teaches orchestra and opera.

You can also learn more online in the comfort of your home.

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Information provided by Takelessons

Tracy Loftsgaarde Piano Academy This school teaches piano and recommends that students are of the age 6 years or above.

Information provided by Tracy Loftsgaarde Piano Academy

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36 | The Austin City Sound

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Greater Austin Music Academy This academy teaches people of all ages in a variety of instruments.

They are also reviewed to have good teachers.

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Information provided by Greater Austin Music Academy

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Timber ATX This school has voice/ singing lessons for students and helps you to find and share your voice.

Information provided by Timber ATX

Butler School of Music This school teaches many instruments. It is located in UT and is ranked in the top 3% in the U.S.

Illustrations by Sahasra Adapa

Information provided by College Factual

CENTRAL EAST AUSTIN The Austin City Sound | 37