Mark Doyle
Mark Doyle has had an interesting and varied career in the music business. Raised by musical parents, he studied extensively in classical and jazz piano, appearing on local TV and radio shows by age ten. Shortly after that, he took up the guitar. His first band, Jukin’ Bone, was signed to RCA when Mark was still a teenager. Next, Mark found his niche as lead guitarist and arranger for a series of brilliant and eccentric singer songwriters. At that same time, there were numerous session dates as a guitarist for Daryl Hall & John Oates, Judy Collins, Leo Sayer and many others. The ’80’s saw Mark embark on many world tours and TV appearances as lead guitarist for Meat Loaf. Another high point was arranging and singing the background vocals on “Straight From The Heart” by Bryan Adams.
A move to Boston in 1988 yielded a new career as a string arranger. After being introduced to producer Maurice Starr, Mark arranged strings for virtually all of Starr’s acts, including New Kids On The Block, Rick Wes, Perfect Gentlemen, Tiffany, The Superiors, Seiko, and The Stylistics, also contributing co-production and instrumental prowess to many of these records. He currently resides in Central New York where he continues to actively produce and perform on a regular basis. He has two critically acclaimed solo albums of guitar instrumentals – “Guitar Noir” and “In Dreams: Guitar Noir II.” Mark took a few minutes to talk music with us.
What are some of the keys to being a successful and effective studio musician? Any tips on how to best gain studio experience?
Become proficient in a wide variety of styles so you can be authentic in whatever genre you’re asked to play in – they each have their own language. Leave the chops behind, play for the song, don’t act like you have something to prove (unless the situation calls for a real burning solo, then go for it!) If you can read music, very good, if not at least learn to read a basic chord chart. People skills are very important – listen carefully to the producer and artist, pay attention to body language. Don’t get too married to whatever approach or idea you may have in mind – if they’re not digging it, be ready to move on to some other approach. Think like an arranger – most of the time you’ll be expected to come up with a part, not a free-flowing performance, so organize your thoughts and try to remember what you just played!
These days people gain most of their studio experience at home, with their personal DAWs. Record yourself, listen to your timing, play along with loops, etc. so when you get into a real session you won’t be shocked hearing yourself under the microscope. When you think you’re ready, volunteer to play on some friend’s songs to get you used to the experience of working with others.
Who are some of the folks you have enjoyed working with in the studio over the years?
Artists like Andy Pratt, David Werner, Hall & Oates, Judy Collins, Leo Sayer, Meat Loaf, Bryan Adams, Cindy Bullens, The Cavedogs, New Kids On The Block, Mary Fahl, Kim Simmonds. Producers like Arif Mardin, Tom Dowd, Michael Beinhorn, Bob Clearmountain, Maurice Starr, Mike Deneen, Rich Mendelson.
Can you share details on one of your more memorable studio experiences?
Oh man, there are so many. Getting called for a session with Arif producing, and seeing that Tony Levin was on bass and Steve Gadd was on drums. Getting called for a session with Elliot Scheiner producing and seeing that Will Lee was on bass and Bernard Purdie was on drums (the chart for that session was 8 pages long, arranged by Rob Mounsey, and needed to be sight-read note-for-note.) Watching Arif conducting a 21-piece string section for his arrangement of “So Faint” for Andy Pratt. Or the times when tracking Leo Sayer’s album at Sunset Sound when he would pick up the harmonica and we would jam on Yardbirds songs in between takes, or he would do a letter-perfect Paul Rodgers on “All Right Now”, another between-song jam. Just all those times hanging in the lounge at Power Station when you’d bump into Diana Ross, Debbie Harry, Ian Hunter, anyone else that was there recording at the same time as you. Bryan Adams peeking in the window at Power Station while I was recording a guitar solo on Meat Loaf’s record and then him asking me to sing background vocals on his “Cuts Like A Knife” album.
Any tips on being “diplomatic” in the studio? How do you know when it’s best to provide suggestions, or when it’s best to simply be quiet and do what you’re told?
You really have to keep your radar tuned at all times, learn how to read a situation. If you do that, you’ll know when an atmosphere is friendly and ideas are welcome, or when people are months into making a record and are really just ready to kill each other. Humor usually works, but if all your jokes are bombing then you may well be in one of those situations (I’ve been there) in which case you’ll know that people just want you to get on with it and do something brilliant…LOL. I found that there was a golden short-lived period when I was the new kid on the block with a great buzz about my playing and could get away with a little more hubris, but unless you’re absolutely sure that the same criteria applies to you I wouldn’t try it! No matter their mood, people almost always respond to respect.
You are also a skilled string arranger. Can you walk us through the steps you take when you first begin to arrange strings on a project? What are some of the initial questions you need to have answered?
First of all, what’s the budget? Is it union or non-union? That will tell me how many players I can contract, which definitely affects the approach I’ll take to the writing. If it’s union and the over-all recording budget is below a certain amount, then the sessions can be filed at a “demo scale” rate. If it’s non-union then the string players are usually happy to double and triple-track.
Then it’s time to move on to the writing. Years of deadlines and experience have taught me that my best ideas come from my gut on the very first listen to a song, so believe it or not I’ll set myself up to do something mindless like washing dishes or ironing shirts, play the track with my iPhone on memo while I’m doing the menial task, and just sing my ideas into the phone. Most of my strong hooks, counter-melodies and lines just seem to come through me this way, at which point I’ll start with the craft part of the arrangement. I’ll set up some manuscript paper for a vocal staff and a grand staff, and chart out the basic lead sheet of the song with the vocal melody and chords at the top. I’ll do my initial sketch on the grand staff, scribble some stuff and then move on to set up my scoring paper. In a general sense, when the vocal melody moves, the strings should hold and vice versa. If it’s a busy R&B track, less is more. Octave or unison writing will generally be the only thing you’ll hear through a thick track. Whereas ballads and a track with a lot of space are really where we string arrangers live. From the outset it is so important to make a decision about the approach. There are any number of ways to go with an arrangement and they’re all good and valid, so pick one and get busy!
Early on I felt pressure to show my stuff and wrote arrangements that were needlessly fussy, over-written and too clever for their own good. In the end, as either Nelson Riddle or Henry Mancini said, you’ll be judged not by how hard your arrangement is to play, but by how it sounds.
I love both of your Guitar Noir projects. What was the motivation, approach and goal behind these recordings?
Thank you. For the first one, I knew I wanted to make an instrumental guitar record and had a lot of songs from different genres that I had always wanted to play, everything from Thelonius Monk to Ornette Coleman to Fred Steiner’s “The Perry Mason Theme” to ballads like “When I Fall In Love” and “The Way We Were.” I wanted it to be as expressive as possible, and melody-driven (rather than chops-driven in a Fusion way.) I had always wondered what Jeff Beck’s “Blow By Blow” album would’ve been like if it started with “Cause We’ve Ended As Lovers” and then never broke mood and continued on that path, but then of course I didn’t follow through with that as the project started leading me by the nose into a lot of different and interesting areas. I guess one goal was to show all the different sides of my musical personality. I loosely hung it on the concept of old film noir movie soundtracks and followed through with the artwork and image, etc, but honestly that concept was hanging by a thread to give reviewers something to peg it as…LOL
The sequel was based on the concept of the dream state, following through all the various stages, and this one actually stayed in line with the concept from beginning to end. Once again, melody-driven, which I think is imperative when you’re doing instrumental music. To me the guitar is just a substitute for a voice, and in most cases when the songs had lyrics I was thinking of them while I played the melody.
What inspires you musically?
Anything good, anything human and expressive. I love to have my heartstrings pulled. And those rare moments when you hear something absolutely unique.
What for you is the most frustrating aspect of the music industry today?
Other than adjusting to the new reality that the music industry that I grew up in is long gone? The divide has never been greater between the haves, which are the 1% that are making beat-driven Top Forty music, and the have-nots, which are basically everybody else. It’s extremely difficult to get yourself heard today because although yes, it’s great that the internet exists and social networking and all of the other tools that are at an indie musician’s disposal now, how do you get yourself noticed amidst all the hundreds of thousands of aspiring artists that are out there on YouTube, iTunes, Spotify, whatnot? And how do you stay positive and create your art while managing all of the time-consuming tasks that have to be done to keep your do-it-yourself business going?
How has technology changed the music industry in the past 20 years or so?
There’s a lot more freedom to create your own album your own way in your own home, which is empowering and good. The flip side is that in the past when there was actually artist development and unique, quirky, interesting people could get signed, there were gatekeepers who would tell you that your music wasn’t actually ready to be released, that it needed some more work, some development, some seasoning by playing it live in front of an audience. So it kept a lot of half-baked stuff out of the marketplace. Now the marketplace is absolutely glutted with stuff that people release just because they can.
And there were great rooms and great recording engineers, people who were artists in their own right, who had learned their craft through years and years of practice. Quality control has never been lower. Obviously, a great song will always win out no matter how lo-fi the recording is, but it’s not very often that you hear an absolutely gorgeous sounding record, whereas that used to be the standard.
And I do believe that musicianship skills and vocal skills have also gotten much weaker with the advent of pitch and time correction, copying and pasting, etc. Believe it or not, you had to have mad skills back in the day. You were actually expected to be able to deliver a take of the entire song, in tune and in time!
Tell me about “3D.” How did it come about? What makes it so special?
3D is a studio group that’s comprised of my sisters, Lisa and Amy, and myself. Amy is a teacher and mother of three and she challenged my sister Lisa, a music therapist and singer-songwriter, to write a children’s album. Lisa sold me on the idea of us all collaborating on it, so I produced and played, we all shared the writing, and Amy and Lisa shared the lead vocal chores. I’m from a family of 13 children, Amy being the youngest and me the oldest, so it was great from that perspective as well.
How can fans best connect with you online?
For my production career and solo endeavors, there’s my website, www.markdoyle.com…and www.myspace.com/markdoylemusic
