The aim of this project is to unravel the putative mysteries of what studio practitioners, classical and popular, did in the 1960s. The decade is a crucial historical period because the development of key technologies opened up unprecedented creative possibilities for producers and engineers. This gives rise to a series of specific research questions, including: How was this creativity learnt and then transmitted? What was the role of listening in this learning process? How did listening mediate the various relationships between producer, engineer, recording artist(s), and technology? What was the relationship between classical and pop studio practices?

In general, studio practices have been mystified: the role of the producer tends towards 'intuition' whilst the role of the engineer is shrouded in technical detail. Furthermore, there is little scholarly literature on the subject, leaving such knowledge bound up in oral history and informal anecdotes. The principal methodology will therefore be ethnography, interviewing practitioners who worked during the 1960s. By correlating the results of these interviews, a picture can be built up of the British production scene particularly in London during this period. Beginning with major labels like Decca and EMI, questions arise as to how far companies had a unified production approach or whether production style was genre-specific. Whilst the classical and pop spheres occupy ostensibly separate worlds, did 'behind the scenes' practices cross conventional genre distinctions, particularly in the case of assistants who might record Malcolm Sargent in the morning and engineer a Beatles session in the afternoon? Revising and expanding our notions of musicianship and performance to include these unrecognised practitioners may enable us to revisit recordings from the so-called golden era of stereo LPs with a renewed understanding of the musical traces they bear.

A central concern of the project is listening. Instead of making the analogy between, say, mixing at the console and concert pianism – in order to validate engineers as 'instrumentalists' – it is perhaps more accurate to model studio practices in a relational framework. We might then understand producers and engineers as aurally complementing the musicianship of the recording artists, precisely through the way in which they listen for the artists and (imagined) audience. In other words, how can listening, often seen as passive reception, be elevated to an active, performative process? Prevalent typologies of listening tend to valorise contemplative listening in silence and de-value distracted listening as less musical.Where, in this hierarchy, do we place the listening expertise of maverick indie producer Joe Meek, who was famously tone-deaf? How do we account for the musicality of Christopher Raeburn, Decca's veteran classical producer who reportedly lost his place in the score during sessions? It seems a new space must be carved for the unique modes of listening practised by these individuals; it was through their ears that the records of this era were mediated.

Ultimately, the project will comprise a slice of cultural history, charting these practitioners' listening habits and practices. However, its conclusions will broach wider issues, including the inherently collaborative nature of music-making, the active and performative nature of listening, and even the nature of experience itself.