Review: Audio Technica ATH-M50

Hey guys and let's welcome 2013 with a review of these amazing headphones! I have been discussing how I would review them but I finally decided it would be based off what most of you guys like. So I am starting with their intentional purpose as studio monitoring headphones, then going into classical music and finally some more modern music. Along with that, I will pick some music that has .mp3/ .mp4 and some that is .wav (compressed and uncompressed audio). Then I will go through different types of music (rock, hip hop, dubstep, country, etc.) and give you a general overview of how they sound among the genres. Just from what I've heard from playing around with them since I got them for Christmas these are amazing headphones!

First let's go over the basics of what you get from the box. You get the box it comes in with all the product info, a one year limited warranty, the headphones and a leather bag/carry case. The headphones are black with a 1.2 meter (3.9 ft) coiled cable that extends to 3 meters (9.8 ft). The headphones collapse to fit in the bag they come with and store fairly easy. The headphones are very well padded, padding across the top and around the ear cups. The only thought about the ear cups though is they are just a little too small for my ears (which I'm pretty sure it's because my ears are too big anyways) and the padding seemed to have gone a little flat since I first wore them. However, this isn't affecting the performance of them so it's nothing to scare you away from buying them... Just be aware it might happen to you. Other than that, the build quality of the headphones is extraordinary! Even though they are plastic based, they don't feel cheap at all. And not only is the cable coiled, but it has a screwable 1/4 jack that comes with the headphones. It caught me off guard when I first opened them, but then I realized it screwed off to a standard 1/8. They thought of just about everything with these head phones. One other really cool feature about the headphones is the cups swivel 180 degrees to the left and right. It makes mixing using one ear a lot easier for people who need that feature.

My only real "complaint" with the build of these things is they should have used a replaceable cable (such as the system used in almost every "rap brand" headphone now). It would make replacement of the cable a lot easier, should there ever be an issue with it. I have read of it happening to someone online, so it's possible but I doubt it will happen.

Now on to Basic Performance of the headphones. From what I've listened to, they are very balanced and very clear. People who love a lot of bass might not enjoy them as much as someone who prefers balanced music. I find the quality of their clarity to be the most definable when listen to the Saint Sean’s Cello Concerto 1 recording from “The 99 Most Essential Cello Masterpieces”. I actually have heard more from that song in these headphones than I had ever imagined to. Not only could I hear the soloist playing clearly but I could hear him breathing, the bowing and at a few times could tell you the fingering that he uses. A lot of that comes from a lot of focusing on details that minor but a lot of this is possible to notice. However for using as mixing headphones, that is what kind of quality one would want. The composer or mixer needs to be able to able to hear the smallest of details when mixing something together so that person can get it fixed for the final mix.

I know some of you guys don’t mix as much as I like to or don’t listen to cello music so here’s the more specific rundown of their performances with different genres.

Classical: Listening to Beethoven’s "5^th Symphony" from The 99 Most Essential Beethoven Masterpieces, you can hear the clarity. It’s not hard to get lost in the music with these headphones. I've heard so much more than I ever thought was possible with them. While listening to Mozart’s "41^st Symphony" from the recording I have on my laptop, the clarity is unmatched. In the 3^rd movement, I actually heard the tapping of the clarinet’s keys which is something I never noticed with any of my headphones before.

Soundtracks: Listening to the Halo 4 soundtrack, I can’t believe how much different this sounds. Starting with Awakening, the beginning caught me a little off guard. I've heard this CD a few times since I posted about it, but I forgot how it just fades in and it gave me chills. Also, I noticed on "117" a big difference when it came to the techno beating in the background. It has a lot more presence in the headphones I did with the review. Listening to the  Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone soundtrack, you can relive the excitement of the theater. The intro to "Hedwig’s Theme" has always baffled me on how it was recorded but when I heard tapping I figured out that it’s Glockenspiel. That sounds weird that I never knew that, but I never really researched the song in great detail.

Rock: Listening to Mothership, I have to say I don’t know of a way to express listening to one of my favorite bands of all time. There isn’t any other way to express it. I actually got lost in their music like never before, and it’s amazing! It ranged from being memorized in the excitement of “Immigrant Song” to feeling the pain in “Dazed and Confused” and finished my well-rounded dose of Zeppelin with their classic hits likes “Kashmir” and “Stairway to Heaven”.  Same case applies for my listening of Disturbed. When I was listening to "Down with the Sickness", the beating of drums got my heart racing and then the intro came in to my surprise. Same thing happened with "Ten Thousand Fists". It caught me off guard and sounds so crisp.

Jazz: I will go ahead and admit that jazz isn't my best genre to review so if I explain something oddly, I’m sorry. Taking a listen through Time Out reveals a new way to hear music. Listening to the album nearly nonstop when I first got it, and now I’m doing the same. It enhances the experience a lot. The most notable thing is I never noticed the crescendo during the drum solo or the bass “buzzing” in Take Five. 

.WAV Files: Using the recording quality from my Q2HD of me playing my cello in various locations, I can say that these headphones work really well. I am about to release a video of me unboxing the accessory pack to the Q2HD and when I listened back to it through the headphones it sounded great. If you would like to be the judge then I'll post a link for you to judge.

Final Verdict: After all it said, these headphones are made to not only sound good mixing but to simply enjoy music by experiencing it a new way. They might be a little pricey compared to what most people want to pay for headphones (I’ve found them online for around $160 but I’m betting they can be found somewhere else for less) however the quality and performance are remarkable. If you are after balanced music, then you can’t go wrong with these headphones. My only real complaints are the pads tending to go flat on me and the need for a replaceable cable. I give the Audio Technica ATH-M50 monitoring headphones a 4.5/5. 

University of Tennessee Cello Workshop: Day 1 (post #50!)

How's it going guys? Sulli here with the 50th post of the blog! I never thought that it would wind up the way it has, but I'm here with an update on what you guys missed and my opinion of what all has been taught during the series. If you like this and would like for me to do more episodes such as attending and "reporting" for things like this, then follow the blog on either Facebook, Twitter, or let me know! I would love to do more things like this if you guys would like me to! As a general idea, I'm not posting everything I wrote down. I think it would be a better idea to give you guys what I can type and make as clear as possible without a demonstration  Also, I do not think you guys would like to read all 4 or 5 pages of my notes.

Anyways, day one has been great. I arrived rather late (got lost on my way up here multiple times), however I did manage to catch a few really great tricks and learned a few things that I never had thought of doing. I walked in on a master class which was being mentored by Sera Smolen was talking to the student about a more natural way to start music, especially those that feel like it thrown you into it for the beginning. Mrs. Smolen recommended the student to do two things: Imagine the sound that you want to hear and do the "Circle, Set, Pull!". In this case, the student was playing the first movement of the Saint Sean's Cello Concerto #1 (for those of you who have no idea what I'm referring to, give this a listen: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cx6UDgi9TEA). Mrs. Smolen said for the student to start by imagining the note that would start the piece off with as one way to prep and even out starting inconsistencies. The other is a trick that I have seen a few times before but never looked into the reasoning, which I am a little mad that I hadn't. Mrs. Smolen said to use the "Circle, Set, Pull!". Basically, it means to Circle the bow from wherever is comfortable for you to the frog, Set the bow so that you get a good grip with the string, and Pull the bow so that the momentum does not settle and you have to move from start. The way I thought about it was in the case of looking at a drag strip (or any kind of car racing you can clearly think of); If the car simply floors the gas while it's stopped then it usually starts by spinning out and takes time to get a good motion forward. However, if a car starts out going close to the speed that the driver wishes to achieve and then floors it, then it will not spin the tires.

The second student I saw was playing the prelude to Bach's Cello Suite 3 (Again, in case you need a listen to what I'm referring to: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m0dWyGsroNI). The main point I got out of this was in order to play chords on cello or to play anything involving shifting across all strings, the bow speed and pressure must vary and not remain static. So, the speed at which one should play the C and G strings should be slower and heavier than the speed and pressure used on the D and A strings. To most people, I believe this is a major *facepalm* moment on my behalf, but being taught in the public school system tends to have a lot of disadvantages, and small technique stuff like this is one of those things that I was never taught. Once I sat there and thought about it I had one of those major "A HA" moments; it is a very good point to make sure bowed string students should know. So in the case of all of the chords in the Bach, one would play a slower and slightly heavier bow for the lower chords and then speed and lighten the bow up once it gets to the higher strings. This is one of those things that must be practiced in the practice room, and has to be overdone and then some in order to actually master if you haven't already done so.

The next event that I took notes in was the Group Scale workshop. The majority of the notes I took were on bowing studies, however there were a few major things that caught my attention. The first thing was the statement that students can get more work done out of reworking a simple song versus learning a concerto. That was another one of those "A HA" moments that really grabbed my attention and said, "I need to start teaching this sort of stuff to my students back home!" Bow control is one of the big things that either make or break an orchestral musician (and to a certain extent an orchestra). It not only largely controls the quality of tone that comes out of our instruments (If you don't believe me, go try this one out with a camera at your local music shop), but is a major attribution to stylistic development in a piece. So for a stringed musician to continually grow, said musician should be able to have complete control of their bow. I'm going to go into an episode of the practice series to continue debating this point and to dig into deeper details of ways to help strengthen your control of the bow. 

The main help with this was an exercise that was called the "Add 'Em Up". The general idea is to get from point A to point B (in the case of the class, a 3 octave C Major scale) in one bow. One would start with the tonic note and would achieve this by playing it in a detached style (think of it as a staccato but with a little more body) while starting at the frog. Then you would jump to the tip and play the tonic plus the next note in the same detached style. Following that, one would go back to the frog and play the first 3 notes and etc. until the musician has successfully played whatever the musician was trying to achieve. I will post a demonstration of this if anyone would like a visual explanation.  The other major trick that I think should be explained is called "Finger Permutations". The basics of the exercise is to play the exercise at a slower rhythm (for example 8th notes at 80 BPM), then double the number of notes but half the value. Now, the reason it's called "Finger Permutations" is to start playing the following fingerings on any string. Start with a 1 2 3 4, then go 1 2 4 3, followed by 1 3 2 4, 1 3 4 2, 1 4 2 3, and finally 1 4 3 2. Then one can switch to starting on different fingers and keep changing the pattern. Some will be easy and some will be hard but mastering all of them is the only way to loosen up the muscles in your fingers.

There is one last thing that was covered in today's lesson and that was all about improvisation. I will come back to this topic on my next practice episode, however a lot of the info covered was really great for not only improving ones views on creating music, but it also was covered great ways to bond with people in your band or whatever ensemble you are in. Along with that, I would like to congratulate Mr. Wesley Baldwin, Mr. Carter Enyeart and the UT Orchestra on a great performance of the David Ott Double Cello Concerto! 

I hope you enjoyed this special 50th episode of the Adam Sullivan Music Theory Blog! If you want more, or have something you would like to suggest then find my Facebook Fanpage, Twitter, or message me on here! Thanks for reading and hope to see you back for Day 2!

How to Practice Episode 10: The Importance of Improvisation (Part 1)

Hey guys and welcome back to the next series of practicing episodes! Sorry about the delay on the episodes but I've been working on a surprise for the blog, so keep posted! Anyways, on to out next episode: The importance of improvisation. Now, to most classically trained musicians (those who are taught based off of classical literature or from classical methods such as learning through Suzuki or from a class) learn to read music and find their ways around it but don't look into improvisation or doing any kind of improvising. However, once the time comes to need that skill they don't know how.

Let's start off with what improvisation is. Improvisation; or improving as most people call it, is the art of playing music on the spot. So say someone gives you a chord (in case you need help remember or haven't learned anything about chords try looking at Episode 10 of the main series or click here), you play notes in that chord make a song. So say for example, someone plays a C and you want to write a "happy" sounding song revolving around a C major chord (C, E, G). Same thing applies for say writing a sad song and are given an A: write out a variation along a A minor chord.

Now let's take a step back and discuss the basics of a melody. Melody can be broken down into Rhythm, Timbre, and Contrast. Rhythm is the basic method of making a melody. Changing the rhythm of a series of notes can make a melody. So, for example taking any C and play it to a beat and (the most important part) vary the rhythm! Start out with two half notes for a few times, then move to quarters, eights, 16th and mix it up! Maybe play a 1 + a, 2 e + for a few bars then mix it up some. Make sure its how you feel because it makes a difference later down the road. Then add notes to the chord, in this case add an E to your C. Keep adding notes to the rhythm your constructing until you've built the chord out. The best way to learn how to improvise is with the use of 7th chords, which is my topic for next week's theory lesson.

Stay tuned for next week's episode as I finish explaining everything!