Boosting the Music Industry

With my eyes wide open and my nose well-distended, I have been seeing and smelling what is happening in the music industry in Sikaman. My interest in the music industry is not the result of mere curiosity. Fact is that Kwame Alomele should have been a musician and not a journalist, “but God no gree.”

Small boys are young. And when I was small and young, I learnt to play the guitar. Seth Ansah of Site 21 who taught me how to manipulate the strings told me I was a fast learner. I said he was lying.

I figured he only wanted to flatter me, but within quite a short period of time I became a guitarist and my bosom friend Kofi Kokotako also learnt to become a dancer. Actually, if it hadn’t been for school, we’d have performed and made some money.

Earlier, I had learned to play the piano and organ and I also taught Seth a few lessons in the use of keyboards and later, the wahwah synthesiser. Certainly, I was on the sure steady way of becoming a musician.

I began dreaming and day-dreaming I was indeed a musician. I was Jimi Hendrix wiring 18 strings to great effects, the frenzied crowd cheering and cheering as I hit the stage. It was a youthful experience one needed to have.

In school, I used to disappear every afternoon only to materialise at the training place of the Supreme Dynamos Band just to watch them train. I used to cherish those moments.

Then one day I told my mother I wanted to be a musician. She was glad. She liked the music of the masters like Bach’s Jesu Joy Of Man’s Desiring, the Messiah by Handel and the wonderful masterpieces of Mozart and Beethoven. If I could be like any of them, she’d thank God.

“Go ahead, why not?” she encouraged me.

“I’m not saying I want to be a classical musician-o,” I explained. “I want to be like Bob Marley and Jimmy Cliff.”

She simply asked me to go and report to my Dad the nonsense I was trying to spew. But of course, Dad wouldn’t come into a matter of this kind. He’d strangle me to death upon merely hearing the name of the great Bob Nestor Marley, the legendary reggae king.

I had to abandon the idea and stick to chemistry books. No fooling around! Man must become a medical doctor.

Since then, however, my heart has always been in music and, as afore-mentioned, I have followed the developments in the music industry. Luckily, I recently stumbled upon information that would be of value to music producers.

Ghana can now boast of having the MACKIE MIDI AUTOMATED RECORDING CONSOLE, arguably the best recording equipment worldwide. It is right here in Ghana. If good music is not properly recorded, it loses its quality.

It reminds me of what Kwame Korkorti once told me. “If you don’t spice the nicest chunks of meat, you don’t get the taste.” Of course, Korkorti is a man who doesn’t joke with his stomach and values the tongue that tastes food.

Yes, when I had the information that NANA BOAMAH of ARC STUDIOS, Tema, had just installed the expensive equipment, I traced my way to Community Eleven to catch a glimpse.

I was confronted by the most professional studio in town with 56 Channels of Mackie Recording Console, which won the BEST MIXER and the MOST INNOVATIVE PRODUCT FOR THE YEAR AWARD, 1994 in the United States.

Nana Boamah was “hoarding” what I term as every musician’s delight — the best music mixer in America. Nana himself is a man you’ll like unless you’re a devil. He is unassuming, of fine personality and a good Christian as far as I know. The only thing I don’t know is whether or not he speaks in tongues. He attributes the progress of his work to the Almighty.

Nana is an Honoury Graduate in Sound Engineering, precisely a product of the SCHOOL OF SOUND ENGINEERING in the United States. Most of his works taken by Executive Producers and artistes outside the country for compact discs and cassette printing in different studios always recommend his mixes. An example is Kwadwo Akwaboah’s latest music for Isaac Taylor’s ROOT WORLD MUSIC.

I wanted a chat. In spite of what people say of Nana Boamah’s great works, he has never really been in the news.

“Nana, why don’t you get publicity for your contributions towards the improvement of the music industry?”

“In fact, I don’t like cheap popularity or publicity,” he said. “I always want to toil and work and through my good works I can achieve my popularity or publicity without asking for it.”

“So you mean you haven’t been advertising your studio?”

“No. Since it was established in 1988, I have not even done a single advert in the newspapers.”

“So how come your studio is known to all musicians?”

“That’s why I say the good works will advertise the studio by themselves without me asking for it.”

I now wanted to know why he had gone in for the highly expensive, almost prohibitive MACKIE CONSOLE.

“It is always good to go for the best in terms of sound quality. In fact, it has taken me two years looking for a mixing console which has got all the technical qualities that any professional worth his salt should have.”

I also wanted to know the contribution the ARC STUDIO has made towards the growth of the music industry.

“In fact, coming to Arc, one does not need to hire musical instruments because the studio is well-equipped with all kinds of instruments as you can see; all kinds of guitars, drum machines, sound modules.

“We don’t hire them to our customers; they use them for free just to help them cut costs. We also provide free professional engineering services including mixing and free computer programming. We also give professional advice on production free of charge. That is our modest contribution.”

I remarked that with everything free including professional advice, the studio must be for charity. “It seems to me you are also a shareholder in the music industry.”

“Well, I am not a shareholder. I’m only trying to help up-and-coming musicians. Who knows whether one day, Ghana will produce another Michael Jackson? If we don’t encourage them with these free services, their talents will never come to light. Arc Studio is really for the people. We have to sacrifice for the people.”

“You say your studio has the biggest or largest tracks. What do you mean by that?”

Nana Boamah explained that tracks and channels are determined by the number of inputs and outputs that a mixer or recorder can take and come out at a given time. “At the moment, the mixer I’m using takes 68 inputs and during mix-down doubles up to 124 channels.”

Yes, Dr Mensah, a resident of the USA, has this to say of Nana Boamah’s work: “After wasting our time to get the best, we decided to compare our works with what you recorded on the date you sent to us, and saw that your mix was the best and we had to drop ours.”

Well, the music industry is being patronised by many young musicians and gospel singers. It goes without saying we need to improve the quality of the works to enable them become exportable commodities. The time is now.

So hail that day a Michael Jackson will be born in Sikaman and we shall have no problem making it BIG just like the Yanks made Michael Jackson big by their technical and moral support.

This article was first published on Saturday, December 17, 1997.