Middle Eight: The Recording Studio

The Recording Studio narrator Megan Washington.

The interior of a recording studio is a curious place. On the one hand, it can be a cauldron of astonishing creativity, the place where great beauty is forged and history made. At the same time, it can also be an impossibly mundane place of business, at least for visitors not immersed in the minutiae of the particular recording. And yet, for all those buttons and microphones and control panels, for all the talk of levels and reverb and mixes and the position of microphones — yes, and “more cowbell” — this is a place where magic happens. This is the environment behind a new 10-part series on the ABC called, simply enough, The Recording Studio. The show, narrated by Megan Washington, follows a handful of everyday Australians who have been given access to Studio 227, the ABC studios where Like a Version and Live at the Wireless take place. As well as using the studio space, they are invited to join forces with seasoned producers, engineers and session musicians to bring something special to life. In the first episode, which aired on Tuesday night, we met John Hanley, whose only real exposure to music until that point was singing in a Brisbane pub choir. His time was limited: he was diagnosed with motor neurone disease in 2016, and it won’t be long before his voice is gone. “If you’ve got air in your lungs,” he says, “you should be using it.” With the help of producer Matt Fell and music director Scott Aplin, as well as his two sons on backup vocals, Hanley records a version of Van Morrison’s Brown Eyed Girl. He dedicates it to his wife, Lisa, and the results are deeply moving. “I can’t think of many people who would walk into a recording studio,” Fell says, “and not feel instantly excited and transformed. It just seems to have that effect on people. it certainly does for me.” The first episode also introduces us to Aimee O’Neill, a 24-year-old opera student who sings a Merry Widow aria to her grandfather. The same tune was a favourite of his mother’s, herself an opera singer, so tears were inevitable. The next episode, which airs this coming Tuesday, focuses on Grandfather Pap, a cattle farmer and retired musician who has come to sing a song, Rolling in My Sweet Baby’s Arms, with his family. His producer is country music singer-songwriter Shane Nicholson, who tries to capture the spirit of the gathering by recording the family in the round. The second part of the episode is dedicated to Maddie Newton, an 18-year-old born with cystic fibrosis who taught herself to play guitar in hospital. She records Birdy’s People Help the People, and dedicates it to her friends at the Sydney Children’s Hospital.

Andrew McMillen is on leave.