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The Importance of Details by Andreas Farmakalidis
Meet Andreas Farmakalidis –
I always find myself engaging in conversations about the importance of “details” in music as a whole. If you check the dictionary, details are particulars considered individually and in relation to a whole. In other words, without the details, it is difficult to understand and see the big picture. These small, elaborated elements make the difference.
The last few years I have been trying to get deeper and deeper in the session scene. I had the privilege of working with many amazing music producers. The more I converse and discuss with music producers, the more I admire their skills, perhaps the same way we admire the skills of top bass players. Bassists like Jaco Pastorius, Marcus Miller, Ray Brown or even some more contemporary bass players like Damian Erskine or Hadrien Feraud are simply remarkable. Their time, feel, sound and most important their “voice” are second to none.
The “best” music producers – or should I say the music producers who pay attention and know how to treat the subtle “details” of a musical composition – are extraordinary individuals as well as musicians. In addition to their amazing musical abilities, they can understand, oversee and know how to use small subtle elements, in order to make their music unique and exceptional.
Top music producers got their skills from working on details. They practiced small things again and again, repeating their lesson with – as well as within- every music principle. By using the information they learned in a normal study room, their skills became second nature. These producers make it look so easy, to compose, re-harm, arrange, program, record etc, when in fact they stumbled through their process for a long time until they became comfortable with all these information they mastered.
If you check top-notch producers such as Rick Rubin, Nicolas Farmakalidis, Peter Gabriel, you will understand what I mean.
A few days ago, I had a great as well as very educational recording at Neilaproductions, for an up and coming singer – songwriter style album. It was probably the most instructive experience of my life. Before the recording, the producer explained the particulars of the recording. The clearer the facts of the recording, the better the result will be and the sooner we will finish.
The producer creatively guided and directed the process of making the record, like a director would a movie. The music producer’s job is to create, shape, and mold a piece of music. What I really found amazing was that during the recording, the producer changed my bass line as well as the strings voicings, doing re-harmonization and arranging on the spot. I did study the “science” of re-harmonization as well, however to be able to do it during a recording session and be absolutely correct without having an instrument next to you, is simply astounding.
If music is played as an art, I personally believe that it is best to be learned as a science though. It can be as specific as chemistry. For instance, if you take a minor third and add a perfect fifth from the root, the result will be a minor triad. Consequently, in chemistry, if you take two atoms of hydrogen and add one atom of oxygen you form one water molecule. The important is to understand the difference. Music is an art that has always offered the best results to students who learn it as a science. However, after you gain knowledge of these certain methodologies, you perform those with passion and a desire to create and touch people’s hearts. My point is that, my friends in Neilaproductions must have been studying arranging and re-harmonization as a science and now they are skillful and knowledgeable enough to be able to use that knowledge in order to create and enhance the beauty of a piece of music.
My last point, which I understand the more I study and record, is the concept of “time”. The performed rhythm – for instance a bass line – can sound very straight, exactly on the beat, swinging laid back or rushed. Important is how a listener perceives the timing of these rhythms and recognizes it as being ‘rushed’ or ‘swinging’, as well as why a rhythm with a slightly shorter note not is simply a different rhythm. These are matters that we do not typically address in music theory. However, they are essential aspects during a recording session as well as they are fundamental in the development of a cognitive theory of music as performed and listened to. Research in the perception of music as well structuring of events in music, is quite different from the concept of time in physics. “Listeners to music do not perceive rhythm on a continuous scale. Instead, rhythmic categories are recognized which function as a reference relative to which the deviations in timing can be appreciated”. (Nicolas Farmakalidis)
In fact, temporal patterns in music combine two time scales that are essentially different: the discrete rhythmic durations as symbolized by, for example, the half and quarter notes in a musical score, and the continuous timing variations that characterize an expressive musical performance – what musicians referred to as “feel”. By being in the studio with talented musicians and producers you understand how important time is and how it varies from every style of music to another.
To sum up, pay attention to details. This is what makes the difference. Every major artist and every truly dedicated student in every art form knows this.
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Photo: Self-portrait by Melissa Auf Der Maur
Melissa Auf Der Maur is a Canadian bassist who played with Tinker, Hole, and The Smashing Pumpkins. She released her own work and is a photographer with photos published in Nylon, Bust, and National Geographic. She released her ‘90s Rock Memoir “Even The Good Girls Will Cry” on 17 March 2026.
KB: Did you always want to be a singer-musician growing up?
I’ve played music my whole life. In school, I played trumpet and sang in a children’s choir, so music was always within me. My mother was the first female disc jockey on the Montreal airwaves; her record collection played a huge role in my inspiration and love of music.
KB: When did you start playing bass, and why this instrument?
When I was 19, the early 90s music explosion began to percolate in tiny clubs around the world. I was lucky to be a ticket girl at Montreal’s underground music club. In one year, I saw Hole, Sonic Youth, Smashing Pumpkins, White Zombie, and The Breeders – all had female bass players. That’s when the seed was planted. By the age of 22, I was the bass player of Hole.
KB: Which brands of basses have you used in your career, and which one are you using now?
The first bass that I learned on was a vintage Squier Precision. Hole was sponsored by Fender guitars, so I upgraded to Fender Custom Shop Precisions. That is all I play, but I have a cool vintage 8-string Greco that I use on recordings to thicken up guitar parts.
KB: What equipment do you use or have you used with your basses?
Ampeg SVT amps and cabinets, a couple of Sans-Amp pedals, and that is it.
KB: How did you become a member of Hole, and what is your fondest memory of that time?
Billy Corgan of the Smashing Pumpkins was helping scout a replacement for (RIP) Kristen Pfaff, Hole’s bass player. My band, Tinker, opened for them on the Siamese Dream tour, so Billy had seen me play and could vouch for me. Courtney trusted her talented friend, and that was it. I initially said “no thank you” due to my commitment to my photographic studies and the drama and chaos surrounding the band during the “Live Through This” album release. Courtney took it as a good sign that I said no, so convinced me to reconsider, and soon after, I accepted their invitation, in the name of helping put females in the male-dominated landscape of rock music. My fondest memory is every show we played as a mostly female band, symbolizing what a woman could do in a rock band. Every show had a purpose: get more women to play music.
KB: You are a photographer as well. What makes a great picture? Do you shoot in color or b/w?
I started shooting photographs at age 15. Initially only shot black & white and worked in the art school darkroom. In university, I took a color photography course, and shifted mostly and forever to that, because it was easier to process film on the road when I joined a rock band. I experimented with many cameras, point and shoots, manual, polaroids, medium format, and vintage finds. The trick to a good photograph is to shoot many and all the time – the magic is in the edit and selection process.
KB: Are there artists you would love to collaborate with or wish you had?
??I’ve been lucky to collaborate with some of my favorite musicians in my career. I would still love to collaborate with a new generation heavy electronic artist on an analog bass, heavy electronic drums, and synths collaboration project. Take me out of my usual zone, merging the past and future: my love of 80s dark new wave and new artists exploring that genre. It was very futuristic back then, and we are now, after all, living in the future. I am in the mood to play bass to heavy beats I want to dance to.
KB: What are your 7 favorite bass lines in music across all genres? And why these 7?
“Mountain Song” – Jane’s Addiction (love a rambling, rolling bass line – feels like the ocean waves)
“Black Top – Helmet” (was the first bass line I taught myself)
“Gold Dust Woman” – Hole from “The Crow 2” Soundtrack (it was my first bass line contribution to the band)
“Get Ready” – The Temptations (Motown just feels so good, because of the bass)
“Lucretia My Reflection” – Sisters of Mercy (makes me want to hit the dance floor and play bass simultaneously)
“Be My Druidess” – Type O Negative (full chord bass playing at its best by iconic, demonic, Peter Steele, RIP)
“Romantic Rights” – Death from Above (1979 – unique distorted overdriven tone, combined dance rhythm and melodic intelligence, all in one shot – also! Shout out to a bass & drum only band, which is awesome, and we should have more of, but the bass player needs to be a killer to fill that role.
KB: What are you currently up to?
Releasing my ‘90s Rock Memoir “EVEN THE GOOD GIRLS WILL CRY”. Visceral healing process, it was to get it out of me and write it, but I suspect the real magic will begin by putting it into the world and reflecting with others on what the magic of the ‘90s was all about. Powerful music decade that carried us into what is now a brave new world of digital corporate weirdness – may the past shed a light on our future. That’s my hope for this book release and tour.
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