Towards a Music Recording Nexus: Inviting the Audio Engineer Out of the Silo

In this chapter, we argue that music recording involves three domains of knowledge that have been previously siloed: musicianship, music production, and audio engineering. Each of these domains fundamentally engages in a shared action: critical listening. However, in the case of audio engineering, critical listening, as both an industrial term and as an act, is often and problematically treated as more of a scientific endeavour akin to notions of audiology and "good hearing". While some authors argue audio engineering is a creative process, there is yet to be appropriate theorisation that positions audio engineering as part of an overarching musical act. In this paper, we explore the Music Recording Nexus as a means to include audio engineering as part of a larger field of practice: music recording. In doing so, we seek to reframe the term "critical listening" and provide new definitions for playing, producing, and engineering music with the goal of de-siloing their associated domains of knowledge into a central and more industrially relevant theorisation. To make this case, we examine Technical Ear Training as an approach to skill development in audio engineering that has not been contextualised in their real-world application and continues to be neglected from inclusion in music recording as an outcome focused act.