Yes, I know, this blog has been silent for too long. I was half burnt out of ideas, to the point of not wanting to do it anymore. In a way, that was a helpful feeling because I focused on learning instead.
Sarah Belle Reid
From having Sarah Bell Reid as a mentor, Omri Cohen‘s community and wisdom for inspiration and research. Plus, there are a bunch of random courses here and there. I think I learned more that year than in the previous ones combined, where I did some studying. I feel fortunate to have access to this. When I started making music in the 90s, there was no YouTube, so watching your friend’s work was the best way to learn. Montreal had a solid community then to help one another.
Reflecting on the past year (2024), I realized I love teaching and talking with people. But I also love learning (my 15-year-old self would never believe it). When you learn, you see what triggers passion and curiosity. These emotions drive me to learn, probably because I’m passionate.
I realized that so many people invest large amounts of money into gear or software without allowing any time or investment into being taught how to use all of that correctly. I have to say I’m partly guilty of that, but now I have caught up with my investment with enough classes for multiple years ahead.
One of the most effective ways (for myself) to truly learn music is not through isolated tutorials or hours of theory but by observing someone experienced in action. Watching an experienced musician navigate creative choices in real time, asking questions at pivotal moments, and understanding why a choice was made—that’s where the most profound lessons are. It helps understand each context where one technique might be used to achieve a specific result.
Many online courses fail because they’re out of context: with who you are, what you want to have, and what you want to achieve. Most electronic music producers don’t read manuals as they prefer to explore to learn. So courses often fail in the same fashion: linear learning isn’t for everyone.
Music education thrives on interaction, dialogue, and having the space to experiment without fear of making mistakes. Learning with a community is a way of getting accountability and will help acknowledge the progress of an artist. In 2016, I started offering free coaching and created a group on Facebook. It worked for several years, but eventually, it got tired. The objective of the group was to provide technical feedback on songs. I saw many people who initially joined grow into creative artists.
This is also why the artist retreats have been so precious. Online feedback is one thing, but things make more sense in person. We meet as friends, listen to one another’s music, share feedback, eat together, and discuss. The weekend becomes an exploration of learning, validation and belonging. One of my favourite ways to see this is by inviting everyone to perform a song live (5 minutes more or less). Everyone says the same thing each time we do it:
“Why aren’t we doing this in our living room already?”
My most significant learning of 2024 was how the sum of all the teaching came down to the essentials of how I work. There’s not much I can learn if I don’t experiment and revise what I just acquired. Sarah started her course by explaining how circular learning is the key to progression. While I’ve been doing it all my life, it became clear that I have structured it by pruning what I learn, practice and eventually integrate.
Circular Learning: Cycles of “How Do I..?”
Learning (electronic) music isn’t a linear journey. It doesn’t follow a straight path from A to B. Instead, it moves in cycles—rounds or sprints of creativity. Sometimes, your learnings spring you forward, or your lack of time drags you down, but your music will never let you down. However, having people for whom you can play in person is essential. During retreats, we all agreed that we prefer five to ten people listening deeply rather than five likes/listens on a streaming site.
It’s different than learning how to play an instrument. It is multi-dimensional because it covers synthesis, arrangements, sampling, computer understanding, logic, mixing, etc.
This is where many musicians fail to learn online: a generalized lack of how-to structure themselves to get to where they want to be.
The typical scenario I see is someone with the time and budget to invest in music making and starts with strong motivation. As they explore, they’ll constantly hit walls and obstacles, making them realize they lack knowledge on various topics. If their workflow isn’t well defined and there’s a lack of self-organization, it can quickly bring them to the edge of giving up. As a musician, I keep getting exposed to many ads on so-called “solutions” or shortcuts, but I know they won’t solve my issues because I have experience. This is why I want to share some of my circular learning.
What is Circular Learning?
Circular learning means that instead of gathering all the information you need to progress, you’ll explore until you wonder how to achieve something and then get the information you need to move forward. As you see, you’ll be exploring, and then you’ll run into a “how do I..?” question, which will then bring you to the next step of Research. The results are usually either a solution or technique you can then test. This will open up new possibilities for you to explore.
I find that what’s critical is to complete your full circle, as this is a cycle that will bring you learning.
A cycle starts when you ask yourself, “How do I…?”
Examples: How do I make my vocal pop in the mix? How do I recreate this sound from scratch? How does this song hypnotize a crowd when played?
Maybe I’m hearing you think aloud: That’s what I’m doing already.
But how much is it working for you? If it does, then great. Now, you perhaps have the words to explain it better.
If it’s not working, maybe a phase of that circle isn’t handled correctly. Signs of success mean that you constantly add new skills and have fewer and fewer hurdles when creating. Something is incorrect if you learn new things but keep having issues before a challenge.
Cycles and their uses
Each cycle begins with finding a concept—an idea that sparks curiosity.
Then comes the proof of workability, where the idea is tested, put into a template or macro, and explored by jamming. If you constantly rely on tools and macros others build, you’re skipping essential steps in developing yourself.
Understanding how your concept works forces you to learn music production techniques, perhaps new tools you ignored and possibly learn more about sound itself. But sometimes, putting an idea in a technical environment doesn’t mean it works immediately.
There’s a phase of fixing and refining—adjusting elements until they feel similar to your reference. Once the template feels solid, it’s time to record ideas. This could mean capturing an improvisation, layering sounds, or finalizing an arrangement. You then have the heart and soul of a song to finalize the arrangements.
I often tell people that each of my songs results from a new technique I used and learned, providing a fun result. Sometimes, an album is a collection of multiple songs using the same method, making all the songs feel coherent.
But the process doesn’t stop there. The magic happens when the cycle begins again, not from scratch, but from the momentum of the previous session. Ideas mutate, evolve, and branch out into unexpected territories. Your last project is the seed of the following one. This also helps you keep presets, tools and materials you know work well. Consolidating knowledge and technique is done by repeating over and over something until it becomes very easy.
When you learn something, you need to practice it until it’s fully integrated.
This cyclical process mirrors how art develops in the real world—it’s iterative, messy, and deeply human. Artists look at other artist’s works, try to understand it, then come up with theories and tests. It might be a copy at first, but you’ll be elsewhere as you start practicing to perfect it.
Having references you can study will bring many questions and start new cycles. The more unique and inspiring your references are, the deeper you’ll be in your learning process.
Why Education Matters Now More Than Ever
I could go on about how learning electronic music is essential, but I’ll share some thoughts that may support my claim.
Market Saturation.
A few people have told me how lost they are when finding music they like. DJs feel overwhelmed by how many new tracks come up. Since music is becoming easier to make and can also be distributed without hassle, this causes a mass of music that becomes more difficult for the listener to find what they like. They might discover multiple pale copies of the music they want instead. Still, the lack of originality comes from artists who rely on shortcuts, templates, pre-made macros or any solution to speed up their workflow without an integration where they can innovate the sound itself.
The success of a song often relies on understanding what works but adding a new twist to it. The more you know what you want to do, the more control you have over your output, which means your musical vocabulary expands.
Higher quality and control will allow you to distinguish yourself and your art.
AI Music.
This type of music-making is entirely different from the music we make. An algorithm processes a prompt and turns it into a song. While it gives the impression that it makes music for you, your output is still limited as you don’t fully control the render. There’s room for that type of music, especially for making generic music or coming up with ideas you can revisit later on. Still, AI music skips one of the most essential parts of music-making: the long process of composition.
Making music is often more interesting than the outcome, but many people only focus on that part because it is the end of the journey. I like to compare it to travelling. Your travels aren’t the pictures you took of them, but the entire story from when you leave your home to when you’re back. All the good moments and the parts where you had to change plans are part of the journey. It’s pretty much the same thing with music-making.
If AI music expands your vocabulary or eventually replaces a lot of musicians, it will never take away the pleasure of making a song or jamming in your studio. But with education, you can make those experiences even richer.
Personal Understanding.
Understanding something you love doing opens the door to a community and feeds a need for belonging. As musicians often seek validation and appreciation, relying on their music to achieve this, they frequently don’t realize that they’re trying to respond to a need to be part of a community. Making a song can be a lovely business card to get into a community, but being able to share ideas, explain how to achieve them or help others achieve their goals is a need they don’t know they have. This is what education can achieve for artists because it teaches them new skills and one way to learn is to explain it to someone else.
Reverse Engineering Into a Concept.
The final point I want to share is how understanding allows you to hear other people’s music and be able to pull a concept out of it. Conceptual music implies that you’re not necessarily chasing or digging for a hook; instead, you’ll make music based on certain conditions. Imposing yourself limitations is a way to create focus on what matters.
I hope this has inspired you to dig for information and insights.
As a mastering engineer, I’m exposed to dealing with mixes every day, and as we know, quality masters are directly linked to the mixes’ strengths. When in the mastering stage, I’m dealing with a stereo file, which means I can make adjustments but also have limitations. If the mixed file has all its issues fixed, I can focus on bringing the best of the song to life. On the other hand, if there are some issues, I might have to fix them the best I can, but that will also blur the song’s best part(s).
Asking the client to fix some issues is part of my job. How about a blog post to cover the most common problems I deal with?
Before I start, I’d like to say that mixing is an art that takes years and years to get the most out of. While you can take many different classes, practicing and exposing yourself to many other issues is the best way to learn. Sending them to me for mastering trains yourself to how specific tests come out in the end.
Some clients send me music every week for mastering. Not because they want to release the song but because they want to see what it will be like. They constantly practice and tweak their songs and start new ones, and those are the ones who learn to mix fast.
But like a client asked me recently, “Will I always have to depend on someone for learning to mix?”
I replied, “No, but you need to learn the basics first and then the rest will be much easier.”
But before you read this post, I encourage you to watch this video I recorded for clients.
The most common mixing issues I deal with in mastering
As a reader, you probably expect easy pointers to what you do wrong within your mixing session, but some of the issues come from external factors. If those aren’t addressed, you’ll have the same problems no matter what you do with your software or how you use your plugins. This is why, quite often, after listening to the first 20 seconds of a song, I already know in what context the producer is working.
This leads to the first most problematic issue I deal with every day.
Lack of experience with mix-translation
What is mix translation?
One develops this skill when they know how their sound will be projected into the world outside the studio. Mix translation requires spending time in the outside world, listening to different types of music, then returning to the studio and listening to the same songs to see how they sound. Your ears eventually understand that if you have your low end at a certain level in the studio, it will have a particular impact in a club or a car. Some people rely on their car to see if the track sounds right, which is, in a way, a form of mixed translation.
But this has a particular twist. If your studio doesn’t have appropriately adjusted settings, your monitoring will trick you into misleading directions. Or even worse, it might mask some issues or enhance parts that don’t translate well.
Does this mean you need a studio with a full range of acoustic treatments and a room correction by Sonar Works?
The answer is no.
I wouldn’t say I like Sonar Works’ plugin because I would rather get used to an imperfect signal than deal with a plugin-induced flat tone. Some like it, and that’s good for them, but honestly, it’s not something you need. You need a sub or Subpac to understand your low end if you do music where the low end is essential. Get a pair of headphones you love that are not consumer grade and get to know them well.
A client kept asking me to boost the sub, and I eventually found out he had no sub. He had a nasty surprise when he got to play the track in a local club.
Many clients have mixes with too much of a certain range (ex. exaggerated low end) which will have repercussion of be sounding wrong in certain clubs and will for DJs to have to readjust their EQ on the mixer to match other songs they mix.
When clients receive the master of their track, they listen to it in their studio and sometimes feel it’s wrong. That is because they have mixed their song to fit the studio’s flaws, and once those are fixed, then something will feel off. The right way to listen to a master is to compare it to a third-party song that we know sounds right. You can also listen on headphones where there’s no external acoustic disruption.
Solution(s):
The easiest solution is to get yourself a wide array of reference tracks. Some people don’t like working with them, but using and knowing them properly will resolve many issues regarding presence, impact, loudness, tone, and general impression. While I work with a client, I usually propose a master that is, according to my understanding, the best presentation possible. Still, if I miss the aesthetic, a reference will significantly help. It goes beyond the words and explanations of a client as it is a concrete demonstration of the wanted result.
That reference cannot be a client’s track. It must be from a third party with whom we agree sounds excellent. Tracks from the client will sound right in his studio because they were made there.
As mentioned, knowing your environment and going out will help you understand mix translation.
If you handle this first point, it will resolve many issues. But I see other problems, no matter if you hold that point, so let’s continue.
Low-End Clarity
Having a good understanding of the low end is the key to many dance music-related electronic music. How the sub, bass, and kick perform in a club or a festival drives a crowd and keeps energy. I recently brought my son to a local festival where he heard electronic music loud, and he was so impressed by how the bass felt that it gave him a new understanding of why I love the genre and why people get into dancing.
On the opposite side, if the low end lacks clarity, the mushiness will have a sluggish effect on the people listening, mainly because it will lose its power and punch.
What is low-end clarity?
The low end refers to a frequency range of about 150Hz and below. This covers the kick, part of the bass, and the sub. The bass can start at around 250Hz and go as low as 30Hz. The kick can start high, around 1.5kHz (for the transient) to 20Hz. But its punch will be between 200Hz and 20Hz, depending on the genre, which all have a different recipe for handling the kick. The sub is pretty much under 30hz.
Considering how these three main sounds cover and share presence within that range, they can easily overlap, causing confusion. It can easily be disruptive once one masters if one masks another.
Solutions:
One can do multiple things, but the first solution is to handle this right from the start when you’re in the arrangement stage and sound design.
Adjust your sound’s length so they don’t overlap. This is within the ADSR, where you can cut the tail of one sound so it doesn’t hit another.
Amplitude modulation is another option if you’re struggling with the length. This means you can use side-chaining compression or a tool like Trackspacer to make one sound that should be the leader to force others to duck when it plays. While Trackspacer is the easiest to use, that can also be done with Pro-Q, Fuser, Shaperbox, but those require a bit more tweaking to get a satisfying result.
You can also clear your low-end by learning to use a Gate. The gate helps create space, muting anything under a certain threshold. This means it will silence the tail of certain sounds. My favourite Gate is included in the Neutron Suite.
Considering your low end has limited space, consider having a shorter kick if you have a longer bass or vice versa.
Cutting the unnecessary frequencies for each sound can also help, but it starts with the amplitude first.
Gain Staging
For many, this music production and mixing aspect remains a bit esoteric. Even for myself, it was confusing for years, mainly because no one would adequately explain it to me. Eventually, I understood it independently, which was good because now I can describe it easily to anyone.
What is Gain Staging?
Let’s summarize it to the essential: it’s about giving enough loudness during the mixing stage so that once I master it, I don’t have to compensate and boost it too much. That is not just for the general loudness of the track but also per frequency sections, such as the low end or the mids.
Why is this a problem?
Once I have mastered it, I’m left with only a few options to compensate for the mix’s loudness to hit the commercial levels the market needs. If the mix given has a loudness of -19 LUFS, I need to compensate by adding 9 to 10 LUFS, which is quite a lot. This means that the level differences between sounds and the depth, noise floor, and relationship between all the sounds will be altered drastically, giving my client a shock.
Also, sometimes the loudness is almost perfect, but the low end might not have the required density. I must focus on that zone alone, which can alter the track’s direction.
Solutions:
Gain staging is a series of different actions one can do right from the beginning once samples are selected. When you load up a sound, it is essential to normalize it so it hits zero unity, then check its RMS level to see how much power it has. There’s a difference between the peak loudness and the RMS. The last one is about its density. You can stimulate the density with distortion in one of its numerous forms: compression, distortion, saturation.
This means that plugins such as pre-amps, emulations of hardware, overdrive, and waveshaping, to name a few, can help a sound pop out of the mix because it is thicker. See it as if you would put the sound in bold, where it is dense and thick compared to a standard font.
One mistake I often see with clients’ mixes is applying compression at the end of the chain, either on buses or the master. While that can be useful for glueing multiple sounds simultaneously, it also significantly reduces your dynamic range, killing punch if not used properly.
Harshness, Resonances and Transients
This one covers three issues at once because they’re related. The umbrella that covers them all at once would be named harshness.
We all know when a song sounds unpleasant, but what causes it?
Generally speaking, harshness means that when you listen to the song, it feels uncomfortable or worse; it slightly hurts the ears. This is a given in 99% of contexts because you want people to listen to an enjoyable experience. The last 1% is about some noise, punk and Lofi music, where the uncomfortable feel is enjoyed because it creates tension. But even with those genres, there is a threshold on what human ears will handle.
What makes a song harsh is related to one or the combination of different characteristics. One of them is poorly handled transients that feel sharp and will feel like a stabbing to the ear drum. Transients come from the ADSR of a sound where the attack might be too sharp, paired with annoying frequencies. Some people think, de facto, that 3kHz is automatically uncomfortable, but sometimes, that frequency can be ear-pleasing if boosted. The envelope of the sound is sharp, and the concentration/density at a specific spot might be affected. It is just like putting bold in something ugly.
In sound design, different sound sources help replicate real-world instruments. For instance, noise or inharmonic content can replicate a hihat or a snare. Poorly managed noise, such as white noise, which covers a full range, can be sharp. Picking a filter and applying an ADSR to it can help manage that.
Other sources, such as feedback, which can be helpful for non-linear sound design, can be beautiful but can create resonances. That type of sound, if handled properly, can add an organic feel to your sound, but if you exaggerate, it will be uncomfortable. This is why that resonance on a filter can be ear-pleasing at a certain level, which is the same for boosting EQ’s filter.
When I work on a master, I call myself the general ear’s advocate. I’m the wall between the general public and the client’s song. I adjusted the song so that it felt suitable for the average Joe. It can sometimes be shocking for a client to hear their song fixed, where I removed all the uncomfortable points.
Solution:
Quite often, clients or people I coach ask me which online ear trainer they should try to be able to spot problems in their music. My reply confuses you as I suggest not to use any since, in my humble opinion, they won’t train you for that. The real issue is that many clients don’t understand the harshness for multiple reasons.
You will lose the criticism if your monitoring equipment masks your song’s harshness. This is why consumer headphones or, sometimes, hi-fi make everything sound perfect.
Your ears eventually adjust to imperfection if you overexpose something to them. In other words, if you listen to an ugly song in a loop, your brain will trick you. It’s nice because it’s the only option to not go mental by listening to that loop.
Comparing your music to well-adjusted music is a cross-validation system that will reveal imperfection. If you AB your music, you can feel something is wrong with your sounds. Then, what should you do?
No tool will directly educate you about resonance, but some will give you hints. A plugin like Soothe is a good eye-opener because it shows you potential resonances and controls them dynamically. Different alternatives are cheaper. But honestly, a good way to educate yourself on the harshness and rough mixes is to trust your intuition that something is wrong and then follow this routine:
Using a 3-band EQ, isolate one of the three primary ranges (Low, Mid, High) to pinpoint the issue’s approximate location.
While you pinpoint the range, pay attention to which sounds are playing.
Mute some of the channels to find which one is causing the issue. Once you mute one that seems to impact the ear’s comfort, you know you have found the problem.
Sometimes, the problem comes from combining multiple sounds playing simultaneously. If you solo the sound, you won’t have a problem, but playing with others creates a concentration of frequencies that hurts your ears. You can group those channels at once and then apply an EQ cut at the frequency where it hurts. The methodology is the same: put an EQ dip of 6dB to start with and then scrub the area to see if a position makes it more comfortable. Once you find it, adjust it to -3dB to see if that works. Adjust to taste from there.
Consider removing a sample if you must EQ out 3-4 points at 3- 5 dB. This usually means the sample is plain garbage (for your song).
You can also manage transients with a transient shaper or use a compressor with a short attack to control the problematic envelope of certain sounds.
Stereo Width and Depth
Wide mixes are impressive—I get it—but that can also be an issue in some listening contexts. Those issues mean loss of punch and power; some sounds become ghosts by disappearing or losing considerable loudness. In a stereo signal, there are the Left and Right (LR), but there is also the Mono signal and the Sides (MS).
The mono signal is distributed in both speakers. If you go very close to a speaker and hear only that one, you should distinctively hear the mono and panned signals. When the two speakers are positioned, the mono signal will appear right before you (center), so your ears perceive a stereo representation. On headphones, the mono signal feels right up to your nose or in the middle of your head.
The right and left signals are encoded in the specific signal, which is the same on headphones.
The Side signal, once isolated, will feel on each signal but will have the mono signal muted. It’s a hard one to describe. On headphones, it can feel like hearing the ambience of a space alone, almost tricking your ears that you can listen to behind and around your head.
There are many wideners out there that play with psycho-acoustics to trick your ears. The signal is wider, but this can blur out your sounds to a point where they will phase. What we call phasing issues is that the sound cancels itself out because it can’t be properly represented in the stereo image. I could go deeper in the description, but you must know this.
One of the issues I often deal with is the mono signal being too weak compared to the sides. Sometimes, it can be where the side signal, but only a specific frequency, is louder than its mono signal. In the opposite scenario, the sides are too weak, and I will try to open them to give some presence. If I did that, I would never exaggerate it.
Solution:
This is a tricky one. Using a tool that shows your mixe’s MS balance is best. You can also learn to spot if sounds are phasing with a spectrometer. I’d encourage you to get the free vst Span by Voxengo.
General recommendations for enhancing your mixes
Some healthy habits you can start when you make music will directly impact your mix’s quality. I will share a few of them here as bonus content. These tips don’t necessarily address a specific problem but will help you achieve consistency and better results after mastering them.
Mixing Flat / Using an FFT
Keeping an FFT reader on your master bus, such as SPAN, will give you an idea of whether the tone of your song is slanted or flat. For mastering, it’s easier to deal with a mix that is flat than one that is slanted (dark or bright). Having a flat mix gives me the chance to propose to the client a specific direction that will be best for the given song. If the song has an exaggerated tone, and I have to fix the tone, the client will automatically believe I messed up the song.
Testing in Mono
I’d encourage you to test your song in mono during the mixing stage. Multiple plugins, including the Utility plugin from Ableton, can convert a stereo to mono. When your song is in mono, try to see how certain sounds are heard compared to when in stereo. If the sounds in mono signal drastically get attenuated, you must accentuate its presence to solidify its level. You might have overused some phase-inducing plugins, and it might be good to mellow that out.
A/B your music
Drop a few songs directly in your arrangement section to use them for referencing. You can then A/B your song with that one and compare the tone, levels, and width. You can also check the arrangements, which sometimes reveal flaws in yours.
Learn to DJ and use Rekordbox
This might sound strange if you’re only producing, but if you learn to DJ, this will be helpful in how you prepare tracks. When you DJ music you love and then play yours, does it feel right? Is there a gap? Not only can DJing be a fun hobby, but it is an activity that will significantly help with your mixing and arrangements. I consider this essential if you aspire to make dance music-related music. It is a way to put yourself in a DJ’s shoes.
One thing I noticed with people who want to learn how to make electronic music, is that they face a lack of information on where to start. I stumbled upon an interview with Mr.Beast recently where he was suggesting that if you want to learn about how to make viral videos, you need to start by practicing making videos. His suggestions sorts of overlap how I teach music where the importance of practicing is more important than, let’s say, finish songs perfectly. He was suggesting that one could aim at making 100 videos where they practice one element in each, trying to improve by 1% instead of overtaking something huge to start with. But mostly, to remain a bit private about the whole thing until you become more solid at what you do.
Songs are stories based on a personal finding. If you think about you sharing a personal story to a friend, you’ll focus your story on one element and you might, in your storytelling, bring it to a final punch. Music is a bit similar but for many people who start making music, they really don’t want to disappoint or want to look like a beginner. So they try too hard, in most cases.
As you advance in learning music production, you don’t know that there are many different techniques out there unless you find them by searching or by someone who tells you. You might not know that your music has different issues unless reviewed by an experienced mentor. So it can be quite confusing.
This is why I decided to take on Mr. Beast idea of 100 projects and made a list for you here.
There is no right or wrong way to use it. It’s basically 100 ideas that you can take. Most of them also come with a Youtube video you can look at to learn about the technique to practice. As for projects or song, I would say that try to make songs that are between 1 to 5 minutes long. It’s not something to impress, but for your own development. I added enough videos and links per project for you to practice one technique. Try your best to use it but you can of course start at one point and end up in a totally different result. There are no rules here.
This project is directly linked to my Patreon Program. There’s the “Road Map” tiers that allows you to join for constant support.
Building the Basics – Projects 1 to 10
Loops, MIDI, and Arrangements
Making electronic music usually starts by using samples, loops and MIDI. Let’s start with the basis.
Round 1: Loops and Basic Arrangements (Projects 1-3)
I would encourage you to get a subscription to Splice to get some loops and sounds. You can also visit Freesounds.org to get free ideas but the quality can be questionable sometimes.
If the song key and scale confuses you, this article will help. Also this video.
Project 1 – Loop Exploration
Title: “Loop Groove”
BPM: 100
Duration: 1-2 Min.
Key: C Major
Scale: Minor Pentatonic
Element to Practice: Importing, duplicating, and arranging pre-made loops effectively. The focus here is to import a few different loops and play in the arranger section. See how you can place them to create a timeline. This is the most basic introduction.
Project 2 – Loop Transformation
Title: “Loop Evolution”
BPM: 110
Duration: 1-2 min.
Key: D Major
Scale: Major Scale
Element to Practice: Modifying loops, adding fades, and creating variations. Try slicing loops and re-arrange them into different versions of themselves.
Project 3 – Basic Arrangement
Title: “Simple Structure”
BPM: 120
Key: G Minor
Scale: Natural Minor
Element to Practice: Building song structure with loops, including patterns, sections, and hooks. Try to aim at having distinct sections such as verse, pre-verse, chorus, bridge, outro.
Round 2: MIDI Basics (Projects 4-6)
Have a look at this tutorial and practice them fundamentals of midi for the next projects.
Project 4 – Introduction to MIDI
Title: “MIDI Essentials”
BPM: 95
Duration: 2 min.
Key: A Minor
Scale: Aeolian Mode
Element to Practice: Understanding MIDI, note input, and basic MIDI editing. Use a soft synth like Operator to receive notes and start doing melodies using a key and scale.
Project 5 – Melodies with MIDI
Title: “Melodic MIDI”
BPM: 130
Duration: 2 min.
Key: E Major
Scale: Mixolydian Mode
Element to Practice: Creating melodies using MIDI, exploring notes and scales. Open a loop that is a melody and you can try either reproducing it (a bit more advanced) or complement it. Make sure to know the root key of that loop. Extract a melody from a loop.
Element to Practice: Apply everything learned to create your first complete song.
These first 10 projects will provide a solid foundation in loops, MIDI, and basic arrangements. After completing these, the student will have the skills needed to create a complete track.
Building the Basics – Projects 11 to 20
Loops, MIDI, Arrangements, and References
Round 4: Loops and Advanced Arrangements with References (Projects 11-13)
Round 6: Applying MIDI and Arrangements with References (Projects 17-20)
The idea here is to take your reference and while it’s in the arrangement section, try tapping down some midi notes along the reference to reproduce notes, percussion or anything else, to hit at the same time.
Project 17 – Combining MIDI and Loops with References
Title: “Hybrid References”
BPM: Analyze and match reference track
Duration: 2-3 min.
Key: Analyze and match reference track
Element to Practice: Combine MIDI elements with loops inspired by referencing the track’s bass.
Project 18 – Layering and Texture with References
Title: “Textural References”
BPM: Analyze and match reference track
Duration: 3 min.
Key: Analyze and match reference track
Element to Practice: Creating textures and layers using references. Learn how to use field recordings for backgrounds.
Project 19 – Advanced Arrangement Techniques with References
Project 20 – Milestone: Advanced Track with References
Title: “Elevated Creations”
BPM: Analyze and match reference track
Duration: 2-3 min
Key: Analyze and match reference track
Element to Practice: Apply all concepts learned to create an advanced track with reference track influence.
Building the Basics – Projects 21 to 30
Loops, MIDI, Arrangements, References, and Effects
Round 6: Loops and MIDI with Effects (Projects 21-23)
Project 21 – Loop Manipulation with Delay
Title: “Delay Loops”
BPM: 100
Duration: 3 min.
Key: C Major
Scale: Minor Pentatonic
Element to Practice: Importing loops, applying delay effects, and creative arrangement. Focus on the different types of delay plugins and have fun tweaking parameters.
Project 22 – MIDI Effects: Arpeggios and Phaser
Title: “Arpeggiated Phases”
BPM: 110
Duration: 4 min.
Key: D Major
Scale: Major Scale
Element to Practice: Using MIDI for arpeggios and applying phaser effects.
Project 23 – Effects-Driven Arrangements
Title: “Effects Arrangements”
BPM: 120
Duration: 4 min.
Key: G Minor
Scale: Natural Minor
Element to Practice: Creating arrangements with effects-driven transitions, where you use automation to change the delay’s parameters as the song evolve.
Round 8: MIDI Mastery with Effects (Projects 24-26)
Project 24 – MIDI and Reverb for Atmosphere
Title: “Reverberant Atmosphere”
BPM: 95
Duration: 4 min.
Key: A Minor
Scale: Aeolian Mode
Element to Practice: Using MIDI to create atmospheric sounds with reverb.
Project 25 – MIDI and Delay for Texture
Title: “Delayed Textures”
BPM: 130
Duration: 4 min.
Key: E Major
Scale: Mixolydian Mode
Element to Practice: Crafting textured soundscapes with MIDI melodies and delay/reverb effects.
Project 26 – MIDI and Flanger for Movement
Title: “Flanged Movement”
BPM: 85
Duration: 3-4 min.
Key: F# Minor
Scale: Harmonic Minor
Element to Practice: Adding movement to MIDI percussive elements using flanger effect.
Round 9: Advanced Arrangements with Effects (Projects 27-29)
Project 27 – Arrangement and Filter Sweeps
Title: “Filter Swept Arrangements”
BPM: 115
Duration: 4 min.
Key: Bb Major
Scale: Dorian Mode
Element to Practice: Creating arrangements with filter sweeps. Play with the filter on different elements to practice opening and closing frequecies.
Project 28 – Arrangement and Stereo Panning
Title: “Panned Arrangements”
BPM: 105
Duration: 3-4 min.
Key: C Minor
Scale: Phrygian Mode
Element to Practice: Adding depth and movement to arrangements with stereo panning (auto-pan). Turn the auto-pan into a tremolo.
Project 29 – Milestone: Advanced Track with Effects
Title: “Effects-Driven Mastery”
BPM: 125
Duration: 4 min
Key: F Major
Scale: Lydian Mode
Element to Practice: Apply all concepts learned to create an advanced track with a focus on effects. Explore the use of Chorus.
Project 30 – Remixing and Effects
Title: “Remix and Effects Showcase”
BPM: Analyze and match reference track
Duration: 4 min
Key: Analyze and match reference track
Element to Practice: Remixing a track while integrating Beat-repeat effects techniques.
These projects will allow students to explore the creative possibilities of effects while further enhancing their skills in loops, MIDI, arrangements, and references. If you have any specific effects or tools you’d like to emphasize in any of these projects, please let me know, and we can tailor them accordingly.
Building the Basics – Projects 31 to 35
Loops, MIDI, Arrangements, References, Effects, and Modulation
Round 10: Modulation Essentials (Projects 31-35)
Project 31 – LFO Modulation on Synth
Title: “Synth LFO Groove”
BPM: 100
Duration: 3 min.
Key: C Major
Scale: Minor Pentatonic
Element to Practice: Using LFO modulation to add movement to a synth sound
Project 32 – Envelopes for Dynamic MIDI
Title: “Dynamic MIDI Envelopes”
BPM: 110
Duration: 4 min
Key: D Major
Scale: Major Scale
Element to Practice: Applying envelopes to shape the dynamics of MIDI elements
Project 33 – Effects and Envelopes for Vocal Processing
Title: “Vocal Envelope Processing”
BPM: 120
Duration: 4 min
Key: G Minor
Scale: Natural Minor
Element to Practice: Using envelopes in combination with effects for vocal manipulation. Learn how to use Shifter. You could use filters or reverb as something to be modified.
Project 34 – Advanced LFO Techniques on Effects
Title: “LFO x LFO”
BPM: 95
Duration: 4 min
Key: A Minor
Scale: Aeolian Mode
Element to Practice: Applying LFO modulation to another LFO parameter for creative sound design. Use the Shaper tool.
Project 35 – Modulation Showcase and Milestone
Title: “Modulation Mastery”
BPM: Analyze and match reference track
Duration: Your pick.
Key: Analyze and match reference track
Element to Practice: Learn to hear modulation into songs you know. Try to reproduce one sound effect. Explore effects on Splice.
Building the Basics – Projects 36 to 40
Loops, MIDI, Arrangements, References, Effects, Modulation, EQ, Filters, and Compression
Round 11: EQ, Filters, and Compression Techniques (Projects 36-40)
Element to Practice: Using groups, learn how to apply side-chain to open up space for a lead.
Project 50 – Advanced Bus Processing
Title: “Bus Driver”
BPM: 85
Duration: 4 min.
Key: F# Minor
Scale: Harmonic Minor
Element to Practice: Utilizing buses and groups for mixing.
Project 51 – Return Channels and Reverb
Title: “Return Channel Reverb”
BPM: 115
Duration: 3 min.
Key: Bb Major
Scale: Dorian Mode
Element to Practice: Incorporating return channels and reverb for spatial effects. Use 2 return channels with one set to Hall and the other, short reverb. Send various channels towards them.
Project 52 – Mixing with Reference Tracks
Title: “Mixing References”
BPM: 105
Duration: 4 min.
Key: C Minor
Scale: Phrygian Mode
Element to Practice: Learn about Gain staging and adjust your channel’s level to these.
Project 53 – Effects and Mixing
Title: “Dynamic EQ”
BPM: 125
Duration: 3 min.
Key: F Major
Scale: Lydian Mode
Element to Practice: Learn how to use dynamic EQ in ableton.
Project 54 – Vocal Production and Harmonies
Title: “Vocal Production Excellence”
BPM: Analyze and match reference track
Duration: 4 min
Key: Analyze and match reference track
Element to Practice: Learn the main effects used for vocal treatement: Shifter, Delay, Reverb, Chorus/ensemble.
Project 55 – Milestone: Mix and Routing in action
Title: “Mix and Routing Exercice”
BPM: Analyze and match reference track
Key: Analyze and match reference track
Element to Practice: Apply all concepts learned to create an advanced mix with intricate routing and processing
Going Modular has been in trend in the last years and the concept got momentum with the arrival of VCV Rack. One of the best way to learn about modular techniques, is to install VCV which is free as a stand alone DAW. I learned more about sound design with it than years studying it.
Round 14: Advanced Sound Design and Modular Concepts (Projects 56-65)
Element to Practice: Apply all concepts learned to create an advanced sound design piece
These projects will allow students to explore the fascinating world of sound design, modular concepts, and synthesis techniques, enabling them to craft unique and expressive sonic textures.
Round 15: Resampling, Recording, and Voice Manipulation (Projects 66-70)
For these projects, the duration doesn’t matter as long as you can build ideas over a few minutes. From here, try to always have an introduction, middle part and outro.
You’ll want to try to have a hook per song as well as supporting ideas. You know enough from here to be able to create songs and should now put a bit more energy to get them as done as possible.
Project 66 – Creative Resampling Techniques
Title: “Resampling Magic”
BPM: 100
Key: C Major
Scale: Minor Pentatonic
Element to Practice: Exploring creative resampling methods to transform audio.
Project 67 – Field Recording and Sampling
Title: “Field to Sound”
BPM: 110
Key: D Major
Scale: Major Scale
Element to Practice: Capturing and incorporating field recordings into music production. Learn how to simply use your smart phone to record sounds and import them.
Project 68 – Vocal Recording and Processing
Title: “Vocal Doctor”
BPM: 120
Key: G Minor
Scale: Natural Minor
Element to Practice: Recording and processing vocals with resampling.
Project 69 – Voice Manipulation and Sampling
Title: “Voice Transformation”
BPM: 95
Key: A Minor
Scale: Aeolian Mode
Element to Practice: Manipulating and resampling voice recordings for unique textures from the clip’s warp mode.
Project 70 – Resampled Soundscapes
Title: “Resampled Soundscapes”
BPM: 85
Key: F# Minor
Scale: Harmonic Minor
Element to Practice: Creating intricate soundscapes through resampling and manipulation.
Project 100 – Milestone: Generative Music and Final project
– Title: “Final Project”
– BPM: Analyze and match reference track
– Key: Analyze and match reference track
– Element to Practice: Generate ideas randomly and with the techniques learnt then make a whole song with it.
Congratulation if you went through all the exercises. You should now have a strong basis to know your way into making a song. There are so many topics that could have been covered. If you have any suggestions to add, let me know in the comments.
https://audioservices.studio/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/begin-ableton.jpeg10801080pheekhttps://audioservices.studio/wp-content/uploads/2022/07/logo-menu.jpgpheek2023-11-29 20:18:042023-12-05 11:05:42The Road Map To Learn Music Production
In the intricate tapestry of music production, there’s an underlying thread that has been silently weaving its way through for years: the phenomenon of the echo chamber. Just as politics is sometimes ensnared in these chambers, the world of music production isn’t immune. While they might offer the comforting illusion of unity and harmony, these echo chambers can become a pitfall for creativity, authenticity, and growth.
Moreover, social media platforms and music streaming services with their algorithms can create a reinforcing feedback loop. An artist might gain popularity for a particular sound, and suddenly, that becomes the benchmark. New artists aiming for success tend to emulate that, leading to a saturation of similar-sounding tracks. While the initial artist might have been revolutionary, the subsequent floodwaters can drown the innovation.
In the political world, echo chambers arise when individuals surround themselves only with voices and opinions that align with theirs. In music, a similar phenomenon happens. If artists and producers only expose themselves to a narrow band of influences, it limits their growth and stifles innovation. In both spheres, these echo chambers can lead to a stagnation of ideas and a resistance to change or evolution.
For artists to grow, it’s essential to break out of their comfort zones. Collaborating with people from different genres, attending workshops that don’t directly align with their musical interests, or even actively seeking feedback from outsiders can be invaluable. A hip-hop producer might gain a fresh perspective by working with a classical musician, or a techno artist might find inspiration from folk melodies. It’s these intersections of diverse ideas that lead to the most groundbreaking music.
There’s been a huge fuss started by Guti recently about how many fake sets made by some artists have been going on for a while and to me, this is a pure side effect from an echo chamber. Artists encouraged by the industry to go with a pre-recorded show who anyone who would confront, would be pushed out of the way.
I believe the onus is on both industry veterans and newbies. Veterans should mentor and guide newcomers, encouraging them to learn the craft properly and not rely solely on tools. New artists should be hungry for knowledge, pushing boundaries, and not just following the beaten path.
Mr. Bill Masterclass @ KMGLife Inc. Youtube Video
This week I was watching an older video from Mr. Bill, who is a solid Youtuber with creative content and I noticed something about him that sort of irritated me. Over his video, he was explaining all kind of approaches about how to be loud and also, be cool. While I gave up on the whole debate of the loud is cool topic, i get annoyed at one thing precisely which is when someone spend time showing that his sound is cooler than my sound.
I understand that if you want to sound like him and since he is very confident that he is cool, then it makes sense but in a world where trends flashes so quickly, I believe that Mr. Bill is probably looking at this years old video and probably think that his newer sounds are cooler. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not trying to put him down because I love his sounds and techniques, but not to the point of putting other genres or sound design down. I want to remain far from a competitive mind and his view could encourage that mindset.
If you’ve been reading this blog, you’ll know that I prefer having a much moderate approach to understanding sound. I prefer remaining open.
Calling some sounds cool or others not, creates duality. And that creates echo chambers, hierarchy, ego boosting. So I prefer nondualism (advaita).
At its core, non-duality emphasizes the interconnectedness and oneness of everything. Translated to the realm of music, it suggests that genres, styles, and techniques are all part of a vast, interconnected web of musical expression. Rather than pigeonholing oneself into a single genre or style, a non-dualistic approach encourages exploration across musical landscapes. By seeing all music as interconnected, producers can cross-pollinate ideas, techniques, and inspirations from diverse genres, leading to innovative and fresh sounds.
A significant barrier to innovation and growth in music can be one’s ego. An inflated ego might make one resistant to feedback, reluctant to explore unfamiliar genres, or even dismissive of new techniques. A philosophy that promotes selflessness can help dissolve the ego, allowing the artist to be more receptive to external influences, feedback, and collaborations.
1. The Allure of the Echo Chamber
On the surface, there’s undeniable allure in surrounding oneself with like-minded enthusiasts, especially when one embarks on the journey of music production. The initial phase is fraught with uncertainties and questions. In these moments, having a community that echoes your tastes and preferences is undeniably comforting. The conversations flow smoothly, validation is often just a nod away, and a bubble of shared enthusiasm and aspiration forms.
However, beneath this surface of congeniality, a subtle drawback emerges. When we insulate ourselves within a particular genre or style, the nuances of that very style start to become our universe. And while it’s essential to understand and master a niche, the danger lies in becoming so immersed that we miss the symphony of diverse musical expressions outside.
2. The Downside of Self-Referencing
As a music label owner and sound engineer with over two decades of experience, I’ve observed an interesting pattern. Artists and producers, particularly when starting, tend to lean heavily on references that mirror their own aspirations. This is entirely natural. However, when these references are flawed or limited in scope, the resultant art can lack the depth and polish it might otherwise achieve.
A case in point: I recently mastered tracks for a techno artist. His reference tracks, though popular, had many inherent issues. This artist, having always been in his echo chamber, hadn’t realized the potential flaws. But once I introduced him to more diverse, quality references, it was like a revelation. Suddenly, he could perceive the richness and depth his tracks could achieve, and the difference was palpable when played in a club with a top-notch sound system.
3. Breaking Free with New Tools
The world of music production is ever-evolving, with tools like Izotope’s recently released Ozone version offering fresh perspectives. Such innovations are a boon, not just for their technical prowess but for their potential to act as doorways out of these echo chambers. By leveraging the new features and capabilities they bring, producers can explore uncharted territories, challenging their ingrained notions and biases.
It was interesting how tools like Ozone (Version 11 came out this week and it’s really well done – I don’t even understand how they keep improving it!), while designed to improve the mixing and mastering process, can also inadvertently perpetuate these echo chambers. In the hands of a novice, presets and popular mastering chains can quickly become a crutch. Instead of learning the core principles of mixing and mastering, many young producers just slap on a preset, thinking that’s the ‘industry standard’. These tools, if used without proper understanding, can contribute to a homogenized sound in the industry.
There’s no denying that the familiarity of an echo chamber offers solace. But for an art form as dynamic and ever-changing as music, these chambers can sometimes stifle the very creativity they aim to foster. It’s imperative to recognize when we’re in one and muster the courage to step out. Only then can we truly hear the boundless melodies that the world of music has to offer.
https://audioservices.studio/wp-content/uploads/2023/09/echochamber.jpeg10801080pheekhttps://audioservices.studio/wp-content/uploads/2022/07/logo-menu.jpgpheek2023-09-11 11:15:232023-09-11 11:15:23Music Related Echo Chambers
In the world of music production, the concept of “beginner’s luck” is something that many people aren’t familiar with. It’s not just about chance or serendipity; it’s about the uninhibited creativity that arises when a newcomer, unburdened by preconceived notions, fearlessly dives into the world of music creation. I’ve always seen it as a proof that sometimes, it’s not about making something to perfection, but more about spontaneity. The more you know, they more you get stuck in your mind, trying to control all the little details you know about, which then will kill the initial idea. It’s very common that I have people contacting me for help because they ruined an initial lovely idea, by trying to make it “better.”
As I said in previous post, people remember ideas, not technical perfection. Also, technically perfect songs don’t always age well as they can easily sound clinical, cold, soulless.
I find that people that have less technical knowledge and who focus on one idea, often pull out a simple song that actually works. I’ve seen people come out of nowhere, make a song that works without really knowing what they do and then for years, try to learn everything they can to sound pro but then they sometimes lose touch with this magical spark. Having the beginner’s mind is a practice that is approached in Mindfulness Meditation. I noticed it is an approach that serves people who struggle with jadedness and lacking inspiration.
In this article, we explore the significance of cultivating and maintaining the beginner’s mind in music production, drawing some inspiration from the mindfulness approach advocated by Jon Kabat-Zinn.
Beginner’s Luck in Music Production
People naturally want to listen to new music and sometimes, also, want to relate to music they know. But there is definitely a number of people who want to learn about the next big thing. Therefore, new comers are caught into this strange zone that it’s difficult for them to emerge while others in the same position as them, will stand out. Nevertheless, when you’re new to music, you are in luck for obvious reasons: everything about music is new and might sound fascinating. This state of mind is idea for creation as you’re not clouded with judgemental views on certain sounds because you’ve been told that some aren’t good enough for a specific genre.
Here’s some points and strengths:
1. Uninhibited Creativity: When beginners enter the realm of music production, they are guided primarily by their passion and intuition. Lacking a deep understanding of complex techniques, they rely on their raw talent and instinct to craft their music. This approach often results in unconventional, fresh, and innovative tracks that captivate audiences. This is something that personally I’m always interested in new people’s music because of their use of basic techniques, used sometimes wrongly, that turns out nicely. In the art world of painting, there’s a similar equivalent called “Naive Art“, where the artist does some portrait in a unusual way. I also noticed that Midjourney, who is a AI based art generator, would be similar as the early version struggled to make hands, resulting in very bizarre but yet mind boggling results.
Credits: Bootcamp
2. Fearless Experimentation: Novices aren’t held back by the fear of failure or the constraints of established norms. They explore various sounds, genres, and techniques without the burden of expectation. This bold experimentation can lead to accidental discoveries and the creation of music that defies categorization. Sometimes I noticed that new music makers who have no DJ experience will create tracks with very strange arrangements not knowing they might DJs to rage when they’ll try to mix the music but this is also part of a certain charm.
3. Authentic Expression: Beginners often create music as a means of personal expression rather than aiming for commercial success. This authenticity resonates with listeners, who are drawn to the genuine emotions and stories embedded in the music. The more someone makes music for a long time, the more they might be tempted to fall into routines, habits or conform to a genre’s aesthetics so they may “remain relevant.”
Recently someone on Facebook shared this remark:
To which I explained:
Signs of a Shift in Beginner’s Mind
Can we pinpoint the moment someone lose his Beginner’s mind?
Yes and no. It’s definitely not a linear process nor something permanently lost. But when a client comes for a consultation, I have a “BM meter” that I imagine and will try to spot the flags that will point towards a negative state.
There will be signs of the effect leaving you based on a few points. As you see it leave, there will be some issues appearing.
1. The Allure of Perfection:
As fledgling artists experience success, there’s a tendency to chase perfection. The definition of success is very different from one person to another which makes it a bit tricky. But whenever there’s a fixation or high concern over technical details, something tells me that there’s a desire to be impeccable, before sounding authentic. They might start obsessing over technicalities (ex. searching endlessly for a specific sample, adjusting levels by 0.5dB, have decision fatigue over arrangements, etc), overproduction, and conformity to industry standards. In doing so, they risk losing the distinctive essence that made their initial creations so appealing.
Symptom 1: The technical part takes over the artistic side, both in importance and in time invested.
TIP: Spend more time in being spontaneous, record ideas in real time, limit the number of iterations a song will have or limit the time spent on a specific song in a day.
2. Overthinking and Self-Doubt:
With experience comes the inclination to overthink. Artists may become overly critical of their work, stifling their creative flow with self-doubt and self-imposed limitations. This self-consciousness hampers their ability to tap into the natural creativity that characterized their early work.
Symptom 2: Worries take over the excitement. Most of the thought process is focused on the listener’s experience instead of what the song is about. Imagine you’re in a conversation and you’re more concerned on how the listener hears you than what you want to say, then there are good chances you’ll make no sense.
TIP: Focus on what the song is about and putting it to term.
3. Creative Stagnation:
Clinging to a tried-and-true formula can lead to creative stagnation. Repeating the same patterns and techniques, even if successful in the past, can lead to a lack of innovation and artistic growth.
Symptom 3: All your songs are sounding the same. They all end up sounding like a different version of a previous (successful) song.
TIP: Change your reference songs, explore new music out of your comfort zone.
Embracing the Beginner’s Mind with Mindfulness
One thing that is important to understand about beginner’s luck relates that people are naturally attracted to novelty. Or at least, many people are. I remember when I started to make music and played live, I was offered so many opportunities compared to today. Even though I’m still labeled as an emerging artist, because I’m not famous, I’m also considered old, therefore, perhaps less relevant. But again, that is really different from whoever hears me out. Some people who had a strong start will chase the first feeling and try to recreate that by changing how they work or compensate with many new acquisition for their studio.
Enter the wisdom of mindfulness, as shared by Jon Kabat-Zinn. At its core, mindfulness encourages being fully present in the moment without judgment. Here’s how artists can apply this approach to music production:
1. Letting Go of Preconceptions:
Approach each new track with an open mind, free from preconceived notions about what it should sound like. Allow the music to evolve naturally, embracing whatever direction it takes.
This means that when you start new ideas, you want to be less picky about how the session should start. Maybe one day you’re interested in playing pads or another day, do quirky percussion loops. Don’t corner yourself out in a modus operandi that work before and let yourself always try something new.
TIP: Divide your music sessions in 2 categories: one that is related to making music (finding new ideas, playing, jamming) and the other is purely technical. When these two overlap, the mind can have a difficult time being open to new ideas.
2. Non-Attachment to Outcomes:
Instead of fixating on the end result or seeking external validation, focus on the process of creation itself. This detachment from outcomes liberates creativity and encourages risk-taking.
Does this mean that sloppiness is tolerated?
What we’re relating to is more towards how you manage your arrangements. It’s also about not thinking of the end results and be open to whatever emerges.
TIP: I often say that I work to bring music close to 90% done and come back later with the option to completely revise it.
3. Embracing Imperfection:
Understand that flaws and imperfections are integral to the creative process. Accepting these imperfections fosters authenticity and prevents overpolishing that could strip away the track’s soul.
When I’m close to the final stage of a song, I notice sometimes that my mind chases imperfections, wanting to cover them all. I find that leaving some deliberately leaves some human touch to it and I swear that years later, I don’t even see them as mistakes but as part of the identity of the song itself. More than often, all the stuff I fixed end up being overkill.
TIP: Find a friend who can listen to your final idea and ask them to listen to it once, then provide feedback. If they didn’t notice anything, you’re safe.
4. Continuous Learning:
Just as a beginner is eager to learn and explore, maintain a stance of ongoing learning. Keep up with new techniques, sounds, and tools to infuse freshness into your creations.
As stated before, in my case, I search for tutorials every day and usually start new song out of trying a new technique. This is quite useful while creative.
In the realm of music production, the concept of beginner’s luck is more than just a fleeting stroke of fortune. It’s a mindset that, when embraced intentionally, can lead to enduring creativity and a distinct artistic identity. By applying the principles of mindfulness, artists can sustain the raw, unfiltered creativity that made their initial works so captivating. So, whether you’re a seasoned producer or a newcomer, remember to embrace the beginner’s mind—the gateway to music that resonates deeply with both creator and listener alike.
https://audioservices.studio/wp-content/uploads/2023/08/luck.jpeg10801080pheekhttps://audioservices.studio/wp-content/uploads/2022/07/logo-menu.jpgpheek2023-08-29 18:18:162023-08-29 18:18:16Beginner’s Mind in Music Production
For us musicians, where creativity meets discipline, the secret symphony lies in the art of rituals, routines, and habits. Like the intricate notes of a melody, these elements intertwine to create a harmonious process that elevates musicians from novices to virtuosos. From finding the perfect hook to crafting intricate arrangements, these rituals serve as the conductor’s baton, guiding musicians through the labyrinth of creation. In this melodic exploration, we delve into the common threads that tie these practices together and uncover their transformative impact on the journey of music production.
One thing I observe with people I know and work with, is their lack of organization or time for making the music they want to do. Taking the time to make space for self care is an important thing for enabling more satisfying sessions. That’s what we’re all interested in, no? So why not allowing ourselves healthier skills?
Most of the time, it seems like many artists have the impression, or superstition, that their unhealthy way does it better. Call it self medication or stubbornness, one can stick to it until it works no more or because they’ve entered a self destruction phase.
So let’s talk about upgrading your sessions.
Let’s define what each mean.
1. Ritual: A ritual is a set of actions, behaviours, or practices that are carried out with a sense of purpose, intention, and often a deeper meaning. Rituals are typically associated with symbolism, significance, and a heightened sense of awareness. They are performed to mark a specific event, transition, or moment and often carry cultural, spiritual, or personal significance. In the context of music production, a ritual might involve a specific pre-recording meditation, setting up a particular workspace arrangement, or even a symbolic gesture before starting the creative process. Rituals can help create a focused and intentional mindset, bringing a sense of reverence and mindfulness to the creative endeavour.
Rituals are intentional practices with symbolic meaning, often used to bring mindfulness, focus, and deeper significance to a specific activity or event.
2. Routine: A routine is a sequence of tasks or activities that are regularly followed in a specific order. Routines provide structure and predictability to daily life. Unlike rituals, routines might not carry the same level of symbolic or spiritual significance. Instead, routines serve practical purposes and can encompass a range of activities, from the mundane tasks of daily hygiene to more complex processes like a musician’s routine for setting up equipment before a recording session. Routines provide a sense of organization, help manage time efficiently, and establish a consistent pattern for accomplishing tasks.
Routines are sequences of tasks that provide structure and organization to daily life, helping manage time and accomplish various activities in a systematic manner.
3. Habit: Habits are automatic behaviours that have been repeated consistently over time until they become ingrained in our daily lives. They require minimal conscious thought and effort to perform. Habits can be positive or negative, and they often develop as a result of repetition. In the context of music production, a habit could be a regular schedule of practicing an instrument, a daily ritual of listening to music for inspiration, or even the tendency to start each recording session with a cup of coffee. Habits are powerful because they shape our behaviour over the long term, whether for creative endeavours or daily routines.
Habits are automatic behaviours that develop through repetition and become ingrained in our routines, shaping our long-term actions and behaviours.
Rituals, Routines, and Habits: A Collective Symphony
1. The Prelude: Setting the Stage
Rituals, routines, and habits all share a common purpose: setting the stage for productive creativity. Just as a well-rehearsed orchestra tunes their instruments before a performance, musicians tune their minds and environment through consistent practices. These practices create a mental framework, signalling to the brain that it’s time to enter the creative zone.
There are multiple little things that you can do to enhance your studio and make it cozier and providing inspiration.
1. Thoughtful Lighting: Using LED lights that you can change the colors is a great way to change the mood on the fly. using candles is also lovely.
2. Comfortable Furniture: Invest in comfortable furniture, such as a cozy chair or a comfortable couch where you can take breaks and listen to your work. Also useful for visitors.
3. Personal Touches: Decorate the studio with items that inspire you, such as artwork, posters, or memorabilia related to your favorite musicians or bands. Personal touches can make the space feel uniquely yours and spark your creativity. Seeing people who inspire me to create helps but it has been shown that having picture of people you care for that look at you can raise your efficiency.
4. Acoustic Treatment: Incorporate acoustic panels, diffusers, and bass traps to improve the sound quality of your studio. Not only do these treatments enhance the acoustics, but they also contribute to a more professional and inviting atmosphere. In general, this is a must.
5. Natural Elements: Integrate natural elements like indoor plants, flowers, or even a small tabletop fountain. Greenery adds a refreshing touch to the studio and can create a calming ambiance.
6. Inspiring Colors: Choose colours that evoke the right emotions for your creative process. Soft, muted tones can promote a relaxed atmosphere, while vibrant colours might energize your space. Experiment with colour combinations that resonate with you.
7. Inspirational Quotes: Hang up motivational or inspirational quotes on the walls to keep you inspired and focused during challenging moments. These can serve as reminders of your creative journey.
8. Proper Organization: Keep your studio tidy and organized. Use shelves, storage containers, and cable management solutions to reduce clutter and create a clean workspace. An organized environment can lead to a clearer mind and more efficient work.
9. Personal Soundscapes: Play ambient sounds, like gentle rain or a crackling fireplace, to create a cozy atmosphere while you work. These sounds can help reduce stress and enhance focus.
10. Multi-Sensory Experience: Engage multiple senses by including scented candles, incense, or essential oil diffusers. A pleasant aroma can contribute to a relaxing and inspiring environment.
11. Comfortable Flooring: Choose a comfortable flooring option, such as a soft rug or carpet, to provide insulation and cushioning for long hours spent standing or sitting. Carpet can also help with acoustics.
12. Creative Break Spaces: Designate a cozy corner for relaxation and brainstorming. A bean bag chair, floor cushions, or even a hammock can provide a comfortable space to step away from your workstation and let your ideas flow.
13. Inspiring Instruments: Keep your instruments within arm’s reach to encourage spontaneous creativity. Display your guitars, keyboards, or other instruments prominently, so they serve as constant reminders of your musical pursuits.
2. Finding the Motif: Inspiring Creativity
Whether it’s a pre-recording meditation or a daily walk in nature, rituals stimulate inspiration by encouraging mindfulness and presence. Studies suggest that these practices activate the brain’s creative center, enhancing the ability to make connections and generate novel ideas—a valuable asset in the search for musical hooks.
1. Mindfulness Meditation: Mindfulness meditation involves focusing your attention on the present moment without judgment. You can start by focusing on your breath, gradually expanding your awareness to sensations, thoughts, and emotions. Regular practice can improve your ability to stay present and focused in various situations.
2. Guided Meditation: Guided meditation involves following the instructions of a recorded voice or a meditation app. It can lead you through visualizations, body scans, or relaxation techniques, helping you stay engaged and centered.
3. Breath Awareness: Concentrating on your breath is a simple yet effective technique. Observe each inhale and exhale, noticing the sensations as you breathe in and out. This practice can help anchor your attention and calm your mind.
4. Body Scan Meditation: In this practice, you systematically focus on different parts of your body, bringing awareness to physical sensations and releasing tension. It’s a way to cultivate bodily awareness and maintain focus.
5. Mantra Meditation: Using a repetitive word, phrase, or sound (mantra) can help direct your attention and quiet the mind. The repetition can be soothing and help prevent distractions.
6. Visualization: Visualization involves imagining a peaceful scene or a goal you want to achieve. Focusing on this mental image can help you concentrate and foster a sense of positivity.
7. Walking Meditation: Instead of sitting, you can practice meditation while walking slowly and mindfully. Pay attention to each step, the movement of your body, and your surroundings.
8. Progressive Muscle Relaxation: This technique involves tensing and then relaxing different muscle groups in your body. It can reduce physical tension and improve your ability to focus.
9. Yoga: Yoga combines physical movement, breath control, and mindfulness. The combination of these elements can help you improve focus, flexibility, and overall well-being.
10. Tai Chi: Tai Chi is a slow, flowing movement practice that promotes relaxation and mindfulness. It can enhance balance, coordination, and mental clarity.
11. Binaural Beats: Binaural beats are auditory illusions created by playing two slightly different frequencies in each ear. They’re believed to affect brainwave patterns and can aid in achieving different states of focus and relaxation.
12. Colouring or Drawing: Engaging in creative activities like colouring or drawing intricate patterns can have meditative effects, as they require sustained focus on the task at hand.
3. The Crescendo: Engaging in Routine
Routine, often synonymous with discipline, plays a crucial role in music production. Just as a musician practices scales daily to refine their technique, establishing routine can aid in refining skills such as recording, editing, and arrangement. Research indicates that regular routines enhance focus, memory, and overall cognitive abilities, all of which are integral in the intricate process of producing music.
If you’ve been following my blog, you know that I strongly encourage certain things as a routine such as:
Dividing your studio session in different phases (brainstorming, Concept testing, editing, loop patterns, arrangements, mixing) and approaching them one at a time.
Working on a song for 30 minutes and then work on another. Working on multiple tracks at once is helpful for self validation.
Taking breaks every 10 minutes for a few minutes.
All these will be helpful to develop as a routine as they’ll provide you the necessary to feel more satisfied with what you do.
4. Harmonizing the Elements: Rituals for Arrangement
Arranging a musical composition can be akin to composing a complex symphony. Here, rituals provide the structure necessary to weave different musical elements into a coherent whole. Studies highlight that rituals promote a sense of control and reduce anxiety—essential ingredients for tackling the intricate task of arranging various elements into a seamless composition.
Arrangements are to music, what the scenario is to a movie. Stories are made in so many different ways that to dive into how to do it, it’s important to get inspiration from storytellers you love. Personally, I love David Lynch and here are some of the points that he uses for his stories.
His style is characterized by surrealism, dreamlike sequences, and a blend of the mundane and the mysterious. Here are some key aspects of David Lynch’s approach to storytelling:
1. Embrace of the Subconscious: Lynch often delves into the subconscious and explores the depths of human psychology. His stories frequently incorporate dreamlike elements, blurring the lines between reality and the inner workings of the mind. This approach allows him to tap into universal emotions and fears that resonate on a deeply emotional level.
2. Dark and Mystical Atmosphere: Lynch’s storytelling often features dark and mysterious atmospheres that create a sense of unease and suspense. He blends the ordinary with the uncanny, infusing the mundane with an air of mystery that keeps viewers engaged and intrigued.
3. Visual Symbolism: Symbolism plays a significant role in Lynch’s work. He often uses visual symbols and metaphors to convey complex themes and emotions. These symbols may be recurring motifs or objects that hold deeper meanings within the context of his stories.
4. Unconventional Narrative Structures: Lynch is known for subverting traditional narrative structures. His stories may not follow a linear path, and he’s willing to leave certain aspects open to interpretation. This unconventional approach invites viewers to engage with the material on a more contemplative level, often sparking discussions and theories about the meanings behind his work.
5. Exploration of Dark Themes: Lynch’s stories frequently explore dark and taboo themes, such as violence, identity crisis, and the duality of human nature. He is unafraid to confront uncomfortable subjects and present them in a way that challenges the audience’s perceptions.
6. Use of Sound and Music: Lynch pays meticulous attention to sound and music in his storytelling. The auditory elements in his films contribute to the overall atmosphere and mood, enhancing the viewer’s experience and adding an additional layer of depth.
7. Character Depth and Ambiguity: Lynch’s characters often have hidden depths, and their motivations might remain ambiguous. This approach invites viewers to actively engage with the characters and their journeys, encouraging introspection and analysis.
8. Collaborative Approach: Lynch often collaborates closely with artists, musicians, and other creatives to bring his stories to life. This collaborative approach results in multi-dimensional works that integrate various artistic forms.
Perhaps these will raise some ideas.
Creating Your Own Musical Overture: Crafting Personal Rituals and Routines
1. Identify Your Goals:
Before crafting your rituals and routines, define what aspects of music production you’d like to enhance. Are you seeking greater inspiration, improved focus, or a more organized approach to arrangement?
2. Harness the Power of Consistency:
Choose rituals and routines that resonate with you and align with your creative process. Consistency is key—repetition helps solidify the connection between the practice and the desired outcome.
1. Set Clear Goals: Define specific and achievable goals for your music practice and performance. Having clear objectives gives you a sense of direction and purpose, making it easier to stay motivated and consistent.
2. Create a Schedule: Establish a regular practice schedule and stick to it. Consistency thrives on routine. Whether it’s daily, weekly, or monthly, having dedicated time for practice helps build momentum.
3. Start Small: Avoid overwhelming yourself with overly ambitious goals. Start with manageable practice sessions, gradually increasing the duration and complexity as your consistency improves.
4. Break It Down: Divide your practice sessions into smaller, focused segments. This approach helps prevent burnout and allows you to work on specific areas of improvement.
5. Practice Mindfully: Quality matters more than quantity. Focus fully on your practice without distractions. Engage in deliberate practice by identifying areas that need improvement and working on them purposefully.
6. Use a Practice Journal: Keep a practice journal to track your progress, challenges, and areas of improvement. This reflection helps you identify patterns, celebrate milestones, and stay accountable.
7. Embrace Repetition: Consistency is built through repetition. Repeatedly practicing scales, exercises, and songs helps you develop muscle memory and master techniques over time.
8. Prioritize Consistency Over Intensity: Regular, shorter practice sessions are often more effective than sporadic intense sessions. Consistency builds steady progress, while intensity can lead to burnout.
9. Find Accountability: Share your goals and practice routine with a friend, teacher, or fellow musician. Accountability can motivate you to stay consistent and track your progress.
10. Reward Yourself: Celebrate your achievements, no matter how small. Treat yourself after reaching milestones to reinforce positive behavior.
11. Embrace Imperfection: Perfectionism can hinder consistency. Accept that progress involves making mistakes and learning from them. Focus on improvement rather than flawless execution.
12. Stay Inspired: Seek inspiration from other musicians, genres, and styles. Exploring new musical territories can reignite your passion and keep your practice engaging.
13. Be Patient: Consistency takes time to yield noticeable results. Don’t get discouraged by slow progress. Keep the long-term perspective in mind.
14. Mix It Up: Vary your practice routine to prevent monotony. Experiment with different practice techniques, styles, and genres to keep your sessions fresh.
15. Rest and Recovery: Incorporate rest days into your routine. Rest is essential for preventing burnout and maintaining physical and mental well-being.
16. Adapt and Adjust: Life can be unpredictable. If you miss a practice session, don’t be too hard on yourself. Instead, adapt your schedule and get back on track as soon as possible.
3. Mindfulness and Presence:
Integrate mindfulness into your rituals. Whether it’s a pre-recording breathing exercise or a quiet moment before arrangement, cultivating mindfulness can amplify your creative presence.
My favorite book about this practice is “Wherever you go, there you are” by Jon Kabat-Zinn.
4. Document Your Journey:
Keep a journal to track the impact of your rituals and routines on your music production process. Reflect on moments of breakthrough, increased focus, or enhanced inspiration.
I personally love the Voice Memos on my iPhone to record some notes.
5. The Science Behind the Symphony: Insights from Studies
A study published in the “Creativity Research Journal” found that engaging in consistent creative rituals enhances creativity and provides a sense of control over the creative process.
Research in the “Journal of Neuroscience” reveals that mindfulness practices, often integrated into creative rituals, stimulate the brain’s default mode network, fostering divergent thinking and innovative ideas.
The “Journal of Experimental Psychology” suggests that routines can boost cognitive performance and improve memory, thus facilitating efficient editing and arrangement tasks.
In Conclusion: The Symphony of Productivity and Creativity
As musicians compose their sonic tapestries, the interplay of rituals, routines, and habits creates a symphony that resonates with discipline and inspiration. Just as a symphony conductor meticulously directs each note, crafting your own set of practices can transform your music production journey into a harmonious masterpiece. By understanding the common threads that unite these practices and embracing their transformative impact, you’ll not only find the hooks and arrangements that resonate but also unlock the full potential of your creative symphony.
https://audioservices.studio/wp-content/uploads/2023/08/spiritism.jpeg10801080pheekhttps://audioservices.studio/wp-content/uploads/2022/07/logo-menu.jpgpheek2023-08-08 18:13:032023-08-08 18:13:03Rituals, Routines, and Habits in Music Production
Validation plays a pivotal role in shaping an individual’s path, and for aspiring musicians, it can have a profound impact on their career trajectory. This article delves into the significance of validation, exploring how it can influence young musicians, propel their passion for music, and eventually transform it into a fulfilling profession.
In today’s interconnected world, we are witnessing a paradigm shift in how validation influences the decisions of children and teenagers in their self-development journeys. As they explore their interests, they seek recognition and support from their peers, mentors, and communities. When it comes to music, this need for validation is no different.
It often begins with an innate fascination for music that prompts young individuals to embark on a journey of self-discovery. They experiment with different instruments, melodies, and rhythms, gradually honing their skills. As they immerse themselves in the world of music, they find solace and joy in their own creative expressions.
During this formative phase, their close circle of friends and the community they engage with plays a significant role. Positive reinforcement and validation from friends who appreciate and admire their musical talent can instill a sense of confidence and fuel their determination. These early validations act as catalysts, pushing them to explore music further, sharpen their skills, and strive for excellence.
Moreover, the importance of surrounding oneself with quality artists cannot be overstated. As young musicians connect with like-minded individuals who share their passion for music, they enter a realm of inspiration and artistic growth.
These connections create a community of musicians who inspire and challenge each other, fostering an environment of creativity, collaboration, and continuous improvement.
Adopting external feedback as approval
In the last years, I’ve had the opportunity to coach multiple artists who faced various challenges. Validation often came as something people often seek in the first place, when it comes to making music. I see artists attend events, see artists in motion, performing, networking and then they want to be part of that movement. You can’t access that easily and making music often comes as a solution to be part of a community of fellow musicians.
On that path of music making, one can adopt multiple sources of validation. One challenge they face is related to their level of experience. It’s rare an experimented producer will open up to connect with people who have less experience. Unless you have met them in person and have a connection, the odds that you connect with them through social media are pretty low.
Another point to keep in mind is while we seek for positive feedback, we might attract misleading people. Through my years of experience, so many times, people have provided feedback that made no sense, pointed me in the wrong direction and often, I could only realize it later on. When I coach people, I often have to break old patterns people have integrated from Youtube influencers or explain how to avoid simply apply a technique without knowing how and why to use it.
Let’s explore three examples that illustrate how artists are inspired by their close friends and community, ultimately shaping their musical journey:
Collaborative Exploration:
Imagine a group of teenagers with an affinity for music and festivals, forming a collective in their high school years. They share their compositions, experiment with different genres, and perform together. Within this collaborative environment, they validate each other’s ideas, talents, and potential. The group becomes a creative hub, nurturing their passion for music and encouraging them to refine their skills. Through mutual support and validation, they collectively grow as musicians, laying the foundation for their future careers.
Mentorship and Role Models:
In certain cases, young musicians are fortunate to have experienced mentors or role models within their community. These individuals may be established musicians or industry professionals who recognize the budding talent and potential in these aspiring artists. By offering guidance, imparting knowledge, and validating their skills, these mentors become invaluable sources of inspiration and motivation. Their validation reinforces the belief that a career in music is not only attainable but also worth pursuing.
The Power of Musical Networks:
In an interconnected world, musicians have the opportunity to connect with a vast network of artists and industry professionals through social media platforms, online communities, and music events. Building relationships within this network can have a profound impact on their careers. By associating with established musicians or collaborating with talented peers, young artists gain exposure to different perspectives, styles, and techniques. The validation and recognition received from these interactions bolster their confidence, expand their musical horizons, and open doors to new opportunities.
Building Self Validation
Ideally, one wants to create self validation. This is the hardest thing to build if you’re an artist. Understanding that you music is a form of communication in need of connection is necessary to split your needs into two parts. On one side, you’ll want to learn to cover the technical understanding of your music to fit the context your music belongs to. This implies these points:
Arrangements: You can validate yourself through your own references that should include music that you know works well.
Mixing: This can be validated through another professional but if you learn validate yourself here, it would come to understanding your different sounds. Again, references will make a difference here.
Mastering: You can mostly make sure you have the same loudness and make sure you’re not having distortions, resonances.
Technical self validation takes a while to understand but working with fellow artists and professional will teach you to recognize what works or not.
No one expect you to cover all of this on your own.
The non-technical part is complicated. It’s either you have incredible trust that what you do works (which is rare), or work with your circle of 5. But everything is relative and arbitrary in that field, including your own judgement. I find that the best way to develop self validation is to learn to accept your music as it is, with it’s flaws.
In conclusion, validation serves as a cornerstone in the journey of a musician. Starting from the early stages of self-discovery and exploration, positive validation from friends, mentors, and communities can ignite a passion for music and drive an individual to pursue it further. Surrounding oneself with quality artists and being part of a supportive network can provide inspiration, guidance, and invaluable learning experiences. Aspiring musicians who receive validation and recognition early on are more likely to turn their passion into a fulfilling career, fuelled by the belief in their own abilities and the support of their peers.
https://audioservices.studio/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/validation.jpeg10001000pheekhttps://audioservices.studio/wp-content/uploads/2022/07/logo-menu.jpgpheek2023-06-13 11:29:582023-06-13 17:39:11The Power of Validation: How Early Influences Shape a Musician’s Career
As technology advances, it has become easier for musicians to promote their music and connect with people online. However, meeting people in person can still provide better chances for long-lasting work relationships. Music festivals provide a unique opportunity for musicians to connect with other artists, label owners, festival staff, and industry professionals.
I might sound old here, but the only thing that I think made a huge difference for me in my career advancement was that I had the chance to go out every week for years and meet up with a circle of people that I could share with. In that circle would be music producers but also, non musicians that would attend regularly and with who I could connect about music, what they love and see how music was impacting them. That community all grew together, supported each other and everyone got a chance to have some success. For a while, Montreal’s scene was recognized as very prolific and I’m pretty sure that meeting everyone on a regular basis made a difference.
One thing about being with people in events is related to having common peak experiences. Those create meaningful connections, something that people talk about years after. I sometimes hear people in a restaurant talking about past restaurants and not really commenting on the present moment. Same for events.
A peak experience is a term used to describe a transcendent, ecstatic, or otherwise profound moment or experience that can involve a sense of unity, oneness, or connection with something greater than oneself. This concept was first introduced by humanistic psychologist Abraham Maslow in the 1960s and was later popularized by other psychologists and self-help authors.
Peak experiences can occur in a variety of contexts, such as during artistic or creative pursuits, spiritual or religious practices, sports or physical activities, or even in everyday moments of connection with nature or other people. They are often characterized by feelings of euphoria, awe, and deep insight or understanding.
Some common features of peak experiences include a sense of timelessness or time dilation, a feeling of being fully present in the moment, a heightened sense of clarity and perception, and a sense of personal transformation or growth. Peak experiences can be transformative and have a lasting impact on a person’s worldview, values, and sense of self.
One peak experience for me that I’ll never forget was a night I heard Villalobos play at Club Der Visionaere. He was just from another dimension and the people I was with were all listening, looking at each other in disbelief. There was no one talking as I often see in clubs.
As a musician and artist, one thing that you want is to design such an experience. To go out is one way of living the way people do as well. This makes important connections.
Here are three important reasons why in-person contacts are impactful for musicians.
1. Building Trust and Personal Connections
Meeting someone in person builds trust and personal connections that are difficult to establish online. By attending music festivals and other industry events, musicians have the opportunity to shake hands, share stories, and make personal connections with other artists and industry professionals. These personal connections can lead to long-lasting work relationships, collaborations, and even friendships.
2. Opportunities for Collaboration
Music festivals bring together musicians from different genres and backgrounds, creating opportunities for collaboration. By meeting in person, musicians can discuss their music and explore possibilities for future collaborations. They can also exchange ideas and learn from each other, leading to creative breakthroughs and new musical styles.
3. Gaining Exposure and Networking
Attending music festivals and other industry events provides exposure and networking opportunities for musicians. By meeting industry professionals such as label owners, booking agents, and festival staff, musicians can gain exposure and potentially secure future gigs and opportunities. Networking is also an essential aspect of building a successful music career, and in-person events provide a great opportunity to expand one’s network.
“The Circle of 5”
The concept of the “Circle of 5” is important for musicians who seek validation for their music. Having a diverse set of contacts that can provide feedback and support can help accelerate the validation process and move the musician’s career forward. The five types of contacts are as follows:
Close Friend Non-Musician – This person provides an outsider’s perspective and can provide honest feedback on the music’s appeal to a general audience.
Close Friend Musician – This person is familiar with the musician’s style and can provide constructive feedback on the music’s technical aspects.
Music Producer with Similar Production Experience – This person can provide feedback on the music’s production quality and offer suggestions for improvement.
Someone from the Music Industry – This person can provide insight into the music industry and offer advice on how to navigate it.
Mentor – This person is an experienced musician or industry professional who can offer guidance and support to the musician.
Having a circle of five contacts provides the musician with diverse perspectives and feedback, which can help them refine their music and move their career forward. It is essential to build relationships with these contacts over time to ensure their support and continued input.
Too often I work with emerging artists struggling and most of the time, what I see, are people who don’t go out enough to meet other.
My tips for best impression in festival:
Contact people with the objective to get to know them, not to tell them of a business agenda.
Be yourself, let the ego aside. Don’t talk about your achievement and what you do best.
Don’t prove anything, avoid confronting people on things you disagree with. Sometimes if you meet artists you love, it doesn’t mean you are on the same page. No need to tell them.
Be generous and adopt a listening role. People tend to appreciate others who pay attention to them.
Have trust that meeting people, even if it doesn’t seem to bring anything, is the right thing to do and that it will pay off on the long term.
Conclusion
While technology has made it easier for musicians to promote their music online, in-person connections are still valuable for building long-lasting work relationships. Music festivals provide a unique opportunity for musicians to connect with other artists and industry professionals, leading to collaboration, exposure, and networking opportunities. The concept of the “Circle of 5” is also essential for musicians seeking validation and support for their music. By building relationships with these contacts over time, musicians can refine their music and accelerate their careers.
https://audioservices.studio/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/people.jpeg10001000pheekhttps://audioservices.studio/wp-content/uploads/2022/07/logo-menu.jpgpheek2023-06-05 17:44:542023-06-06 10:35:02The Benefits Of In Person Sessions For Music Production
In recent years, mental health has become less of a taboo topic among musicians, and for good reason. The music industry, as well as streaming services, have put immense pressure on musicians to create music that may not be true to who they are, leading to destructive conditions that are negative for creativity. It’s sort of sad that some artists are now sharing their mental health updates but at the same time, it also the first step to getting suppor. Therefore, I thought I’d write about mental health and music.
We’ll explore why it’s essential for musicians to live rich, fulfilling lives outside of music in order to create music that has more depth and meaning. I’d like to propose some ways to make meaningful music that does sacrifice your mental health.
Chasing success
The pressure to constantly produce new music is undeniable in the music industry. We’ve been told that if we don’t release music, we haven’t received validation and if we are quiet for a while, people will forget about us. The need to keep up with the latest trends and remain relevant has led to an overwhelming emphasis on quantity over quality. Musicians are often pushed to create music that is less relevant to who they are, sacrificing their authenticity for the sake of commercial success. This can be incredibly damaging to a musician’s mental health, leading to depression, anxiety, and burnout. Let’s not forget that it leaves traces of past albums that you might feel completely disconnected from.
Additionally, touring can be an incredibly stressful experience for musicians. The constant travel, lack of sleep, and pressure to perform can take a toll on their mental and physical well-being. The industry has normalized the idea that musicians should work themselves to the bone, with little regard for their health and well-being. This toxic culture can create a hostile environment that is not conducive to creativity and self-expression. We’re also been told that touring is the dream but once in it, things aren’t as easy as a dream can be.
TRY: Focus on the time you spend on making music instead of the end result. That can be achieved by doing experiences that requires no goals intended, such as making a macro.
Taking Breaks
It’s essential for musicians to take breaks between music releases to live rich, fulfilling lives outside of music. Experiences outside of music can help inspire and inform a musician’s creative process. When a musician has a diverse range of experiences to draw from, their music has more depth and meaning. Taking the time to live fully can help a musician reconnect with their true self, enabling them to create music that is authentic and true to who they are.
Strangely enough to me, I often hear about artists who think that taking break is taking a pause in music making. The distance you take activates your brain and you’ll be flooded with ideas and you’ll be making music, in your mind, as it is still ongoing.
TRY: Go for a 15 minutes walk and observe what train of thoughts you’ll have.
Coming Down The Mountain
For this, I heard this talk by Lauren Hill who was explaining why she produces slowly and it made a lot of sense to me. The way she explains it, there are mountains and there are valleys. Life is bipolar and even a day has a ups and downs. What’s not viable is to think we always have to remain at the top of the mountain to be successful and recognized. Being at the top of the mountain enforces the need to embrace perfectionism as a way to make music.
Being at the top of the mountain is when you’re in full control of your flow and techniques. Some people learn what’s necessary and are feeling comfortable with it, releasing music, touring. But that gets tiring and if you never learn to go down the mountain, it might be a shock you when you eventually crash, tumbling all the way down to the bottom.
TRY: Spend a studio session mastering one effect or tool in your DAW. Watch a few tutorials and the practice.
Coping With Imperfection
I’ve always been comfortable with imperfection. I think accepting it has helped me move forward with projects, albums. I’d be ok understanding that I can wrap the idea and moving on, I would work on the next using what I learned. In hindsight, I think I spent way too much time in the valleys than on top of mountains, which explains why I don’t tour much but I’m totally at peace with it.
What’s hard is to cope with harsh feedback and people who feel entitled that you should serve them perfect music, each time. I accept criticism and see it as a way to improve, sometimes, if it makes sense but it can be frustrating if I think that the listener isn’t understanding that I am maybe in learning of new techniques which means that my output isn’t as quality as the last one.
So that means, it comes down to dive in creativity as much as possible and not do too much damage control of my music.
TRY: When you’re about to wrap a project, ask yourself which part you’re ok to accept as imperfection. Keep in mind that wherever you are will be an imperfect moment compared to your future-you.
Learning New Techniques To Stay Mentally Fresh
One way to inspire creativity is by learning new music and techniques. However, it’s important not to get bogged down in the technicalities of music. When a musician is at ease with their techniques, they can reach a state of flow where they can tap into their intuition and creativity. This state of flow allows a musician to be fully present and in the moment, allowing their creativity to flourish. That’s when you’re on the top of the mountain.
How to find new techniques?
Mostly by listening to songs you love and then paying attention to one element you love to try to reproduce it. When I listen to music, I listen as a whole but then I take a second listen where I listen with a modular approach asking myself certain questions: How is the percussion? how is the melody evolving? what are the sounds I hear (synths, acoustic, long, short, muffled, detailed)? is there a background? What is in front?
I learn to love songs but I learned to love songs for specific attributes, which was a very important skill for my job. As a sound engineer, I see value in learning to love any music, especially if I have to work with it. When a client ask me to work on a song, I need to find at least one thing I love about it and then build around there.
Then if there are things I don’t like, I want to see how I can improve it. This becomes a learning experience, but through specific themes. Those become an exercise to learn.
For example, chord progressions, kick design, synths, vocal effects, etc. Then you go on youtube and you basically write in your own words what you need to know.
What’s exciting is, there are so many videos about one topic and since there are multiple ways to get to a specific result, you can really expand your skill set. Personally, when people come to me for learning mixing or production, I notice that frequently they lack understanding concepts of the previous phase. For instance, the one before mixing is arrangement. You might want to learn mixing, but you need by understanding arrangements first. Sometimes people want to learn about arrangements, but I notice they lack understanding of sound design. When you learn one skill, you’re basically opening roads and easiness for the following ones.
Sometimes, people ask, “I don’t know if there are things I don’t know so it’s hard for me to know where to start!?” or, how to get that started exactly. This starts with curiosity.
Be interested in parts of songs you like. For instance, the bass of that song and the percussion of that other one. Or the chords of a specific song. Then go to Youtube and see if someone can explain you how to do it. Start with simple searches and that will bring more ideas.
Basic concepts that you should really understand early on, should you lack ideas:
Gain staging
How envelopes work.
Signal flow (a bit advanced).
Try referencing artists, use software you use and try to articulate your best ideas. But the more you search, you’ll be exposed to may different ways to do things and will have material to practice with.
Two softwares that I regularly recommend for referencing are Bassroom (for the low end) and Reference for the overall understanding the difference between your references and your music.
I find more important to record a lot of ideas as a way to document your journey. That is a good lesson to let go of controlling imperfections. A way to let go is to understand that there will always be imperfection but you’ll be limited with what you know, at a specific moment. Leaving it as is, shows you’re ok with it.
In conclusion, the music industry and streaming services have put immense pressure on musicians to create music that may not be true to who they are. I think we need to reverse this by slowing down and spending more time learning. There are too much time trying to produce without being in control of your techniques and this leads to much time being lost.
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There’s something quite misleading about seeing artists we love in their studios, especially when there’s all the gear one can dream of. On one hand, you see someone accomplished with all that equipment and you might be thinking that the success brought all that gear or perhaps, the gear made that success. Then, on the other hand, you see yourself in that exact position where you dream to be the spotlight of everyone else. In both cases, you can imagine success all around and the studio is the key to get to your goals.
Chasing perfection is like running after a mirage in the desert. It is basically hunting a ghost, not knowing if that ghost is really exists in the first place.
In past posts, I explained some challenges regarding that and how to work with a definition of done so that you can have a better idea of where you’re heading.
The music industry has undergone a significant transformation in recent years. With the rise of digital music streaming services, social media, and other digital platforms, the traditional model of chasing success in music production is now an outdated approach. In this blog post, we will discuss why chasing success in music production is a failed model, and provide alternatives for musicians to achieve fulfillment in their music career.
The Misconception of Success
One of the biggest misconceptions in the music industry is the definition of success. Many musicians view success as achieving fame, wealth, and recognition for their music. However, this definition is narrow and incomplete. All those can’t be measured. You might think that a certain number of followers on a social media will provide some sort of success, but once you have that amount of people, you will realize that it doesn’t bring any passive income or more sales. You need to continue working hard times to get something out of it, which will be taking time away from your studio use. Same for sales. You might make a bunch, but then what? You’ll be chasing something else. Success in music should be viewed as a personal accomplishment, rather than an external validation. I often refer to that as perhaps, happiness.
Alan Watts, a British philosopher, once said, “The meaning of life is just to be alive. It is so plain and so obvious, and so simple. And yet, everybody rushes around in a great panic as if it were necessary to achieve something beyond themselves.” This quote perfectly illustrates the importance of finding personal fulfillment in the music-making process, rather than chasing external validation.
The Context of Success
Another aspect that musicians often overlook when chasing success is the context in which success occurred. The success of an artist is not just a result of their talent, but also a result of timing, luck, and other external factors. The movie “Searching for Sugarman” tells the story of Sixto Rodriguez, a musician who achieved critical acclaim in South Africa in the 1970s but remained unknown in the US. The film highlights the importance of context in success, and how success can be achieved in unexpected ways.
Alternatives view to Chasing Success
So, if chasing success in music production is a failed model, what are the alternatives? Here are some alternatives to consider:
Focus on the Creative Process (the journey)
One of the best ways to find fulfillment in music production is to focus on the creative process. Rather than obsessing over the end result, focus on the journey and enjoy the process of creating music. This approach will help you stay motivated and inspired, and ultimately lead to a more fulfilling music-making experience. As this is easier said than done, how do I do that? Well, when one is focused on the end result, you’ll get annoyed if something goes wrong: for example, a synth doesn’t sound as you have in your initial vision. Focusing on the process mostly means that you’re curious about the task you’re doing at the moment and less trying to perfect things.
TIP: Try to have 50% of your studio sessions aimed at doing nothing but jamming and having fun instead of be productive.
Develop Your Skills
Another way to achieve fulfillment is to focus on developing your skills. The more you practice and refine your craft, the more you will grow as a musician. One thing I tell people is that you’ll learn more by starting 100 songs than trying to perfect one. When you start 100 different projects, the goal is to face a different challenge each time. It could be a new technique, the use of a new plugin or an unusual sound. This will not only lead to personal satisfaction but will also make you a more competitive and capable musician in the industry.
TIP: Try to start 100 songs then work with them in alternating.
Connect with Your Immediate Audience
One of the most rewarding aspects of music production is connecting with your audience. The mistake most people make is to try to reach out to people who don’t really care. What you need to do is foster the close people who could care, which I call (no pun intended) the circle of five (wink to the circle of fifth). This approach will not only provide a sense of fulfillment but will also help you build a sustainable music career.
TIP: Commit to connecting with your 5 people and create a dynamic where everyone can help each other.
Set Realistic Goals
While it’s important to focus on the journey rather than the destination, setting realistic goals can help you stay on track and motivated. Rather than setting goals based on external validation, focus on setting goals that are meaningful to you and align with your personal values. Question your goals, talk to experienced mentors and producers and then try to scale down your projects to a minimum.
Tip: make a list of different sounds you love or songs you often listen to and then aim at trying to understand what you love it. Then work towards in making music you love.
Conclusion
Chasing success in music production is an outdated and failed model. The music industry has undergone a significant transformation in recent years, and success can no longer be defined by traditional metrics such as album sales or chart performance. Instead, musicians should focus on finding personal fulfillment in the creative process, developing their skills, connecting with their audience, and setting realistic goals.
As Alan Watts said, the meaning of life is simply to be alive. The same can be said for music production. The most important aspect of music production is finding personal fulfillment in the process of creating music. So, rather than chasing success, focus on the journey and enjoy the process of making music.
https://audioservices.studio/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/chasing-success.jpeg10001000pheekhttps://audioservices.studio/wp-content/uploads/2022/07/logo-menu.jpgpheek2023-04-16 20:59:322023-04-16 21:04:03Chasing success is a failed model
I’ve always been interested in the restaurant industry and particularly with the whole process of how they give awards like Michelin Stars. There are a number of criterias that will define if a chef will earn one and I find there is some inspiration to take from those points to apply them to one music producer’s work. While there’s no written notes on what the criteria are, what we do know is that there are key points such as ability, quality, and the chef’s personality. However, one that really stands out is consistency.
This is a common shared topic with clients of mine. Everyone pretty much dreams of finding a formula that will make sure each song is good and that each time they hit the studio, something worthy will come out from the time invested. There are straightforward ways to make sure we get there but there are also some points that I will explain that might be a bit unsettling.
Managing Expectations
It’s always a bit hard to talk about expectations with clients. There are a few points to keep in mind when it comes to that. First, many people are passionate about music in the first place and rely on that hobby for multiple hopes such as, acceptance and validation from their community or other hero producers of theirs. This alone creates some big goals, which creates stress that can glitch creativity and productivity. Same for other producers who have released some music and feel a pressure to do more, but they’re facing some tensions towards what they do: feeling of being inadequate, hitting technical limitations, unfair comparisons to others, etc.
I personally don’t really believe that having constant positive sessions from the studio, where you are 100% happy with your music, is humanly possible. For those who do, I would also question how much fun that is since in the long run it can be really stressful and tiring.
So rather than having perfect consistency in music, I think it’s better to change the approach to defining what your victory conditions are. In the Definition of Done article we covered how to set yourself clear points to know you’re done with a project while accepting how many imperfections you can live with. But victory conditions are slightly different, yet, also similar.
So for instance, I used to know some professional musicians that were forcing themselves to go to the studio everyday and make one song minimum. Since I worked with them, I had the chance to listen and I had to say I thought the songs they showered me were interesting about 5% of the time (there were a lot of them). We talked about it and realized not only was he not happy about the situation nor the outcome, but he also realized he was just not achieving anything he hoped for. So we worked together to shift his workflow and expectations.
I proposed my non-linear music making technique where he would work on several tracks at once instead of one song at a time. I also talked about what he loved doing so we can make sure that part would be at least 50% of his studio time. In his case, he loved sound design and creating new songs which are perfect. I showed him that music can also be about that and that making music is an important part of music making but it is not the only part of it. Starting new songs is, to me, just as important as finishing them. The more you start one, the better the odds to really create solid and original ideas. Then you harvest the best ones to turn them into a song. We also revised different ways to do sound design and techniques to try.
This changed a lot the outcomes of his music and the quality of the following tracks got much better, even if the pace of them coming out got a hit. This is why I sometimes encourage people to focus on tracks made per season instead of days, or weeks.
Victory Conditions
We all have different conditions and there’s no real best way to do this but I find that victory conditions should be different than releasing goals. Some people feel victorious if they get their album out after months of work, but soon they want more of it and then they face a return to the studio that feels like a pain. In my case, after years of experience, I find that my victory conditions has boiled down to having a blast when I’m in the studio, even if that implies working hard on solving issues.
This implies two different things: First, there is a part of me that is there to solve issues, install gear, create an environment that is workable and fix details to ensure all is well. Second, I have to prepare for my conditions by making sure that I have all the necessary skills to make music. So, if in a Definition Of Done, we set the points that would make us see we’re done, in the Victory Conditions, we establish what is needed to go there and what is also to make it possible.
Since for me, it is related to fun, I had to reverse engineer it.
That implied that I had to look back at a really fun session and see what happened to make it work, and to enjoy it. More often than not, while a session can be ruined by technical problems, it’s clear that some sessions in the studio should be dedicated to preventing issues, but also, some other sessions would be dedicated to practicing a technique or new concept, so that when I hit the zone, I have all on hand.
So what about you?
In the development of an artist, there are numerous stages and phases. You might be in one that is so challenging that the fun doesn’t happen too much. It might be because you feel overwhelmed by a specific issue, some software limitation, lack of knowledge on a topic and aiming for fun might seem a bit of frustration. The thing is, if that can help, I have to say that there has been many years in my life where I accomplished so many things without knowing much and that the more I knew, the more I slowed down. I often say that it’s important to finish something and learn rather than chase perfection.
In other words, whatever you are struggling with might actually be a distraction. There are a lot of things to learn on Youtube and if you can’t find it, there are always people to help – that includes me. You don’t have to stay with a problem for long nowadays, compared to times before the internet’s abundant tutorials.
Perhaps you can create conditions where you work on a few things at once, small things and try to make the most of that.
Quality Control, being practical
We talked about the philosophical and workflow part of this topic but what about the technical side of things? What are some of the main elements that do maintain consistency between songs?
There are multiple points you could use a checklist. After years and years of working on music, I do see correlations between songs that manage to get some kind of success. I won’t dive into the promotion, releasing and anything unrelated to production though because that’s a bit of a rabbit hole which changes every 3-6 months. I can’t follow.
By commercial, I don’t mean it in a derogatory way. I’m basically relating to music that is intended to be pushed for sales. If you make music and want distribution, there are chances the distributor might turn it down if they consider it will not sell enough. This is a norm for P&D (press and distribution) deals, because the distribution is basically covering the costs and will expect a ROI (return on investment). In my book, if you make music with the idea to make sales, it is mostly and clearly commercial (eg. we’re producing it in a sales angle).
On the other hand, artistic music might be simply digital or released at the expense of the artist, without distribution and there is very little expectation of sales. This kind of music is often a bit more edgy, abstract, risky, not following many rules and has a bigger chance of not being able to be fitting any rules.
If we compare that to a restaurant, the commercial one is often knowing what sells and will feature a direction, style with some star dishes that people want each time they visit. The artistic ones would be a restaurant where they change the menu each day and take risks.
They both need consistency on a number of things: fresh ingredients, recipes being respected, taste being coherent on each serving, temperature, etc.
It’s pretty much the same with music as well. There are certain criterias you can follow that will ensure that your songs will always deliver. Sometimes it might not have the same punch but if you cover the basics, you’ll have for sure some coherence.
Here are the criterias I have in mind:
Solid hook, main idea. What makes the reason for a song to exist is that you found a solid idea you want to share a story about. That’s how I see music. If you think of traditional music, people write a story and that will be the main idea. For electronic music, more than often there will be no vocals so the sounds and ideas are your story. Don’t make songs for the sake of it (note: I encourage people to make music for the sake of it though, which is different). Find an idea and build a story about it. It can be a sample, a pattern, a fun sound… There’s no rule here but to find one thing you want to listen for 3-6 minutes and really push forward that idea.
Song in key, scale. This might sound weird, especially for people making atonal music or industrial techno who use a chromatic scale, but making sure all your elements are in key will give the song a much more wholeness to it. Not all songs follow one but having a coherent harmony will please many people, especially if in a specific genre, some scales are respected. Optional point here would be chord progression. You don’t always need one but if you have one, make sure that it is solid and coherent. Often when I give feedback to people who are starting in music production, I notice they aren’t respecting this basic point and once they do, they really bring it to another level already.
Rule of thirds in arrangements. This is a bit of a concept I bring up in feedback where I explain to producers that if they divide their song in 3 sections, they all should have some variation, to give the listener a sense of evolution and to keep the attention. If you understand the listening experience as a challenge of keeping attention, you know you need to bring new ideas, but not too much. The rule of third never fails. If you compose pop or anything needing a structure, keep that in mind as well.
Flat mix, coloured master. Clients don’t always understand what a good mix is. If you keep your tone flat but work with an engineer that can color it to match similar songs on the market, you’ll most likely always have a solid, enjoyable song that can compete well. Also, a flat mix means that your elements are not too all over the place, which is important.
Avoid masking, phasing. This is more technical but if you have a busy mix where many elements are used, you’ll most likely end up having a muddy mix. I won’t go into how to fix this in this post and you can google about it but keep in mind that it’s essential to quality.
Get Feedback. Show it to people you trust and ask for specific feedback. Otherwise people will say its cool. Be technical about what you need from them.
Get help. I don’t understand why people want to do everything themselves. It’s basically setting you up for average music. You’ll learn yes, but why not become a master at making music you love doing and get a master to help you mix so you get the most of it? It’s like, if you want to make a sandwich but you want to make the bread yourself, mayonnaise from scratch, grow the veggies, make the cheese, etc. Yes you can, but you could also buy the best ingredients possible and have a killer sandwich too.
Quantity for quality digging. If you see each song as an experiment to learn something new or master a technique, you can speed up your process and make more music. A good way to keep up with quality is to producer many, many songs and then trim down your output to the ones you know are shining. The more you finishing music, the more you’ll develop skills, which make sure the following tracks are better quality. Then when you can pick what you share abroad, to the outside world, they’ll only see quality.
If you cover these points, you’ll most likely have something you’ll be proud of and when you share a song, people will know what to expect from you, even if you take risks, creatively wise.
https://audioservices.studio/wp-content/uploads/2022/07/consistency-1024x1024-1.png10241024pheekhttps://audioservices.studio/wp-content/uploads/2022/07/logo-menu.jpgpheek2022-09-06 19:41:462023-01-20 15:39:43How To Compose With Consistency
Perhaps you’ve been making music for a little while or you’re completely new to it, perhaps on the verge of jumping in this as a new hobby, and you have this overwhelming feeling of being overwhelmed or lost. Let’s be fair, some hobbies are easier than others to start with. Maybe you’ve tried DJing and you saw how fast it is to get into it and then tried producing and found it to be a steep learning curve. Therefore, I thought I’d write about the different challenges people face when they start and the workaround or strategies that I give to students in order to get through the difficult emotions.
Common Beliefs and Misconceptions about Music Production
There are so many different misconceptions about our passion that it’s a bit difficult to list them but I’ll try to debunk many ideas that confuse people I work with.
“Electronic music is easy to do” or a variant, “If you have everything you need, then it’s easy to do.”
This is honestly the one I debunk on a regular basis. I often also argue with strangers about it and I gathered so much theory. So to start with how easy it is, that’s absolutely not true. I’ve explored making music for 30 years and there are still times where I’m not totally sure what I’m doing. Also, I learn something new every single day I practice.
Do I need to know everything to make music? No, absolutely not. I’ve been able to make over 20 albums and on some of them, I was just scratching the surface of what production is about.
The idea that it’s easy comes from the idea that compared to someone who grabs a guitar and performs music theory, rhythms and all that is related to music perfectly is harder, that’s something not everyone can do. On the surface, technology has democratically opened music making by making so many tools, software, and hardware that can let many do more than anyone could, 30+ years ago. It doesn’t mean it’s easier.
If you want to make a loop and play music, yes, it can be similar to video games and that part is honestly where most of the fun is. Anyone that wants to go deeper will soon feel like that will not be enough and want more.
This is where the second variant kicks in, with the idea that you need something else to do that. You’ll also be exposed that you need something from all the ads we are exposed to or if you talk to other producers, they’ll quickly tell you all the things you need… Which is a bit of a trap.
I’ve said it many times before, but to do music you basically, at minimum, need one device that can make a sound(mobile phone, tablet, hardware, computer) t and something to listen to (headphones, speakers). That’s really all you need.
When I tell that to people, I often then get the famous “I knew it was easy!” response.
That’s when I drop the bomb.
Oh yeah, it’s easy… You’ll just need to understand the basic theory of sound design, signal flow, music fundamentals, engineering, storytelling, and perhaps also recording too, to name a few. So then again, it’s confusing because as a newcomer, you might be aware of how little you know and this triggers confusion and frustration.
So this is where there’s a paradox. On one hand, everything is there, but it doesn’t mean that you’ll know how to get your way through to achieve what you want to do.
My approach is simple – it’s about convincing anyone diving into music to start with little steps. I saw many people wanting to learn how to play piano and some of the first exercises they’ll start with is to get familiar with hands on the notes, play around with scales, and basically just practice going up and down the keys. If you learn piano, this is what you expect to do at first because it’s the basis of playing.
When it comes to electronic music, people are all over the place. They want to make a song, they want to make music like an artist they love, they want to try this and that… So much to do and there’s not much of a methodology anywhere so people try things and it often fails.
So, more myths follow.
“You make a song by starting from the beginning and then finish it”
This one is probably the most damaging of all because it puts people in a workflow that is counterproductive, alienating and just not fun at all. If you are familiar with this blog, you’ll be familiar with my idea that making one song at a time is one of the worst ways to work. So perhaps let’s think about what it means to you to make a song, or what a song is supposed to be.
For some, it’s a little story, for others it’s an experiment, or it can be something for a DJ to play. The thing they all have in common is that they have a beginning and an end, plus some ideas that evolve (or not) in the middle. Some songs have one idea, others multiple. But what this means is that each song needs at least one idea. This is where music starts, by finding ideas. That means you can probably listen to music you like and love something in it. Perhaps you want to sample something from an old record or just want to write notes of a melody yourself.
I usually stress the importance of finding ideas as one of the main things to do because it’s not hard to do and because it’s fun. The other thing I tell people who start is to spend countless hours in their music software and not have any goals other than to basically test everything with intense curiosity and openness. The more you are goal driven in front of something you don’t understand, the more you might be lost and lose interest. One of the main conditions for finding flow in an activity is to do something that seems doable but a bit challenging while having fun.
Exploring, getting familiar with your software, and doing little experiments is where you start.
Here are some little projects you can do if you’re really new to it:
1- Drag a song or samples you like in your DAW and play with it
chop it, add effects, stretch it, pitch it up or down, destroy it wildly and see what happens. Note what you do and be aware that certain tools bring specific results.
2- Spend time playing 1-2 notes on a keyboard and listen to the results.
This means, test all the synths you have, samplers. Play long or short notes, and see how they behave. Record the notes and try to record the sound, destroy it.
3- Be responsive instead of curating.
One of my approaches with music is to pick any sound and have the attitude that if someone paid me $1000 to do a song with this, what would I do? The problem for many people is that they have access to way too much and they’ll spend the entire studio session searching for a specific sound they’ll never find. This makes you creatively lazy. You’ll learn more working with something crap than searching for the perfect sound. You might actually learn how to make sounds you love by goofing around.
If we agree that ideas make songs and that you like specific ideas, you need to practice playing to gain ease, spontaneity and control in order to eventually make your own ideas. This is why I invite people to play with what they have to become fluent.
So, to sum it up:
To make music you don’t need a lot.
There’s a lot to know but you don’t need to know everything to have fun.
If you have fun, you’ll want to spend time exploring.
Remain curious of what you think is useless or too complicated.
Exploration means practice.
Practice brings new ideas.
Ideas can be turned into songs.
It’s easier to get the most out of a sound than searching for the perfect one.
Simplicity is sophistication.
Making music is about having fun. If it doesn’t feel fun, you’re not seeing it from the right angle.
Last belief that causes harm:
“I have great ideas in my mind but I can’t put them all together in my songs”
Anything one has in mind is wonderful but once you try to replicate it, things are never really exactly the same as what you’d expect. In years of making music, I never really was able to translate my inner world to sound. Perhaps if you’re a singer or folk artist, this is easier but in the realm of electronic music, things are completely different. You can have a nice melody idea but you’ll need the right sound. You might have the right sound, but then the melody might not fit. The more you chase something abstract, the less grasp you’ll have on what you actually control.
There’s a vast number of elements that can really cloud your judgment and to chase something, always brought me frustration. I sometimes had way more fun working on simplistic ideas than going for a very ambitious project. It doesn’t mean that you have to stop yourself, but it’s important to understand where you stand, technically, and operate with your current skills.
Someone was asking, how do I make very long techno tracks like some artists do? My answer was, don’t do that. He was surprised and disappointed. My explanation was that it’s more important that he becomes really good first at doing what he’s doing now. Then you expand and do something a little more challenging once your basis is solid. I explored longer tracks once I managed to make solid 6 minutes ones, then moved to 8, then 10, and then up.
Bonus tip here:
“My friend told me this software is crap”
I could have added a lot of quotes here but my point is that many people will tell you what their experience is, and how they came to some conclusions but in the end, it’s just someone’s perspective. I’m always a bit cautious of people telling me to not do something (especially if I never asked for advice) and will be more curious of people explaining how they managed to do something I like. Many people have self imposed rules that are super weird, not backed by anything technical. Many times I heard some bogus claims that some software wasn’t good enough (FLStudio, for instance is often put down) or that a plugin isn’t for music, while I know so many people that made amazing ideas with the most ridiculous setup and ressources. It’s not what you use, it’s really what you do with it that matters.
https://audioservices.studio/wp-content/uploads/2022/07/getting-started-1024x1024-1.jpeg10241024pheekhttps://audioservices.studio/wp-content/uploads/2022/07/logo-menu.jpgpheek2022-08-02 19:30:222023-01-20 15:39:29Common Beliefs and Misconceptions about Music Production
I understand that many artists build a loop and then they expand outwards from there in order to build a track. However, quite often, this results in them getting lost, because they have no vision of where it is going. They hear their loop and think, “Wow this is really cool; I could listen to this for hours.” Then after listening to it for hours they realize they have no direction in where to go with it.
Sure, there are plenty of people who can create a loop and then build outwards from it, but one thing I notice in coaching is that this is often not the case. Some people can’t finish songs because they have no vision for the finished product. Contrasting, some people can’t finish songs because they have too much of a vision and want to throw it into a template of theirs. Problem is, fresh songs don’t fit a defined template. Therefore, there has to be a delicate line between planning and instinct. That’s when songs come together with ease.
The Hook Is Your Song
Someone who is excellent at this is production mogul Timbaland. If you’re not familiar he’s done tracks with Justin Timberlake, Rihanna, J Cole, Missy Elliot, and dozens more pop stars.
Yeah, yeah, a pop artist, but if you have an open mind about music, you’ll realize that writing pop music is difficult. What’s especially difficult is to continuously write pop songs that top the charts, like Timbaland. There are only a few people on the entire planet who have this skill, so that’s to be respected.
I was recently watching production tutorials of Timbaland’s and one thing that he harps on is that all great songs start with the hook. Sure, it might take a while to get that hook, but he recognizes that it’s the hook that people remember from music. Not the percussio, not even the verses, but the hook. If you don’t know what a hook is, think “Superstition” by Stevie Wonder. What’s the only part of that song that you remember? Yeah, that part. That’s the hook.
Other good examples include Niel Diamond’s “Sweet Caroline”, or Daft Punk’s “Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger.”
Making Non-Pop Hooks
But you may be asking me, “but Pheek, you make avant-garde dance music, and most of your students are avant-garde dance music artists. How on Earth do I take influence from pop hooks?” Well, a hook can be loosely defined. Let’s take Aphex Twin’s “Alberto Balsam.” In a lot of ways, that song kind of follows the “only-hooks” format that producers like Max Martin evangelize, where every phrase is a hook, in a way. Almost every phrase has some sort of memorable element, but in that way, it makes the hook less defined. If there was a hook, it would probably be when the synth first comes in and continues throughout the song in one way.
The key to that “Alberto Balsam” hook is that it readily defines the rest of the song. The moment that comes in, whether it’s a rock band covering it, or it coming on your playlist (because God forbid you’ll probably never see RDJ play it live), you know that it’s “Alberto Balsam.”
This example is easy because it’s prevalent over the entire thing and everything else is essentially a jam over top of it. And that’s all you have to do, in a lot of cases, is just jam over the hook, and you will come out with something memorable.
Hook Modifiers
But before you write your hook, it’s good to think about what sort of emotional direction you want to go in, because ultimately, the hook will define this direction. For instance, do you want your song to be uplifting? Then you have to build tension and release. Perhaps even a triumphant key, like D Major.
If you want it to be emotionally releasing, then you need to change keys, perhaps from major to minor. It’s often these “hook modifiers” that make a song special.
If you want to raise the intensity of the song, then you can increase the density in the song – with delay, reverb, another layer of percussion. It can be done with velocity or volume. However, in club music, at some point, someone invented “the breakdown” to raise the intensity of the song, and now we’re doomed because 95 percent of electronic songs have them. There doesn’t have to be breakdowns. Instead, we can have events, which can be to confuse people, change their emotions, or whatever, really.
In a song, I heard Timbaland ask Siri a question. Yes, corny, but it interrupted the song and took people off guard enough for when the hook came back in, it was fresh again. In dance music, it could be a weird sample or field recording; it could be an awkward silence.
Build Everything Around The Hook
Going back to “Alberto Balsam” you will notice that the hook is prevalent over the entire thing. From there on out, the rest of the song materialized around it. If this was your song, all you have to do is add percussion, take away percussion, add verses. There aren’t a ton of timbres in this song but each one works because it sits overtop the hook. See what I mean that all great songs start with the hook, now?
Make Something New
Perhaps, one day, you will create a transition that becomes the new breakdown, where people start copying your hook modifier. Because ultimately, that’s what it is nowadays: follow the leader. One only has to look at the Beatport Charts to see how all the waveforms look the same: but at some point, there was a waveform that looked different and topped the charts.
However, if you think about songs as just memorable elements and hook modifiers that jar the listener out of their trance, then you may be able to create something that is lasting and memorable. So next time you decide “this part needs a breakdown” think, “can I do something different instead?” Because the goal is to give people something different so that the familiar becomes fresh again – and there are more ways to do this than taking the drums away and reintroducing them.
https://audioservices.studio/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/hooks-1024x1024-1.png10241024pheekhttps://audioservices.studio/wp-content/uploads/2022/07/logo-menu.jpgpheek2022-04-04 15:37:252023-01-20 15:35:24How To Use Hooks To Finish Songs
Recently I read this article about one of my favorite authors, Haruki Murakami. This article wasn’t so much about him as it was about his lessons for being a good writer. While reading this, it dawned on me that his lessons can be applied to writing music as well, and figured I should write an article on this perspective.
If you’re not familiar with Murakami, he creates surreal stories that invoke a sense of wonder and deep connection to the main character and their psychology. They’re easy to read, divided into clear, conscience paragraphs that leave plenty of space for the reader to get lost in his vivid metaphors and similes. These words often transport you into the narrative and have the opportunity to rattle you in ways you never expected, not unlike a song.
So without further ado, here are my interpretations of Murakami’s advice for good writing, as it applies to music.
Read
“I think the first task for the aspiring novelist is to read tons of novels. Sorry to start with such a commonplace observation, but no training is more crucial. To write a novel, you must first understand at a physical level how one is put together . . . It is especially important to plow through as many novels as you can while you are still young. Everything you can get your hands on—great novels, not-so-great novels, crappy novels, it doesn’t matter (at all!) as long as you keep reading. Absorb as many stories as you physically can. Introduce yourself to lots of great writing. To lots of mediocre writing too. This is your most important task.”
–from Murakami’s 2015 essay “So What Shall I Write About?,” tr. Ted Goossen
This one is pretty self-explanatory. Just substitute reading for listening. By listening to a ton of music, good and bad, you open your mind up to new patterns and perspectives. You get an idea of what sounds good to you, and what doesn’t. At a certain point, you may be able to ascertain aspects of mediocre songs that you find appealing, as well as aspects of good songs that you find unappealing, and apply that to your own skillset. It’s only by listening to tons of different songs that you will find your own sound.
Also, don’t only listen to songs within your genre. Listen to all sorts of music, especially music that is outside of the periphery of electronic music, such as folk, classical, and even country. There is perspective in everything, and more perspectives allow for a richer understanding of music.
the old words and make them new again.
“One of my all-time favorite jazz pianists is Thelonious Monk. Once, when someone asked him how he managed to get a certain special sound out of the piano, Monk pointed to the keyboard and said: “It can’t be any new note. When you look at the keyboard, all the notes are there already. But if you mean a note enough, it will sound different. You got to pick the notes you really mean!”
I often recall these words when I am writing, and I think to myself, “It’s true. There aren’t any new words. Our job is to give new meanings and special overtones to absolutely ordinary words.” I find the thought reassuring. It means that vast, unknown stretches still lie before us, fertile territories just waiting for us to cultivate them.”
It’s interesting because he uses a composition metaphor to explain writing while I am trying to use writing metaphors to explain composition. What Thelonius Monk said is spot on. There are only so many notes and those notes have always existed and will continue to exist. What you have to do is put them in new contexts. In electronic music, this often means timbral ones. We are allotted more tools than ever before to shape and design sound; way more than Monk probably could have imagined during his storied career as a jazz pianist. Using an acid bassline that’s in C minor isn’t really a new timbre for the context, but taking an acid bassline and putting it in a Thelonius Monk song, now that’s making the old new.
Explain yourself clearly.
“[When I write,] I get some images and I connect one piece to another. That’s the story line. Then I explain the story line to the reader. You should be very kind when you explain something. If you think, It’s okay; I know that, it’s a very arrogant thing. Easy words and good metaphors; good allegory. So that’s what I do. I explain very carefully and clearly.”
–in a 2004 interview with John Wray for The Paris Review
What I appreciate from his explanation is the accent on clarity which is also crucial in arrangements. You need to have an idea that is understandable and accessible so the listener feels intelligent because he got it. By balancing the complexity and accessibility of the motif, you can extend the listener’s attention to the song. Too complex and the person feels lost, too simple and ther listener is bored. That’s what he relates as good metaphors and allegory, as in, something parallel to explain an idea, which is the same thing in music.
The images and scenes you create need to be clearly understood by your audience. For instance, there are certain moments in a song, such as the chorus. How do you connect the chorus with the pre-chorus? You can be very smooth if you use a transitional element too to ease it. If you don’t have this element, it might be too abrupt and jar the listener (unless this is what you’re trying to do).
Share your dreams.
“Dreaming is the day job of novelists, but sharing our dreams is a still more important task for us. We cannot be novelists without this sense of sharing something.”
Dreaming is a full-time thing for musicians as well. We often dream about what other people think of our music, whether that’s a crowd, a label, or a friend. Those thoughts you have about your music in the context that makes you happiest are powerful motivators when it comes to finishing songs.
Many times this means realising your music, whether that’s just to your friends, or a full-scale distribution plan. It’s a lot of work to finish and release a song, but in general it’s a lot of work to manifest a dream into reality.
Another form of dreaming is the act of composing songs in your head. As a musician, you’re probably always bombarded with clips and snippets of songs that may or may not be original. It’s sometimes hard to capture these ideas, but if you can focus, you may be able to harness one of these ideas for a future composition. However, there are also easier ways of capturing these daydreams. if it’s a melody, hum or whistle it into your phone. Drum patterns can even be finger tapped out and then exported to Ableton where they can be converted into MIDI.
Write to find out.
“I myself, as I’m writing, don’t know who did it. The readers and I are on the same ground. When I start to write a story, I don’t know the conclusion at all and I don’t know what’s going to happen next. If there is a murder case as the first thing, I don’t know who the killer is. I write the book because I would like to find out. If I know who the killer is, there’s no purpose to writing the story.”
If you already know exactly how a song is going to turn out, then what’s the excitement in composing it? We’ve all been there where we aim to do something, and then it turns out to be completely different in exciting ways we never could have imagined. That’s because, in a lot of ways, song writing is about piecing together ideas that manifest themselves out of creative motivation, rather than dedicated intention.
A great way to harness this unpredictability is to jam. Instead of drawing everything in a grid and using loops, try playing those out using some sort of reactive tactile motion, like playing a keyboard, drum pattern, or even live programming a sequencer. The spontaneity of live performance and the “accidents” that come as a result are rarely something your conscious mind can replicate.
Repetition helps.
“When I’m in writing mode for a novel, I get up at four a.m. and work for five to six hours. In the afternoon, I run for ten kilometers or swim for fifteen hundred meters (or do both), then I read a bit and listen to some music. I go to bed at nine p.m. I keep to this routine every day without variation. The repetition itself becomes the important thing; it’s a form of mesmerism. I mesmerize myself to reach a deeper state of mind. But to hold to such repetition for so long—six months to a year—requires a good amount of mental and physical strength. In that sense, writing a long novel is like survival training. Physical strength is as necessary as artistic sensitivity.”
By repetition, Murakami means having unwavering habits. However, I would like to add something to that. By having scheduled habits, you are also creating a moment where you are the most fresh. I find that there is only one time per day where I have that initial creative plasticity that allows ideas to flow from me unencumbered by other thoughts or distractions. That’s why I make sure to dedicate out a block of time for music, and then once I’m done, I’m done for the day, because I know that anything else made outside of that pre-planned time won’t have the same impact.
Hoard stuff to put in your novel.
“Remember that scene in Steven Spielberg’s film E.T. where E.T. assembles a transmitting device from the junk he pulls out of his garage? There’s an umbrella, a floor lamp, pots and pans, a record player─it’s been a long time since I saw the movie, so I can’t recall everything, but he manages to throw all those household items together in such a way that the contraption works well enough to communicate with his home planet thousands of light years away. I got a big kick out of that scene when I saw it in a movie theater, but it strikes me now that putting together a good novel is much the same thing. The key component is not the quality of the materials─what’s needed is magic. If that magic is present, the most basic daily matters and the plainest language can be turned into a device of surprising sophistication.”
First and foremost, though, is what’s packed away in your garage. Magic can’t work if your garage is empty. You’ve got to stash away a lot of junk to use if and when E.T. comes calling!
Everything in your life should be captured as a source of inspiration, because you never know when you’re going to need it. Obviously it’s impossible to grab everything, but make a conscious decision to know how to locate things. In music this can be sounds, samples, field recordings, snippets from movies, anything. They can be the most mundane of things. Just as Muramaki said in his essay, it’s not about the quality of the components, it’s about the magic that is applied to them.
For instance, some songs are extremely simple. However, that doesn’t matter, because there is magic in them. It’s hard to say exactly how to create magic, but usually what makes a song gel together and feel magical is the right balance of different factors like technicality, emotion, and timing. There are songs that are very technical but have no emotion, and the magic is difficult to happen because there is no balance. But when you have enough of the two – the emotion vs the technical part – you have this sort of familiarity and humanity to it. The familiarity comes from the technical side, where you know that it’s going to sound correct, because it’s composed fluidly. Then the emotion is the human side; the unpredictable side that makes music fresh and interesting.
Focus on one thing at a time.
“If I’m asked what the next most important quality is for a novelist [after talent], that’s easy too: focus—the ability to concentrate all your limited talents on whatever’s critical at the moment. Without that you can’t accomplish anything of value, while, if you can focus effectively, you’ll be able to compensate for an erratic talent or even a shortage of it. . . Even a novelist who has a lot of talent and a mind full of great new ideas probably can’t write a thing if, for instance, he’s suffering a lot of pain from a cavity.”
–from What I Talk About When I Talk About Running
“Although I compose essays as well as works of fiction, unless circumstances dictate otherwise, I avoid working on anything else when I am writing a novel . . . Of course, there is no rule that says that the same material can’t be used in an essay and a story, but I have found that doubling up like that somehow weakens my fiction.”
If you’re always looking for something to fix, or improve on, rather than concentrating on one aspect of a song at a time, you can get lost and scattered. When starting to work, set an intention. For example, focus only on the percussion for this section, or better yet, focus only on the syncopated aspects of percussion. Or if you start doing sound design in your session, focus on that, rather than figuring out how it will fit in the arrangement. Then when you’re finally ready to arrange, direct your focus there. In short, have an intention.
Cultivate endurance.
“After focus, the next most important thing for a novelist is, hands down, endurance. If you concentrate on writing three or four hours a day and feel tired after a week of this, you’re not going to be able to write a long work. What’s needed for a writer of fiction—at least one who hopes to write a novel—is the energy to focus every day for half a year, or a year, or two years. You can compare it to breathing.”
–from What I Talk About When I Talk About Running
In order to be able to focus on one aspect of a song, you must be able to endure the dedication to takes to do such a thing. If you’re only able to concentrate for an hour or two at a time, you’re going to have a heck of a time trying to create anything meaningful. At first, you’re going to feel tired after a few hours a day, 7 days a week. But eventually, by making this habit, it’s going to be just as Muramaki says, “like breathing.” You’re going to have to get to a point where you are doing it every day, for long stretches of time, sometimes up to a couple of years to create your most meaningful work. However, just like an athlete trains in the off season, when you’re done with your work, you must keep training, to keep your stamina at a certain baseline.
Experiment with language.
“It is the inherent right of all writers to experiment with the possibilities of language in every way they can imagine—without that adventurous spirit, nothing new can ever be born.”
It’s easy to compose the same thing over and over again once you have a template. However, people may get bored with this palate because everything is just more of the same. If you feel like you’re stagnating, or you are getting feedback from your audience that it’s more of the same, trying changing up keys, and scales. Harmonics are the language of music. Changing them will create something unexpectedly new, even if you use the same tones and tempo. Some may be concerned about alienating their crowd if they change their language too much, but if you keep similar timbres, if they are fans, they’ll hear you within it and usually will be pleasantly surprised.
Have confidence.
“The most important thing is confidence. You have to believe you have the ability to tell the story, to strike the vein of water, to make the pieces of the puzzle fit together. Without that confidence, you can’t go anywhere. It’s like boxing. Once you climb into the ring, you can’t back out. You have to fight until the match is over.”
–from a 1992 lecture at Berkeley, as transcribed in Haruki Murakami and the Music of Words, Jay Rubin
Trust what you’re doing. Some people can spend too much time on little things like their kick, or clap because they keep on second guesing themselves, due to a lack of confidence. If you start second guessing yourself, sometimes it’s best to just take a break from it and come back. Trust what you know you have the ability to do at that moment, and know your limitations. Just know that you may be able to exceed your limitations with the right dose of practice and confidence. That’s how we improve. But first, it takes trust in yourself and knowing what you are capable of.
Write on the side of the egg.
“[This] is something that I always keep in mind while I am writing fiction. I have never gone so far as to write it on a piece of paper and paste it to the wall: Rather, it is carved into the wall of my mind, and it goes something like this:
‘Between a high, solid wall and an egg that breaks against it, I will always stand on the side of the egg.’
Yes, no matter how right the wall may be and how wrong the egg, I will stand with the egg. Someone else will have to decide what is right and what is wrong; perhaps time or history will decide. If there were a novelist who, for whatever reason, wrote works standing with the wall, of what value would such works be?”
Sometimes we create something that we fear might be too abstract or might even sound incorrect, despite enjoying it. This is the egg – a fragile, messy, yet critical part of life, whether that’s as it’s function as an incubator for life, or as food. If you create an egg, and it seems to fit, yet you still feel a sense of controversy, keep it. These are often the indescribable factors that make people remember songs. You just have to rely on the listener to decode it.
Observe your world.
“Reflect on what you see. Remember, though, that to reflect is not to rush to determine the rights and wrongs or merits and demerits of what and whom you are observing. Try to consciously refrain from value judgments—don’t rush to conclusions. What’s important is not arriving at clear conclusions but retaining the specifics of a certain situation . . . I strive to retain as complete an image as possible of the scene I have observed, the person I have met, the experience I have undergone, regarding it as a singular ‘sample,’ a kind of test case as it were. I can go back and look at it again later, when my feelings have settled down and there is less urgency, this time inspecting it from a variety of angles. Finally, if and when it seems called for, I can draw my own conclusions.”
If you judge something as being an absolute truth then you’re going to be disappointed. There is no objective right and wrong, especially in art. Everything is subjective, and the “rules” created are put in place by societal norms, rather than a cosmic order. Sure, there are standards that people have for their art, but that doesn’t make it right or wrong. It just makes it a personal standard. This sense of objectivity is helpful when evaluating the art that surrounds you on a day to day basis; art that is often not your own. These are where we get our influences from. So rather than dismissing an entire genre or style, because of societal pressure, try to think objectively about it. For instance you might despise EDM, but why is it so popular? One could argue it’s popular because it has pop music structure and hooks. Perhaps that’s a lesson you can take away from it. In other words, pay attention to trends, because you never know what nuance you can take from a trend for your own art.
Try not to hurt anyone.
“I keep in mind to ‘not have the pen get too mighty’ when I write. I choose my words so the least amount of people get hurt, but that’s also hard to achieve. No matter what is written, there is a chance of someone getting hurt or offending someone. Keeping all that in mind, I try as much as I can to write something that will not hurt anyone. This is a moral every writer should follow.”
In 2017, producer Dax J took a verse from Islamic prayers and sampled it in his music. Then, in all of his wisdom, he decided to play in in Tunisia. And as all of the murdered cartoonists who tried to draw Muhammed demonstrate, Islamics do not take kindly to people altering their religious symbols. Despite receiving death threats, Dax wasn’t beheaded. However, he was sentenced to jail in Tunisia for a year.
This is an extreme example though. A good rule of thumb is to wein on the side of not culturally appropriating, or at the very least, when you do decide to sample someone else’s culture, know the audience you are playing to. An Islamic country is a terrible choice to play an Islamic prayer in. This is not uncommon knowledge. Dax should have known better. But playing an Islamic prayer in your techno song at Burning Man? Many burners suck up cultural approrpiation like it’s oxygen. I know that Muramaki says to write on the side of the egg, but there are things that are already determined to be culturally sensitive, and you should respect that, or else face the consequences.
Another way you can look at this is to not steal other people’s work and call it your own. However, there is always a fine line with this because electronic music is sample music.
Take your readers on a journey.
“As I wrote A Wild Sheep Chase, I came to feel strongly that a story, a monogatari, is not something you create. It is something that you pull out of yourself. The story is already there, inside you. You can’t make it, you can only bring it out. This is true for me, at least: it is the story’s spontaneity. For me, a story is a vehicle that takes the reader somewhere. Whatever information you may try to convey, whatever you may try to open the reader’s emotions to, the first thing you have to do is get that reader into the vehicle. And the vehicle–the story–the monogatari–must have the power to make people believe. These above all are the conditions that a story must fulfill.”
–from a 1992 lecture at Berkeley, as transcribed in Haruki Murakami and the Music of Words, Jay Rubin
Take listeners on a journey. I’m an avid fan of trying to create a song that you don’t want to end, because it keeps evolving and is never boring. Whatever genre you’re making, the best songs transcend space and time, where there is always this feeling that time passes, unknowingly. When you lose track of time you know you’ve been in a musical journey. I also believe that DJs are collecting music to create journeys and one of our tasks is to feed them with memorable ideas for them to use. This is about letting the ego aside and see your music as part of something bigger than you but also important in other’s people lives.
Write to shed light on human beings.
“I have only one reason to write novels, and that is to bring the dignity of the individual soul to the surface and shine a light upon it. The purpose of a story is to sound an alarm, to keep a light trained on The System in order to prevent it from tangling our souls in its web and demeaning them. I fully believe it is the novelist’s job to keep trying to clarify the uniqueness of each individual soul by writing stories—stories of life and death, stories of love, stories that make people cry and quake with fear and shake with laughter. This is why we go on, day after day, concocting fictions with utter seriousness.”
All music is an expression of human dedication and emotion. In order to be a great artist, one must be dedicated to their craft, and have the ability to recognize and alter emotion. Electronic music is often lyricless so we have to figure out how to express the emotions of a narrative in other ways, especially in music that can be seen as robotic to many. A good way to add humanity in electronic music is to add swing, quantazation, randomization, and actually performing and jamming your tracks, whether that’s in the studio, or live. Human recognizes human.
No matter what, it all has to start with talent. . .
“In every interview I’m asked what’s the most important quality a novelist has to have. It’s pretty obvious: talent. No matter how much enthusiasm and effort you put into writing, if you totally lack literary talent you can forget about being a novelist. This is more of a prerequisite than a necessary quality. If you don’t have any fuel, even the best car won’t run.”
–from What I Talk About When I Talk About Running
“Writing is similar to trying to seduce a woman. A lot has to do with practice, but mostly it’s innate. Anyway, good luck.”
“Writers who are blessed with inborn talent can write easily, no matter what they do—or don’t do. Like water from a natural spring, the sentences just well up, and with little or no effort these writers can complete a work. Unfortunately, I don’t fall into that category. I have to pound away at a rock with a chisel and dig out a deep hole before I can locate the source of my creativity. Every time I begin a new novel, I have to dredge out another hole. But, as I’ve sustained this kind of life over many years, I’ve become quite efficient, both technically and physically, at opening those holes in the rock and locating new water veins. As soon as I notice one source drying up, I move on to another. If people who rely on a natural spring of talent suddenly find they’ve exhausted their source, they’re in trouble.”
“In other words, let’s face it: life is basically unfair. But, even in a situation that’s unfair, I think it’s possible to seek out a kind of fairness.”
Some talent is just innate. It’s the reason why you see so many dynasty professional athletes, where sons and daughters of their parents become equally, if not more successful. You also see this is siblings quite often as well. This example doesn’t always happen in music, because talent does not necessarily mean popularity, but when you’re talking about sports, talent is quantifiable through wins and losses.
However, many of us know those people, where they just pick up something new and they are effortlessly good at it. This is even true in music, where they might create their first loop and despite not having any experience in music, it sounds like something well beyond their abilities as a beginner. It’s these people, the Jimi Hendrix’s of the world, that go on to define their cultural niche for decades to come.
However, if you work really hard at something, you can be great, like Muramaki, who says that he is not an innately talented writer. He’s probably just being humble, however, I have seen in my own teaching where people come to me for coaching and the initial stuff they show me is pretty bad. Then they stick with it, take lessons to heart, and apply themselves. Then after a relatively short period of time, you start to see significant improvement. However, who knows, they could be innately talented to begin with, they just needed someone to give them confidence to harness their abilities.
https://audioservices.studio/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/murakami.png10801080pheekhttps://audioservices.studio/wp-content/uploads/2022/07/logo-menu.jpgpheek2022-01-26 20:39:002023-01-20 15:35:55Murakami’s Writing Lessons Applied To Music
When I was 10 I was invited to be part of the track and field crew at my middle school. While I always considered myself a proficient runner, one thing that we started to do more was stretch. At first, it seemed like a huge waste of time, since all I wanted to do was run. Instead, we were spending all this time doing these exercises that, to me, had nothing to do with running. However, after months of stretching, I started to realize that I was getting significantly faster. This is because I was warming up. Just like you have to warm up to prepare for running, the same goes for music. In this post, we’re going to discuss warm-up techniques that help you prepare to make music.
Your Tools Aren’t That Important
I’ve talked about this frequently in previous articles, but it deserves to be reiterated. In music production, clients often think that they can buy all the equipment they want, and somehow, miraculously, they will be inspired to create. However, more often than not, they get stuck and the most productive thing that happens is my client cleans the dust off their wall of useless gear.
Just buying equipment doesn’t do anything if you’re not intimately familiar with it. Imagine buying a nice guitar and thinking you can play it right away despite not knowing how to play guitar. Sounds ridiculous, right? Of course, it does! It takes time to learn a new instrument. It takes frustration. It takes commitment. However, sometimes they do know how to use this gear, and still, nothing happens. More often than not, their problem is they don’t know how to prepare to make music. And just like I was warming up for track and field, so must a producer.
Come Up With Your Own System When Preparing To Make Music
Now people think there is a uniform way to prepare, however, everyone is different. The mind is not a quadricep, where there are standardized stretches that make it more functional. So what we do in coaching is to come up with a system that works for them. I start with figuring out what their current habits are because one thing we do know is that what they have been doing isn’t working.
So once we figure out what they have been doing it’s time to figure out a system that works for them. Like I said earlier, everyone is different, so everything I’m about to make is a suggestion, not a catch-all.
Actively Listen To Music To Prepare To Make Music
The first thing producers can do is listen to music before they make it. This might be a huge “duh” statement, but how many people actively listen to music? How many people come home, crack a beer, put on a record, and then just sit there, doing nothing else, except engaging with the music? 10%, maybe? However, it’s this 10% of people who have set themselves up for success if they are music writers themselves.
When listening to music actively, it’s best to think of it as a reference track, in a way. Listen to the song over and over again. Note the timbre and structure of the song. Like actually note it in a notebook. This will get your mind prepared to make music by actively engaging it. When actively listening to music, make sure to concentrate on the appropriate parts of a song. Lots of producers obsess over the kicks, hi-hats, and the bass, but at the end of the day, it’s the melody that people remember. So do yourself a favor and try to concrete things that you can easily absorb. You will probably not remember the exact timbre of a hi-hat, but you might remember the melody enough to replicate something similar later.
Listening To A DJ Set Will Help You Prepare To Make Music
Many students tell me that they find inspiration while they are in the club, and can’t get home quick enough in order to harness it. A solution? Listen to a DJ set for 20 minutes to an hour. The longer you prepare the better.
You can take notes on the transitions and compositional intricacies, something that you couldn’t do while in a club. While not exactly the same as a club, I often find that my students say that all the ideas they had in the club start manifesting themselves again.
One thing I like to do is put on a mix while scrolling through and listening back to the samples on my hard drive. By doing so, you can hear when a sample fits nicely into the mix, which you can categorize, and use later. Just make sure the volume levels match what you’re doing in Ableton. You want your samples to vaguely fit inside the mix, rather than being the predominant sound. This is a helpful way of managing samples as well, because otherwise when you’re just scrolling through samples, and not comparing it to music, you’re just comparing the samples to air.
DJing To Help Prepare To Make Music
I think DJing is a great way to prepare to make music. Similar to the other suggestions, DJing is a powerful form of active listening. DJing trains your ears to deeply understand the structure and mix of a song. You can easily add or subtract frequencies to see how they modify the song. You can also hear where transitions happen, allowing you to build your tracks out to be more DJ-friendly (if that is one of your goals).
Build Categorized Playlists To Help Prepare To Make Music
I know earlier I said that it’s easier to concentrate on the melody of the song, rather than the rhythm of it. So what are you supposed to do when you want to work on a specific aspect of a song? Well, as you’re listening, throw the songs into playlists that are labeled based on the aspects of the song that are inspiring. So have one for the melody, have one for that really specific hi-hat or kick. Have one for a bassline. Then when you want to prepare to make music, you can go back to those playlists and warm-up actively listening to those.
Take Inspiration From Your Inspiration’s Inspirations
Another way to prepare to make music is to learn from the people who inspire your inspiration. For instance, I’m inspired by Ricardo Villalobos, so I often read articles about him. Through these articles, I found out that he’s inspired by pianist Keith Jarrett. Jarrett does not make electronic music, however, he’s clearly had a large influence on the genre, whether he knows it or not. So, naturally, I listen to Jarrett to see if I can’t harness some of that inspiration.
There Are Many Ways To Prepare Your Brain
At the end of the day, the goal is to get your brain engaged. You can play video games while listening to music, read a book, or go for a run. You can also paint, or write. These are all just suggestions and you should find the one that gets your mind warmed up, since as I stated at the beginning of the article, a mind is not a leg – there is no uniformity.
https://audioservices.studio/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/prep-music-1.jpg11821410pheekhttps://audioservices.studio/wp-content/uploads/2022/07/logo-menu.jpgpheek2021-12-27 17:56:532023-01-20 15:34:02How To Prepare To Make Music
Why do people keep producing the same kind of track when there are others who have a wide palate of styles? I’ll admit, I’m a victim of the former. I’ve been producing the same type of music forever. Sure, often they sound different, but overall, I use the same formula and workflow, which translates into a bunch of songs that sound somewhat identical. This results in some people questioning why I don’t expand my palate.
In response, I try to break out of the mold and create something entirely different. Then, the people who listen to me because of my consistency get annoyed and start complaining. There is no victory here, which is why I always suggest just making music for yourself. At the end of the day, the best thing you can do is be satisfied with your finished product. However, let’s explore the advantages of disadvantages between the two.
Producing A Similar Sound
Ok, let’s first talk about making the same song over and over again. In an era of algorithms and playlists, this is a sensible approach if you want to build a brand. With streaming, listeners have infinite choices nowadays. They can go on Spotify or YouTube and build their own playlists that fit their mood. And when they want to augment their mood, they often go and grab songs from familiar artists that satisfy that emotion. If you’re an artist that produces a bunch of different styles, they may not go check out your new stuff, because they know that it won’t fufill that emotional anchor. However, if you have a palate of sounds, tempos and styles that fit into a similar trope, then listeners can reliably count on you to produce something that satisfies their need.
The Benefit Incremental Improvements On A Sound
Another reason for producing similar-sounding tracks is because the artist wants to keep on improving on something. Often they believe if they keep on working in the same vein that their tracks will get progressively better, which may lead to some sort of breakout moment. If they decide to take a tangent into other realms, then that may cause them to lose sight of that goal. They may even start making more predictable, cookie-cutter stuff since often when artists explore new genres, they start watching tutorials that thousands of other producers have watched. Often, this regresses their sound, when by staying the course it may have led to new, exciting sounds, even if they fall inside a stereotypical frame that they defined throughout their years of producing.
What To Do With All Of These Similar Tracks?
When you have 100 songs and they’re all the same, what do you do? Is that a waste? If you release all these 100 songs, you’ll burn yourself out because not all are worthy of release. I usually recommend making bundles of 3 or 4 and seeing which ones work by passing them to DJ friends who can play them. They’ll let you know which ones work, and what doesn’t.
Also, don’t forget to store all of your projects. You never know when you can go back and finish a track with the new skills you have acquired.
How To Change Your Sound, Without Becoming Cookie Cutter
However, there are ways for producers to keep a template and still change their sound. For instance, they can change the key. Each key has a different mood associated with it, and while the timbres and samples may be the same, the new pitch can redefine the emotional impact. You can still retain the mood that listeners expect if you switch the key to something harmonically relevant to a previous song’s key. Just check the Circle of Fifths to find out what works harmonically. Another thing composers can do is time signature changes or add polyrhyms in their music. In dance music, it’s often hard to do something outside of 4/4. Sure, there are some tracks that work, like Jon Hopkin’s “Neon Drum Pattern,” which is in 5/4, or the rave classic, Jakatta’s “American Dream.” However, those are a pain to mix, and are a rare breed of dance songs. What I suggest is things like using triplets, or doing things like making your song half time or cut time. Another thing you can do is make your rhythm 4/4, and your lead 6/4, since they are both common time. However, if you don’t care if your songs are mixable, feel free to make songs in 9/8 or 17/4. Who cares? Like I said, it’s about feeling satisfied with your music, and nothing else.
Producing Many Different Styles
Ok, so let’s talk about artists who have a bunch of different styles. I would also say that I do this too, as I release dub techno, minimal, ambient, and more. However, with my sound, it all comes from a similar root, as I mentioned before. Then there are artists that are all over the place, and cannot stay tied town to one process. A good example of this is the band Underworld. You might now them for their song Born Slippy, but they are way way more than that. They were originally an ‘80s rock band that evolved into the techno juggernaut that we know today. However, if you go through their catalog, you will hear many genres of music. There is house, techno, and breaks, for sure. But there are also ballads, and ambient pieces. Sometimes there are big beat songs as well. Then occassionally, they’ll return back to their roots and make a more rock oriented song.
Another good example is Radiohead. Pretty much every album they change up their style. Ok Computer does not sound like Kid A, Kid A does not sound like In Rainbows, In Rainbows does not sound like King of Limbs, A Moonshaped Pool does not sound like King of Limbs. This process all started with Kid A when they wanted to make an anti-album that was intended to alienate their fans by switching things up dramatically, replacing drums with drum machines, guitars with synths, and normal vocals, with distorted ones. In other words, they were sick of stardom. But that backfired, and it became arguably the most critically acclaimed album of that decade.
Having An Artistic Signature To Tie It Together
However, if there is one thing that Underworld and Radiohead have in common is that they have an artistic signature, whether they like it or not. With Underworld it’s the timbre of the sounds they chose, paired with Karl Hyde’s spoken word vocals. With Radiohead, it’s the production veneer and Thom Yorke’s distinct crooning. This keeps the fan grounded in familiarity, even when the styles change.
We Live In A Different Era
Keep in mind that Underworld and Radiohead are from a different time though. They existed in a time when I believe labels were looking for artists that pushed the limits of their creativity. Nowadays, with algorithmic streaming, labels are often looking for consistency, because they have artists put into boxes that they can market to said demographic. If you’re going to take this route, you may have to self release, or do a lot of research in finding a label that still has this old ethos.
Frank Zappa has this great interview where he laments that cool kids running labels ruined artistic expression. He says that in the ‘60s, the reason why so much amazing, forward-thinking music broke into the mainstream is because the label heads were just old businessmen who didn’t know anything about music. They were like, “what do I know? Put it out, see what happens.” Then some of those records had great success, so they hired young, long-haired hippies to come in to advise. Those hippies became smug and decided they knew what was best, because they had taste, and thus began the decline of forward-thinking music, because often, they had no idea, despite thinking that they did.
This has progressively became worse, and now these label executives have developed formulas for what should be released and what shouldn’t. Luckily, we live in an era where self distirbution is possible, and with the right marketing, and luck, you really never know where your multigenre music can go.
Whatever Route You Chose, It Doesn’t Matter
Whichever route you choose, there is no right and wrong. Releasing the same sort of song can be fulfilling from a commercial standpoint, but from an artistic standpoint, it can become dull. Chances are most musicians are not going to be touring with thousands of adoring fans, so it might behooth you to make whatever you want, rather than trying to placate a potential audience. But, if you have a sound and know how to market it, then by all means, refine it. God knows that’s what I did. But I also expanded into other genres too. So perhaps, somewhere in the middle is a solid approach
https://audioservices.studio/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/pic-post-styles.png640640pheekhttps://audioservices.studio/wp-content/uploads/2022/07/logo-menu.jpgpheek2021-11-18 14:29:102022-11-07 11:26:30Is It Best To Produce One Style, Or Many?
The creative process involves a lot of fantasizing. You fantasize about the reaction you’ll get from crowds, and the reaction you’ll get from promoters. You fantasize about the reaction you’ll get from their creative peers, and the reaction you’ll get from your friends. Perhaps the person you have a crush on will like it. Perhaps you’ll get it signed to the label of your dreams, and it will break your career as a musician. This often creates a deep level of love for your track.
However, the caveat is that many people feel this adoration in that euphoric phase of composition, where you’ve discovered an amazing loop or a basic structure of a song that enraptures you.
This is that moment when you pull the hammer back on the metaphorical pinball machine and bounce your idea into the summit of the board, where it starts bouncing off the bells, whistles, and fixed, flashing bumpers, sending it careening into a space of infinite possibilities.
Then after a while, it slows down, and you begin to see that the ball is falling deeper and deeper towards your flippers and that if you don’t hit it just right, you may destroy your track forever.
This is that moment of self-reflection and doubt that most creatives have. It’s in this period that you might think that you messed the whole track up by adding a part that doesn’t elicit the same joy as before, almost like chasing the high the first time you took a drug.
The problem is that you’ve committed so much time to this track that you may be convinced that it’s still incredible, and become stubborn about any suggestions.
Or it could go the other way, where you’ve committed so much time to this track that you feel like you need to do something with it, but you don’t love it like you used to. There are solutions to both conflicts, resulting from the same emotion – love for your track.
A solution to loving your track too much
This is a hard one because people often get stubborn about their art. They love it so much that they can’t absorb any feedback or rejection from their peers about it. Often that’s because their love for it is built on the cognitive heuristic of commitment, rather than them actually believing it’s an incredible track.
Therefore, often this fallacy is built on eggshells and critique may seem like a personal attack, and therefore the creator protects it from opinion and rejection, lest they be rejected too. This sometimes leads to people not putting their track out at all, always “waiting for the right moment.”
The way to get over this fear? Truly don’t give a shit what other people say. Most great artists didn’t. We always hear stories about the albums that critics lambasted or art that sat obscurely for decades before being dusted off and appreciated. Or there is the opposite, where their art’s controversy was appealing to some, and appalling to others, creating a maelstrom of press.
This is what happened to John Cage and Karlheinz Stockhausen, who made some of the most challenging music in modern history, where to this day most people don’t understand it. But they are both considered important in the canon of music.
They knew their music was threatening, but they probably didn’t care, because they thought it was important, and thus put it out there.
If people want their music to get out there, especially if they still hold onto the original fantasy of other people listening to it, then they need to put it out there for critique. Whether that’s your friends or a marketing campaign that goes out to media contacts and DJs, you’re going to feel rejection, even if it really is brilliant. That’s because music is subjective.
Credit: Wikipedia
A solution to not knowing if you still love your track
If you got to the point where you can put the song out, but are still having doubts about it, keep in mind that you really have no idea how it will sound to others. Remember, when you first started the track, there were elements about it that sent your brain bouncing off the proverbial pinball machine. Therefore, there is a good chance that other people will love it too.
Deadmau5, love him, or hate him, knows how to finish tracks, and has released some of the most seminal modern rave anthems. With his hit, Strobe, he was having this conflict. He liked it enough to finish it, but not enough to be confident with it.
Since his label hadn’t seen anything in a while, he decided to send it over to them, suggesting that it could be a B-side to a record; another piece of content to whet the appetite of his fans. Then, to his surprise, it blew up in 2009, right at the advent of the EDM explosion, helping to propel his career into the stratosphere.
If you listen to Strobe, you might be able to see why he wasn’t confident in it. It’s at least two minutes longer than any other song on the album, clocking in at 10:33, and it takes a few minutes before the kick drum comes in. It’s not necessarily a radio anthem.
But believe it or not, people like challenging music, because it gets them thinking.
A less mainstream example of this is from one of my clients who had a song that they sent me that I thought was pretty good, but they were having doubts about. I was like “Look, how about I send it to some labels and see what happens.”
So I sent it out to some labels, and it didn’t just get signed, it got picked up by a bunch of different places. They were having doubts, and their doubts were squashed when it became as successful as anything else they’d released.
You also don’t know who tracks are going to resonate with. While they might not vibe with your primary (often fantasized) audience, they could resonate with an entirely new audience.
A good example of this is a client of mine who sent me over some ambient tracks they made, which was surprising based on his previous work. What was also surprising is that they had all these Indian-sounding names.
Well, it turns out those Indian names were actually holy words in a religious sect, and when people searched for those on Google in regards to the sect, their songs would come up. With this, their music, in a way, became holy music and ended up performing better than any of the other, more branded tracks that we worked on together.
A Note On Expectations
As I get older, I realize that the desire to be understood, or liked by others is a trap for the creative process. The real joy should come from if a song is technically solid, or if you changed your style to something that you’ve never done before. These are both something to be proud of as they show an improvement in your abilities as an artist. I like to think of each track as journaling, and it’s a capturing of an idea, rather than trying to make something that will please thousands of people. The most frustrated artists are the ones who have high expectations for their music and where it goes, the least frustrated are the opposite.
A note on collaboration
As many of you know, I do track finalization. Whether you do it through me, or another session musician, I think what I’m about to say rings true for both. Basically, I only like to work with people who have a realistic expectation of their art or don’t view me as some sort of savant. Just like they have high expectations for the track, they might also have too high of expectations for the session work, especially if they have both. Because whether people realize it or not, they might have subconscious ideas of how their track should go without consciously knowing how it should go.
Then when I or anyone else goes in and makes edits, these sorts of clients expect it to sound like something completely different. Also, if they’ve heard a track a couple hundred times, any alterations to it are going to be glaringly noticeable, and might not jive with the congruency you have programmed in their head. Therefore, if you have these sorts of expectations, it’s best to forgo them, as they diminish the creative potential of a track. Remember, it took something like 27 people to write “I Feel Love” by Donna Summer. Did they all agree? Did it diminish the value and impact of the track?
The best people to work with are ones who are about a 6 or 7 out of 10 on their love for their track. These people tend to keep an open mind.
https://audioservices.studio/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/love-your-track-1.jpg500750pheekhttps://audioservices.studio/wp-content/uploads/2022/07/logo-menu.jpgpheek2021-07-23 15:50:492021-11-02 14:42:13Do You Love Your Track? Or Are You Just Overly Committed?
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His style is characterized by surrealism, dreamlike sequences, and a blend of the mundane and the mysterious. Here are some key aspects of David Lynch’s approach to storytelling:
the old words and make them new again.
Take your readers on a journey.
The first thing producers can do is listen to music before they make it. This might be a huge “duh” statement, but how many people actively listen to music? How many people come home, crack a beer, put on a record, and then just sit there, doing nothing else, except engaging with the music? 10%, maybe? However, it’s this 10% of people who have set themselves up for success if they are music writers themselves.
