Don't be afraid to go LEARN something...
- tsmyers1019
- Dec 21, 2023
- 2 min read
Sometimes I need to remind myself that I don't know everything. I think it's healthy and important to live a lifestyle that challenges you and asks you to grow. The most significant period of artistic growth I had as a musician happened when I decided to swallow whatever pride I thought I had, and start seeking more information and watching a TON of dopey tutorials and how to actually use all the plugins and tools I'd been messing around with for so long.
Matisse talks about how, as an artist, you should be open to studying and learning, but to always remember and guard your original naive ideas (because theres usually some magic in them). Sometimes it can feel like diving into a lot of serious heady lessons about your craft will somehow dilute your genius and make you more like everyone else... but this simply isn't true. You want to make what you want to make, and you always will. It's important to remember that when you truely learn to use a tool, you are NOT learning to craft a specific thing. Your creation will always be yours, and all the interesting problem solving you've always done (that thing that "makes you sound like you") will still be there. You won't forget how to do it. You will simply understand better what "it" is that you are doing. It's never to late to learn something new, or let yourself be taught something you think you already know. You'll only continue to grow, and you'll only get better at making your thing as time goes on.
A few months ago I came across a 10 hour masterclass on compression, made available totally for free on youtube... I've been meaning to watch it, and this week I've finally started diving in. As tempting as it is to skip around (because the basic concepts certainly aren't new to me), I've decided to commit myself to watching the course from front to back, and take notes- treating it like I would any other academic course. So far, I haven't learned anything particularly new or enlightening, but it's been nice to have a bit of refresher, and see how another person organizes and presents basic information about how a compressor works. I feel like I really should watch it all the way through, because (frankly) I don't know what I don't know. There honestly could be something super foundational that I've just always overlooked, or never been shown. Honestly, some of the basic principals, like "how/when/why we apply makeup gain," and "how many milliseconds constitutes a 'fast' attack" have been nice to see explained so clearly. I find myself saying "yes- that's correct, that's exactly what I would do" but realizing I've never thought about it in these exact terms or with this much clarity of intention. Watching tutorials always makes me excited to jump back into mixing, but at the same time frustrated that all my old mixes could have sounded so much better if only I knew then what I know now...
This is the course I'm currently working through, I encourage anyone interested in a lot more about compression to watch it! I'm really enjoying it so far!