The music business: a weird, wonderful and sometimes ugly world, where we all try and find our way in. It can be a very confusing place, and I have been working in it one way or another for the past 17 years and have been living inside of it for the last 24.
I have played in bands, released albums, produced demos and albums, worked as a stage hand, tour manager, A&R, sound engineer and audio editor amongst others.
Hopefully using this platform that ‘Intellectual Musician’ provides, I’ll be able to share some of the knowledge and experience that I have gained, with any of you who may find it useful. I will try and do this in the form of articles, that will be uploaded once in a while; which will each loosely revolve around a specific theme or subject attempting to highlight certain areas of the music industry and provide some pointers that might be helpful to anyone trying to navigate inside this world.
Well enough of the ramblings, let’s try and get down to business,
I thought I’d start out with something that might seem very basic and obvious but is actually very important and often over looked; HOW TO LISTEN TO MUSIC.
Musicians (that is the ones who actually play instruments) in the music industry can generally be divided in to two main categories; ones who play in bands and ones who work as hired musicians. Of course there many exceptions to this rule, such as teachers and so on but for the sake of this article let’s stick to this basic division.
The ones who play in bands will very likely play a specialized genre of music and rarely stray from it, that is to say if you’re a drummer in an heavy metal band your not very likely to go on tour as a drummer for an R&B act or be asked as a session musician for a country and western singer.
The hired musician however especially early on in their career might be asked to perform any type of music (within reason), on their instrument and had better be able to do so in order to advance quickly and attract more work.
The same principals apply to producers who might feel they should be producing hard core hip hop but can only get paid work producing a boy band from the local community centre until they get better known.
You might want to be an indie rock writer, but are only able to get paying work writing about hip hop. And so on……
The point is that for many of us the ability to operate and apply our skills to a musical genre that we are not comfortable with and possibly genuinely dislike can prove to be a crucial one.
The first step towards being able to apply this skill is learning how to listen to music that you would not listen to given the choice.
I started work as an A&R at the relatively young age of 24 and started at a major label. So I did not have the privilege early on as an A&R to work with acts that came from the same musical background as me. Up to that point I had been involved almost exclusively with rock music especially grunge and Indie. The first act I had to work with as A&R was a 7 piece world music outfit that played a combination of Caribbean, African and Middle Eastern, electronic, hip-hop funk on instruments that in some cases I have never seen before!…. How do you connect to that?… well you do, and when all was said and done I found myself going to every one of their gigs again and again and being very passionate about their music.
IF IT’S OUT THERE IT’S OUT THERE FOR A REASON
You must first of all come to grips with the fact that music is an art form (even in the instances when its sounds like nothing more then mass produced factory sludge…)
And that as such is completely subjective.
This might sound like an obvious cliché but clichés are usually the most basic form of truth and should not be over looked.
Armed with this understanding, when approaching a piece of music that is outside your comfort zone, the next logical step is to realise that someone out there likes this music. And then try, when listening to the piece of music, to listen to it as if you were that person.
Easier said then done right? I mean if your into Soundgarden (been listening to ‘Down on the upside’ all week) forcing yourself to enjoy Shakira doesn’t sound like a fun time.
ONE STAR TO LIGHT THE DARK SKY
This is what you do; listen to the track and try and find one element of it that you can connect with, it can be anything at all and doesn’t require that you like the track as a whole, a chord change that you think is smart, maybe an imaginative way of using an instrument, fancy vocal production or an unexpected drum break, whatever.
Once you found that bit that you like stop the music and play a few bars before and after that bit a few more times.
By now you will probably be saying to yourself “this music is shit but this producer\guitarist\drummer that came up with this…. He’s good”.
That’s a good start.
I’ll give you a couple of examples of what I mean,
In the Britney Spears track “Hit me baby one more time” the piano hit that drives the track is great.
In Rihana’s current hit ‘Umbrella’ the way the word umbrella is broken down at the end of the chorus is really smart.
The way the Killers use synth sounds as the lead sound in an otherwise standard contemporary rock song structure is brilliant and sets them apart.
All of these observations just like the ones you will make when listening to a track are derived from one idea;
QUALITY HAS NO TASTE
The happiest moments you get as an A&R are when you get to sign and develop an act you are truly passionate about, the rest of the time though your main commitment is to find acts that will become successful and turn as big a profit as possible for your employers (the record label).The same applies to a musician working on a project.
The dilemma you are faced with is this; musicians usually bring their energy for what they do from passion, we do what we do because it is what we love to do, but what do we do when we don’t love what were doing?
Well for starters we act like grown up professionals who want to get paid and want to get more work, that should give you energy enough, but there are a couple of ways to get yourself emotionally involved in what you do regardless of whether you like it or not.
Let’s say that you’re a rock fan and musician, does that mean you think every rock album that comes out is genius? Of course it doesn’t, so remind yourself again and again that just as there are different levels of quality in the music you like the same must apply to music you don’t like.
So when you come to work on a piece of music that is not to your taste approach it from this angle: set yourself a personal challenge to raise the quality of the music through what ever part you have to play in it.
The second thing is this and it is very important: you know that way that you feel when you’re alone in your room finishing a song you have just poured your guts into and you’re completely terrified of playing it to anyone in case they say something bad and your heart will break?
Well, 90% of the time when you are working on someone else’s music regardless of your opinion of it there is a person there that feels just like that, that music is more important to them then anything and putting yourself in their shoes will probably be enough to make you try your hardest to make sure their music works.
EXPAND THE GENE POOL
Finally, always remind your self that as a musician/producer/ engineer every piece of music that you hear, and even more so the ones you take the time to listen to, will inevitably teach you something new.
It might only be a more focused understanding of what to avoid doing but more often then not it will be more.
A new instrument that fits into the arrangement you’ve been working on, a chord progression that you can work into your song writing or just a new rhythm played on the guitar or some fancy use of a delay effect that you haven’t heard before.
It will all enrich you and stimulate your creativity if you allow it to, and you should as in this ultra competitive industry you will need every edge you can get your hands and ears on.
So with that in mind pick something you would usually stay away from and give it a chance, try and find somthing about it you like, I am off to listen to “The best of the sesame street vol.3” and find the genius hiding in it….
Yeah right!!
Happy listening,
Adam
