Edit: I thought I’d start off every post with a new music clip. Here’s an 8bit-sounding tune that I made during the 2-hour train ride to Oslo last weekend, for the game my group is making in a game design course at university, featuring climate changes, Al Gore, dr. Paul Üshen and more: climatechangechange.mp3
Language learning
Lately, I have been reading Benny Lewis’s blog Fluent in 3 Months. He travels to a country for 3 months, and learns the local language to fluency nearly exclusively by socializing in it. He writes about how positive mentality, and an emphasis on speaking is the key to learning a language, as opposed to courses and rote memorisation, as the school system often focuses on.
In addition to language learning, he also writes about travelling and meeting people, which I find really interesting and exciting. The blog is very well written, and the comments are often just as interesting as the posts themselves. It is in fact my favourite blog for the time being.
In this post, I intend to show some similarities between music production/composition, and learning languages. In fact, I view music (production) as a language of its own. When it comes to music production, I see people going for approaches that lead to frustration, inadequacy, perfectionism, and all kinds of negative things. I’ve also increasingly started to view music as a language. Here are a few things that I have noticed lately:
1: Too much focus on the technical aspects
The nature of the word “music production” implies something that’s manufactured and soulless, which I know for a fact that it isn’t. It seems to me when reading music production forums, that there is an overemphasis on the technical aspects of it. The number of topics about mixing are countless, whereas the ones about ideas and vision can probably be counted on one hand.
Fair enough, a good production is of a certain importance, but I’d never have fun with such a huge focus on it. I’ve heard artists with solid productions but nothing to say, and people with brilliant and imaginative ideas who have given up because they focus too much on their technical skills which aren’t quite as good as they’d wish.
Although I could be better at technical things, I have from the very start (Dance eJay 3, 2000) had tons of fun communicating the wacky ideas in my head. The improvement in mixing has simply been a natural organic consequence of constantly making music.
I belive that the same applies to the learning of foreign languages. There’s too often an overemphasis on context-less and irrelevant grammar and vocabulary, often leaving out its actual purpose: communication. Being told to figure out the plural negative past tense of “there is a dog under the table” in french is boring and pretty useless. Yet, this is what most people associate with language learning.
Just recently during the first weeks of meeting some french friends however, I have really enjoyed learning french! We constantly challenge each other to come up with “your mum is so fat” jokes (ta mère est tellement grosse que …). It may sound slightly crude, but this has boosted my vocabulary, grammar, and motivation immensly! The technical aspects weren’t in focus, they were applied because I needed and wanted to. With this positive pressure+enthusiasm enforced approach, I’ve been learning so much!
Summary: The purpose of a language is to communicate. Learning grammar/music theory can of course help, but I personally believe that they are best acquired by simply communicating.
2: Focusing on what’s difficult
Making music, like all other creative things can be quite difficult. Admiring the achievements of others can be just as inspiring, as it can create total hopelessness. Fair enough, you currently lack the abilities to outdo FSOL’s Lifeforms, but a half empty glass will never get you there. Creating those amazing basslines that Noisia make might require multiple synthesizers, LFOs, routings, automation, resampling, effect chains etc. Outdoing Noisia’s basslines isn’t very achievable.
Simply making basslines according to your current abilities is a far more realistic goal, which will be achieved. I wouldn’t have been able to synthesize whole songs from scratch when I first discovered software synthesizers for example. I have however tweaked presets, or created simple sounds to communicate what I wanted over time, and have therefore naturally improved my synthesizer skills.
I don’t think the outcome would have been very good if I had focused on how difficult it sounds to create songs practically from scratch, or if I had intensely read books about synthesis. The sounds could have been better, there’s no doubt about that, but I was able to get my ideas across, and I enjoyed making them! 100% success!
Also, it’s important to remember that there was a time in any “pro”‘s life when he had practically zero ability to do what he does now. Have you heard what deadmau5′s music sounded like in 1995? This was the first demo he sent; he probably made music a while before that too. I’m sure hundreds of thousand of other people created the same nonsense in 1995, many far better than him, but consistent enjoyment has eventually led up to deadmau5 being famous world-wide. And judging from his song titles, he’s still having a blast. I think this wouldn’t have happened if he had let himself become overwhelmed back in 1995.
As for language learning, you get the same thing. Let’s take english vs. french for example. I have over the years learned english effortlessly, and I use it fluently every single day. French however manages to get even the simplest of sentences challenging, even after 5 years of learning it in school.
What’s the difference? Is french just that complicated? No! Here’s why: I do things that interest me in english, and have never done these things in french. I read interesting websites, watch(/listen to) interesting movies, write it in debate forums and speak it with my foreign friends. Had I done these things over the 5 years that I learned french, I would have acquired it just as effortlessly, instead of just attending a couple of hours of classes per week that focus on difficult things.
Summary: When it comes to languages (incl. music production!), not focusing on what’s difficult is the most pleasant way to overcome what’s difficult.
3: They enable minds to travel, and make real things to happen!
This is perhaps the core of what fascinates me about languages (including music production). I have written extensively about the imagination aspect associated with music production in this post, for those who wish to read more on the subject.
Imagine an old bearded man with a cane, sitting around the bonfire telling stories. All he’s doing is making sounds with his mouth and vocal tract, and yet he helps transfering his listeners to other worlds! His sounds are the keys that unlock the listeners’ imaginations. What’s also fascinating about this, is that what’s being envisioned often exceeds anything that could possibly exist. Language and imagination are truly powerful things!
Music is a much more of an abstract language, which can be more difficult to perceive. It would be great fun to hear an instrumental song (no MS Sam!) giving me clear instructions like asking me to clean my room for example. I do however believe that the same effects as the storyteller can be achieved, with a few assumptions: That there’s a good descriptive title, that the sounds and theme fit the title, and that the listener has a certain degree of imagination.
Instead of being limited by your music production or music theory abilities, use the little you’ve got to create a journey. It’ll make your music making for more pleasant, and your music will be better from it.
In addition, both music and words are immensly powerful. They can totally alter the mood of a person, they can gather people from all across the world now thanks to the internet. Remember that they’re just mere sound waves, that don’t move people physically. Our minds do an amazing job of processing these sounds and producing tangible outcomes. It’s really really fascinating!
I’m having a bit of a writer’s block, as I feel that such an article should be at least double the size. I’m hoping to see some interesting comments though! To conclude, check out this post at Fluent in 3 Months, which lists up why learning a language is like learning a musical instrument. Or why learning music production is like learning a language. Metaphors rock!