Aphex Twin A thought about the process of learning as a musician

I've been thinking about writing what follows lately and it seems that I'm in a perfect mood to do it right now.

It begins with talking about Aphex music. Aphex Twin is definitely my favourite artist (yeah I'm not kidding watmmers) and I'm often wondering why possibly he's so good in music making. RDJ comes from techno ; the first things he did were quite simple and repetitive. Then his music became more complex over the years and ended up in a techno-concrete-music thing, with Drukqs notably (I don't consider the things he released later as it was more in a "back to sources" vibe).

I've always considered personally admitted that Afx learned things about music very progressively because he started his career with a simple workflow, and then always changed his workflow, probably in a simple to more complicated way. Another related thing RDJ sayed in an interview is that he actually changes his setup very often.

Let's relate another thing : Two months ago, my parents offered me a Monotribe for my birthday and for the first time I've been twiddling analogue knobs. Not that I think the insight I had was due to the fact that synth is analogue, but yeah for some reason it made me understand something that I didn't understand before (with my other synths).

So one night I was jamming on the Monotribe, tired and stoned, and I found some crazy and full of life sounds. This full-off-life-ness impressed me and here's the reason which brought it, in my opinion : the Monotribe workflow is pretty simple, and the instrument basically doesn't give you a good ability to create long and complicated melodies. This makes you spending less time on how long the melody will be, and more time on how expressive the melody can be in a short amount of time.

When you're done with the melody, you start twiddling the knobs randomly or willfully and there the magic goes (at least it does sometimes). That's the simpler thing I've ever experienced musically, but in the same time one of the most delightful ones.

I've always tended to make my music kinda complex because I thought the result would be deeper. But can a musician begin with something complex without knowing to deal with simple things first ? I don't think so, or at least not fully.

Next week, the discussion will be based on the theme "Jenkinson's brothers blood contains molecules that makes your acid sound better")

ASS. Always Start Simple.

I think monosynths can be really educational.

I got my Shruthi-1 working in November and since then I have nothing but love for it. I've been playing with synths for about 12 years now, but I've never had a dedicated monosynth. Finally getting one and exploring it has been really eye-opening and it's quickly turned into my favorite piece of gear. I usually get attached to whatever the shiny new piece of gear is and then get sick of it after a month or so, but with the Shruthi-1 I just like it more and more, and I think it's because it's a decent monosynth.

It's such a different way of working with sound - colorful and creamy and simple and pure. It's the most paradigm-shifting tool I've acquired in years. Fuck chords!

And yeah, ASS.

Or KISS.

ASS KISS.

That all sounds logical... I started off as a kid wanting to learn Sabbath riffs on the guitar and now I have a room full of more gear than I know what to do with. I feel a musicians setup can be seen as representative of their work... a more simple setup will yield better efficiency. The less time you spend untangling wires and plugging in pedals, the more time you can spend making some damn music.

xtal was one of his first tracks. hardly simplistic. i dont follow you on that line of thought. hes always had a knack for sound and melody

  On 3/23/2012 at 2:21 AM, marf said:

xtal was one of his first tracks. hardly simplistic. i dont follow you on that line of thought. hes always had a knack for sound and melody

Of course he had, but what I mean is that in the big lines, he progressively made his sound more complex throughout his discography (of course there are some exceptions).

The highlight of my point is when I say he comes from techno : being a genius with melody allowed him to explore the depth of what a very simple melody loop can deliver, and I think it's the reason why he's been able to make more twisted - but still extremely strong - things in his more recent releases.

Maybe you'll be more likely to make some noodling if you don't have that kind of basis.

Analord is also a good example : the song structures are quite complex or unexpected, and in the same time some melodies of it are so simple they make you want to cry. Just one example : the very short acid line in Grumpy Acid.

On a personal level, I've always tried to avoid repetition the more I can. This sometimes leads to very interesting things, but this also often makes me losing the direction of a given track. However I experienced some exceptions, where I for some reason used shorter melodies working together, and this have always deliver something more solid than the average music I make. as far as I can tell

  On 3/20/2012 at 11:25 PM, Antape said:

It begins with talking about Aphex music. Aphex Twin is definitely my favourite artist (yeah I'm not kidding watmmers) and I'm often wondering why possibly he's so good in music making. RDJ comes from techno ; the first things he did were quite simple and repetitive. Then his music became more complex over the years and ended up in a techno-concrete-music thing, with Drukqs notably (I don't consider the things he released later as it was more in a "back to sources" vibe).

You have to consider it all! :D And yes, thinking about how one particular good artist learnt his craft bit by bit and built up his skillset is a nice way of better articulating the process so you can do it better yourself. I'm nowhere near finished with my analysis of AFX's music yet, but I think I have a rough gist so far: he started off with a cheap sampler and a love of sound, so one of the things that made his early music so appealling was that it wasn't filled with well-known electronic instruments, but with homemade percussion and the like, giving it a unique style. His early work was very simple, but that isn't inherently good or bad in itself (it was a good thing in the case of SAW 85-92, less so with GAK). What was so good, and what the simplicity was likely also a side effect of, was that he was coming at music making from a unique vantage point. I think this is an important part of why his music is so endearing: it's quite far from the beaten path. It's idiosyncratic in a strangely quirky and beautiful way. It's basically outsider art.

Then he started using more orchestral samples, such as pianos, strings, and woodwinds, expanding his palette further beyond synths, metal clanging and field recordings, and the result was some even more hauntingly beautiful pieces of music. (I think this is my personal favourite era of his now, and consists of Falling Free, Zeroes and Ones, On, Selected Ambient Works Volume II, Ventolin, ...I Care Because You Do, At the Heart of It All, Donkey Rhubarb and Analogue Bubblebath 5.)

Then he seemed to focus less on instrumentation and more on melodies and structure. Note how Melodies From Mars has chords, compared to pretty much all his previous work, which largely seems to consist of noodling around in a particular key.

Then, as far as I can tell, he discovered Squarepusher, and wrote Hangable Auto Bulb. He started experimenting with fast, scattered beats and liked the result. So then he wrote more music with such beats, giving us the Richard D. James Album, Come to Daddy and Drukqs.

Then he went back to acid techno with the Analord series, and then combined the melancholy of that with the fast beats again, giving us Confederation Trough EP and Rushup Edge.

I'm still working out the details, which will take months at least, but as far as I can tell, that's the rough gist of the general progression of his music making process. Another thing I find particularly interesting was that it seems like he works on different tracks in vastly different styles simultaneously, so while I've tried to group his work into distinct eras for the sake of convenient discussion, such groupings are based entirely on memes used, not chronology. I'd go as far as to speculate that GAK actually precedes SAW 85-92, insinuating either that GAK might have been written well before it allegedly arrived at the Warp office in 1990, or that much of SAW 85-92 was written in 1991 or 1992.

  On 3/24/2012 at 10:44 AM, ZoeB said:

  On 3/20/2012 at 11:25 PM, Antape said:

It begins with talking about Aphex music. Aphex Twin is definitely my favourite artist (yeah I'm not kidding watmmers) and I'm often wondering why possibly he's so good in music making. RDJ comes from techno ; the first things he did were quite simple and repetitive. Then his music became more complex over the years and ended up in a techno-concrete-music thing, with Drukqs notably (I don't consider the things he released later as it was more in a "back to sources" vibe).

 

You have to consider it all! :D And yes, thinking about how one particular good artist learnt his craft bit by bit and built up his skillset is a nice way of better articulating the process so you can do it better yourself. I'm nowhere near finished with my analysis of AFX's music yet, but I think I have a rough gist so far: he started off with a cheap sampler and a love of sound, so one of the things that made his early music so appealling was that it wasn't filled with well-known electronic instruments, but with homemade percussion and the like, giving it a unique style. His early work was very simple, but that isn't inherently good or bad in itself (it was a good thing in the case of SAW 85-92, less so with GAK). What was so good, and what the simplicity was likely also a side effect of, was that he was coming at music making from a unique vantage point. I think this is an important part of why his music is so endearing: it's quite far from the beaten path. It's idiosyncratic in a strangely quirky and beautiful way. It's basically outsider art.

 

Then he started using more orchestral samples, such as pianos, strings, and woodwinds, expanding his palette further beyond synths, metal clanging and field recordings, and the result was some even more hauntingly beautiful pieces of music. (I think this is my personal favourite era of his now, and consists of Falling Free, Zeroes and Ones, On, Selected Ambient Works Volume II, Ventolin, ...I Care Because You Do, At the Heart of It All, Donkey Rhubarb and Analogue Bubblebath 5.)

 

Then he seemed to focus less on instrumentation and more on melodies and structure. Note how Melodies From Mars has chords, compared to pretty much all his previous work, which largely seems to consist of noodling around in a particular key.

 

Then, as far as I can tell, he discovered Squarepusher, and wrote Hangable Auto Bulb. He started experimenting with fast, scattered beats and liked the result. So then he wrote more music with such beats, giving us the Richard D. James Album, Come to Daddy and Drukqs.

 

Then he went back to acid techno with the Analord series, and then combined the melancholy of that with the fast beats again, giving us Confederation Trough EP and Rushup Edge.

 

I'm still working out the details, which will take months at least, but as far as I can tell, that's the rough gist of the general progression of his music making process. Another thing I find particularly interesting was that it seems like he works on different tracks in vastly different styles simultaneously, so while I've tried to group his work into distinct eras for the sake of convenient discussion, such groupings are based entirely on memes used, not chronology. I'd go as far as to speculate that GAK actually precedes SAW 85-92, insinuating either that GAK might have been written well before it allegedly arrived at the Warp office in 1990, or that much of SAW 85-92 was written in 1991 or 1992.

thats one of the most insightful comments I have read here in a long time. I am currently wondering how much he did cover tracks that where there before. He uses lots of old game midi stuff like sega music to build his tracks on. I am very sure now that most artists like autechre, boc and aphex take songs they like and change and rearrange stuff so you can't find out what they actually used. Thats also the reason why you learn piano in the first place right? so you can reuse stuff you use to play in a different context. starting from scratch does not make any sense as by doing so you cover stuff subconsciously while by remixing it to a new song you do it consciously

I tried to arrange tracks based on chords and scale but the overall tension is much better when I use a song thats already there and change it until its a new song

  On 3/24/2012 at 11:21 AM, o00o said:

I am very sure now that most artists like autechre, boc and aphex take songs they like and change and rearrange stuff so you can't find out what they actually used. Thats also the reason why you learn piano in the first place right? so you can reuse stuff you use to play in a different context. starting from scratch does not make any sense as by doing so you cover stuff subconsciously while by remixing it to a new song you do it consciously

It's very hard to get the balance right. When I write music, I'm often inspired by several different artists, but I always try to put my own spin on things. I've never released anything using someone else's melody as a starting point, for instance, but I think it's clear how much, for example, Fenix Funk 5 influenced Dagda's Arp (such as how elements are introduced in the last bar before the repetition, rather than the first bar of the new cycle, and the digital noise generator I use).

It's an interesting question of where ideas come from, and whether anyone can be truly original. I think it helps to avoid thinking in terms of working with an established memeplex (eg a genre), and instead combine little snippets of ideas from vastly different ones. For my last soundtrack, I was almost as much influenced by Xenomania as I was by AFX, and I'm guessing that very few other people would cite both as inspirations, so at least the combination of influences should be rare.

I'm a big fan of making things from scratch though, from the melodies to the sounds themselves, and I think that's the most important idea to steal from such artists. Not their original sounds, but the fact they have original sounds.

  On 3/24/2012 at 11:40 AM, ZoeB said:

  On 3/24/2012 at 11:21 AM, o00o said:

I am very sure now that most artists like autechre, boc and aphex take songs they like and change and rearrange stuff so you can't find out what they actually used. Thats also the reason why you learn piano in the first place right? so you can reuse stuff you use to play in a different context. starting from scratch does not make any sense as by doing so you cover stuff subconsciously while by remixing it to a new song you do it consciously

 

It's very hard to get the balance right. When I write music, I'm often inspired by several different artists, but I always try to put my own spin on things. I've never released anything using someone else's melody as a starting point, for instance, but I think it's clear how much, for example, Fenix Funk 5 influenced Dagda's Arp (such as how elements are introduced in the last bar before the repetition, rather than the first bar of the new cycle, and the digital noise generator I use).

 

It's an interesting question of where ideas come from, and whether anyone can be truly original. I think it helps to avoid thinking in terms of working with an established memeplex (eg a genre), and instead combine little snippets of ideas from vastly different ones. For my last soundtrack, I was almost as much influenced by Xenomania as I was by AFX, and I'm guessing that very few other people would cite both as inspirations, so at least the combination of influences should be rare.

 

I'm a big fan of making things from scratch though, from the melodies to the sounds themselves, and I think that's the most important idea to steal from such artists. Not their original sounds, but the fact they have original sounds.

Yeah on the other hand if you leave the melody away and just use the chords of a certain song you have a very solid basis and if you rearrange it a bit and add new melodies to it (using only midi not sampling the song) its very very hard to spot even so it sounds very familiar. I was pretty much against working that way until I watched this

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nxrjsHSbHkY

If you look at early stuff by almost everybody (Radiohead, BoC, Aphex, Autechre) they are more or less well done covers of existing stuff. When time goes on they learn to better hide this and it goes on more subconscious but its based on covers and remixes. I mean aphex even has a double cd with covers so I wonder how much he did not label like that as it was progressed far enough

  On 3/24/2012 at 10:44 AM, ZoeB said:

You have to consider it all! :D And yes, thinking about how one particular good artist learnt his craft bit by bit and built up his skillset is a nice way of better articulating the process so you can do it better yourself. I'm nowhere near finished with my analysis of AFX's music yet, but I think I have a rough gist so far: he started off with a cheap sampler and a love of sound, so one of the things that made his early music so appealling was that it wasn't filled with well-known electronic instruments, but with homemade percussion and the like, giving it a unique style. His early work was very simple, but that isn't inherently good or bad in itself (it was a good thing in the case of SAW 85-92, less so with GAK). What was so good, and what the simplicity was likely also a side effect of, was that he was coming at music making from a unique vantage point. I think this is an important part of why his music is so endearing: it's quite far from the beaten path. It's idiosyncratic in a strangely quirky and beautiful way. It's basically outsider art.

The reason I wasn't considering it all is because Drukqs is very complicated in terms of programming and my opinion is that he won't go much further on that side. For me that's what explains the "back to sources" condition of Analord.

Also, I personally find GAK amazing and truly think it's one of his best work. For me it's the perfect example of that straight to the point simplicity.

What I think about the reason RDJ doesn't release any more is that he kinda wants to preserve the myth he built around his persona and is waiting for bringing together the material for a release that would represent a significant direction-shift. Probably he already has that and doesn't care that much as the strongest reason he seemed to release stuff "lately" was for money. I mean, I'm sure he's aware better than anyone else of his genius and doesn't need gratitude from the audience any more.

Anyway, what is that analysis you're talking about ? Is that something you write ?

I just found anther quote by Autechre:

  Quote

"At this stage we weren't really thinking about making music that was our own. What we did was modifying what existed. We didn't really think about ownership of the music either. It was a few years later, when someone said, 'Oh, these tracks are good, are they yours?', that we recognised that we'd almost stopped making sounds that were recognisable. It seemed as if we had been in a grey area for ages, and then suddenly we were aware of actually creating music and playing it to other people, and they were saying it was ours. I think these congratulations satisfied our egos so much, we decided the music was ours!"

http://www.soundonso...es/autechre.htm

thats how they started. by remixing and covering stuff until it was theirs

  On 3/24/2012 at 11:40 AM, ZoeB said:

I'm a big fan of making things from scratch though, from the melodies to the sounds themselves, and I think that's the most important idea to steal from such artists. Not their original sounds, but the fact they have original sounds.

I follow you 100% on that one. My most precious advice as a musician would be to make music "by hand" the more possible you can, so that you understand what's going on from the scratch. You can apply that to synthesis, sampling, recording, mixing, whatever. That's why I've never liked synths like Absynth or that kind of very complicated tools that pushes you to work with presets. Meaningless complex sounds.

Also, I agree with your bit about pushing yourself beyond the genres. There are no genres, there's just music.

  On 3/24/2012 at 12:00 PM, o00o said:

I just found anther quote by Autechre:

 

  Quote

"At this stage we weren't really thinking about making music that was our own. What we did was modifying what existed. We didn't really think about ownership of the music either. It was a few years later, when someone said, 'Oh, these tracks are good, are they yours?', that we recognised that we'd almost stopped making sounds that were recognisable. It seemed as if we had been in a grey area for ages, and then suddenly we were aware of actually creating music and playing it to other people, and they were saying it was ours. I think these congratulations satisfied our egos so much, we decided the music was ours!"

 

http://www.soundonso...es/autechre.htm

 

thats how they started. by remixing and covering stuff until it was theirs

I think that depends on the musician. Deliberately using other people's material can be a very good point to start for sure, but if you don't do it practically, it all happens in your head anyway. I mean, all the music you make is all the music you've heard processed by your brain and body.

  On 3/24/2012 at 11:48 AM, o00o said:

Yeah on the other hand if you leave the melody away and just use the chords of a certain song you have a very solid basis and if you rearrange it a bit and add new melodies to it (using only midi not sampling the song) its very very hard to spot even so it sounds very familiar. I was pretty much against working that way until I watched this

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nxrjsHSbHkY

 

If you look at early stuff by almost everybody (Radiohead, BoC, Aphex, Autechre) they are more or less well done covers of existing stuff. When time goes on they learn to better hide this and it goes on more subconscious but its based on covers and remixes. I mean aphex even has a double cd with covers so I wonder how much he did not label like that as it was progressed far enough

Interesting video. See also:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=--BVUTOrYP8

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eU5Dn-WaElI

Although I still prefer to use original material, personally. I've gotten to the point where I've commissioned someone to make patches for me, and someone else to sing single notes that I've sampled and play like a Mellotron. While you could make a career out of little more than, say,

While we're on the subject, it would be remiss of me not to mention the Designer's Republic: for Autechre, they traced a photo of Fallingwater, and used NASA moon photos, and they worked extensively with Pop Will Eat Itself, whose work sounds mostly sampled. Does anyone else remember "sample it, loop it, fuck it and eat it"? They were very much the visual equivalent of the poppies, a perfect match.

  On 3/24/2012 at 12:05 PM, Antape said:

  On 3/24/2012 at 12:00 PM, o00o said:

I just found anther quote by Autechre:

 

  Quote

"At this stage we weren't really thinking about making music that was our own. What we did was modifying what existed. We didn't really think about ownership of the music either. It was a few years later, when someone said, 'Oh, these tracks are good, are they yours?', that we recognised that we'd almost stopped making sounds that were recognisable. It seemed as if we had been in a grey area for ages, and then suddenly we were aware of actually creating music and playing it to other people, and they were saying it was ours. I think these congratulations satisfied our egos so much, we decided the music was ours!"

 

http://www.soundonso...es/autechre.htm

 

thats how they started. by remixing and covering stuff until it was theirs

 

I think that depends on the musician. Deliberately using other people's material can be a very good point to start for sure, but if you don't do it practically, it all happens in your head anyway. I mean, all the music you make is all the music you've heard processed by your brain and body.

yeah exactly. WATMM is full of people covering Aphex Twin more or less by taste but why not deliberately cover and remix what Aphex did cover in the first place

  On 3/24/2012 at 11:48 AM, o00o said:

If you look at early stuff by almost everybody (Radiohead, BoC, Aphex, Autechre) they are more or less well done covers of existing stuff. When time goes on they learn to better hide this and it goes on more subconscious but its based on covers and remixes.

  On 3/24/2012 at 12:05 PM, Antape said:

  On 3/24/2012 at 12:00 PM, o00o said:

I just found anther quote by Autechre:

 

  Quote

"At this stage we weren't really thinking about making music that was our own. What we did was modifying what existed. We didn't really think about ownership of the music either. It was a few years later, when someone said, 'Oh, these tracks are good, are they yours?', that we recognised that we'd almost stopped making sounds that were recognisable. It seemed as if we had been in a grey area for ages, and then suddenly we were aware of actually creating music and playing it to other people, and they were saying it was ours. I think these congratulations satisfied our egos so much, we decided the music was ours!"

 

http://www.soundonso...es/autechre.htm

 

thats how they started. by remixing and covering stuff until it was theirs

 

I think that depends on the musician. Deliberately using other people's material can be a very good point to start for sure, but if you don't do it practically, it all happens in your head anyway. I mean, all the music you make is all the music you've heard processed by your brain and body.

While it's a nice springboard into music making to sample other people's music (and I'll admit I started off that way too, sampling, remixing and mashing everything I could get my hands on), you don't want to rely on it as a crutch. It's like stabilisers for your bike. You add more and more original material, and then you realise you're making music all on your own now, like Autechre did. For instance, the only thing that bugs me about Chiastic Slide is the cowboy yelling "eeyah!" on Calbruc, as I find it detracts from the otherworldly experience; it's something recognisable, and as such doesn't fit into the whole otherworldly aesthetic Autechre generally have.

In contrast, Fatboy Slim and Moby work best when they're blurring the line between a remix, cover, mashup and original work, so in that particular style it works very well.

  On 3/24/2012 at 11:48 AM, o00o said:

I mean aphex even has a double cd with covers so I wonder how much he did not label like that as it was progressed far enough

Bear in mind those are paid remixes. He was specifically given the job of making his own versions of other people's music. That's quite different to an unsolicited cover. They asked him to do it. In that context, I can only imagine the biggest complaint some of the artist might have had would be that his remixes were too original. Those are the best ones, though, in my opinion.

  On 3/24/2012 at 11:51 AM, Antape said:

Also, I personally find GAK amazing and truly think it's one of his best work. For me it's the perfect example of that straight to the point simplicity.

For the record, I do like GAK, it's nice and pleasant. But it's arguably veering on being a bit bland, and I think most artists, let alone ones with a reputation such as his, would be more likely to balk at a reaction of "yeah, it's nice" than one of utter revulsion. While it's good, it's surprisingly normal for someone who has a reputation of being such an outsider and an oddball. Starting with SAW 85-92 makes for a much more impressive fictional narrative, which in turn sells more records. People want to hear about eccentric geniuses who become overnight successes, not normal people who "merely" worked hard to refine their craft over many years before finally getting it up to a sellable level!

  On 3/24/2012 at 11:51 AM, Antape said:

What I think about the reason RDJ doesn't release any more is that he kinda wants to preserve the myth he built around his persona and is waiting for bringing together the material for a release that would represent a significant direction-shift. Probably he already has that and doesn't care that much as the strongest reason he seemed to release stuff "lately" was for money. I mean, I'm sure he's aware better than anyone else of his genius and doesn't need gratitude from the audience any more.

I think a lot of his fans are elitist, and don't want him to sell out, whatever that means. He made the "mistake" of making some very good music with vocals that became popular. I think that since then, he's been working hard to make sure he doesn't become popular again. I just hope he won't purposefully deprive the world of more good music for the sake of retaining a finicky fanbase.

  On 3/24/2012 at 11:51 AM, Antape said:

Anyway, what is that analysis you're talking about ? Is that something you write ?

Yeah, it's just under 5000 words at the moment. I have a long way to go. I've been tinkering with it for a while now, but between all the soundtracks, albums, novels and comic book scripts I've been writing, it's a pretty low priority. It only indirectly helps me because it forces me to pay proper attention to the music of someone I like, which in turn helps me pay attention to my own, and better articulate what I want to do musically and how to do it. So far the only noticable result is the introduction of household objects into the last soundtrack I co-wrote. (Due to a 1993 AFX interview I read, my analysis of his music, and my analysis of my own early music, which was exclusively sample based and written with no budget. I think my music was more in sync with his homebrew aesthetic before I'd actually heard of him, and I'm taking steps to get that "everything is an instrument" mentality back.)

  On 3/24/2012 at 12:02 PM, Antape said:

My most precious advice as a musician would be to make music "by hand" the more possible you can, so that you understand what's going on from the scratch. You can apply that to synthesis, sampling, recording, mixing, whatever. That's why I've never liked synths like Absynth or that kind of very complicated tools that pushes you to work with presets. Meaningless complex sounds.

 

Also, I agree with your bit about pushing yourself beyond the genres. There are no genres, there's just music.

I think that after a few years of tracking, I discovered synthesisers, and then sort of boxed myself in to making electronic music. Now I'm trying to remind myself that just because I can finally afford a nice synthesiser, it doesn't mean I should use it exclusively. The mentality of "everything is an instrument" served me well, giving me a unique voice, just as it did for early AFX, only he was smart enough to augment that aesthetic, not give it up. Basically, my natural tendancy is to have a homogenised sound, but I need to fight against that urge, because eccentric experimentation has always yielded better results for me. It's just that sometimes it takes paying clients for me to remember that, is all.

Listen to music , especially the music of other EKTers , especially the music of EKTers who are critical of you/tell you you suck (get over it BTW). It can be a bit painful, especially if the music is decent. However, keep at it (the creating/working and the listening) and you will see how it pays off pretty quickly.

Stop posting your tracks on YLC, or at least hold off for as long as possible. Actually , you'd really be best off with a select few people you trust for feedback. Believe it or not, not everyone on the Internet has your best intentions in mind. I know it's troubling..

When you aren't making music, think about making music.

I guess how seriously you want to take your music making depends on how seriously you want your music to be taken.

( last post )

p.s. What's your motivation? Rage/hate is a fun choice, but most likely it isn't enough on it's own.

  On 5/3/2012 at 10:10 PM, The Pod said:

Believe it or not, not everyone on the Internet has your best intentions in mind.

best *interest.

I know it's not nice to triple post but I needed to leap in here and make this clear before someone else tries to call me out on it. I obviously don't mean you should be scrounging other musician's work for ideas. It's something a lot more about putting things in perspective. I think how you listen to music is as important as how you go about making it really...this could apply to any art form I think. bla bla bla bla bla oh shit someone get me a roll of paper towels.