Practice

Lately there have been a couple threads about how to improve musically. Electronic music has so few objective rules which is part of what makes it so liberating but it can also be daunting and difficult to figure out which direction to go in.

One route is simply to copy some of your favorite music, reverse engineering it from the bottom up, part by part. I think a lot of people get started this way. This can get boring and I tend to avoid doing it but this seems very educational.

Obviously being too analytical about this can make it less fun, but isn't that exactly what "real" musicians do? Isolate technical weaknesses, and keep working on those until they get over the hump and improve. In a very muscular, drill-oriented way, like working out.

It's satisfying when you can objectively point out what is improving about your craft.

Thoughts?

EDIT: Sorry, hit enter too quick!

I try sometimes to recreate some "sound" or genre or whatever I have been listening lately. Usually it ends up sounding shitty and I give up after few bars.

Then I go to create something more original which sounds probably as or even more shitty but at least it's my own shitty sound.

Someone in one of the other recent threads was talking about "wearing hats" and that fits nicely with those band/quest paradigms, trying to think within a specific role rather than trying to do everything at once.

just do it

<watmm fucked up all my formatting nm>