In my first post, I mentioned three immediate goals I had:
- Produce my first song made entirely from notes I’ve created
- Develop an ear for EQ and compression, starting by fiddling with the two songs I’ve already made
- Continue building my loop library, by systematically going through every single instrument GarageBand has to offer, and building riffs from everything that sounds like it has potential
Goals #2 and #3 have been seeing the most action lately, as I’m a completionist who can’t stand starting a new song without being sure I’ve completely “finished” the mixes I’ve already played around with.
But at the same time, I’m fine with creating small loops when I grow tired of working on the longer tracks. Hey, it’s not cheating if it only lasts 30 seconds!
Don’t quote me on that.
Anyway, #2 scares me the most, because of some baggage I built up around my actual (current) job as a dance instructor:
Some of my students have trouble following the beat of the music. It’s tough spending a lot of time listening to tracks in a paid lesson because… Well, they want to MOVE for those 45 minutes, not to listen to a song over and over and try and recognize where the “1” is.
The most disturbing part, is many students conclude they can “never” hear the beat. Some believe it is something they are born with – or not. Others, usual older dancers, suspect their ears are no longer sensitive enough to hear the upper or lower ranges of music.
It’s disturbing, because it’s hard not to agree with them. I don’t mean I consciously think they’ll never figure it out, but I know that if a student has trouble following the music, it’s likely going to keep being a problem the whole time we work together.
After a while, that little gremlin at the back of your head (I call it Nemesis) starts whispering that you’re just wasting your time; they’ll never work it out, so just teach them that fun step they keep bugging you about.
And then let’s say – for the sake of argument – that you decide to get into the music production industry. And part of that involves listening to music for brightness or muddiness or whatever.
And you can’t do it. You watch the YouTube videos, you see them play the track with and without clipping, or distortion, or buildup. And sometimes you hear – just barely – some kind of change. But then again, maybe it’s just your imagination.
“What if it never gets better?” Nemesis whispers. “What if you can’t hear the details you need to hear to be a great musician, and you can’t succeed without it, and can’t find any way to apply your passion to anything, and eventually you have to quit dancing and lose everything you ever cared about and die alone on the street?”
Maybe the scariest part is that training your ear doesn’t feel to me like training in any other skill. I find myself thinking: How is sitting and listening to the same piano chords over and over helping me hear them any better? Shouldn’t I be DOING something?
But miraculously, it DOES help. Each time I sit down to do EQ for a track, or adjust the compression, I hear a bit more than I used to.
Sometimes there’s a faint whine, or an unpleasant ringing I didn’t hear before. Or one instrument blares out too loudly over the rest of the track. I don’t seem to have control over when I start picking up on something, but still, there it is.
In fact, yesterday was a pretty huge day for me, because it was the first time I was able to hear and understand what “muddiness” was. Thank you, Rokit speakers!
It’s like a new world is opening up in front of me, like a foodie finally figuring out what’s so great about caviar. It’s exciting, and nuanced, and I WANT MORE OF IT.
So maybe my students really DO have difficulty hearing the higher and lower frequencies. Or maybe they need to sit down and spend consistent time honing their ears, like we hone every other skill we’ve developed. I don’t know. But it’s working for me.
Photo Credits:
‘Man in White Shirt Using Macbook Pro’ by Tim Gouw from Pexels
‘Red Salmon Eggs in Clear Drinking Glass With Sliced Lemon’ by Nastasya Day from Pexels