I had a kid taking online classes today. I listened to his music. There was no story, no progression, everything sounded, automated.

After talking for a bit he said he still didn't really know how to play the instruments, (Virtual in his case).

So for the next 2 weeks I gave him a 60 BPM limit. No borrowing from other songs, ARPs allowed though. Just go half way in speed.

A lot of people want to make trap and techno today, but slow trap is a great starting point. Sing to the keys, don't say A-G, sing the words, hear the melody, go slow. Know the keys, but hear the words.

Nightcore started a trend pretty common speeding songs up like 10-30%, and that shit is not where you learn. Bane of my existence teaching right now. Basics. Always the basics!

I get paid $125 an hour, so freebie today for him and everyone else.

I'm just teaching what worked for me. (Plus still no meds, going stir crazy)

 

Last edited: Apr 7, 2020

whats your strategy behind this? the student being able to watch everything happening in the DAW from it moving slower?

 

Don't undo his life. Let him enjoy the rest of it.

 

Ive never given this much thought. Learning today's music for young people is totally different that it was for me. I bought a cheap knocked about Wurlitzer electric piano and a new Roland SH-3 synth when I was about 16 (a lot of school holiday and weekend jobs) and learned by mimicking records, often one bar at a time. I didn't have lessons so learned to train my ears to understand chords and melodies. Then the next step is joining a band. Then you get an understanding of how to work with other instruments. Then you get married and you sell all your gear. Then you get divorced and start making techno.
Hang on. This isn't about me!
But seriously, I would really struggle to teach kids who don't know anything about music, to make music.

 

I understand the strategy and agree. If you are constructing a track with loops at 170bpm, you turn it up loud and you imagine yourself headlining Coachella. At 60bpm you are going to have to think about the spaces and what you are going to place in those spaces.

 

The strategy is simply he didn't hear the patterns. Leads, Arps drums all hit the spot, but it was jumbled mess. Almost sounded like an old Orb Composer track. There's no purpose or direction.

When we learn to write music there's always a purpose to the song. It's easy to forget purpose when we're doing instrumentals, but there's always a story. If you aren't telling it, the listener should be able to write their own.

Trying to fractal a song is like saying 1-1-2 is a song. There's a melody, and people can hear the difference between science and emotion.

Major and Minors. We know the difference, but they need to learn it.

 

If you think it's all for naught, you'd be incorrect. Everyone tells their stories, and even to the last days, lives are affected. You can lay down and die or spread one last word.

Teachers: Teach what they can't do.

That phrase is simplified. Some of us just have spare thoughts to offer hints at what's missing.

 

+1 Delicious pads

The rest of it would have gotten an 'agree' except I laughed at that bit so...

 

I agree that I should have received an agree.

 

There.. don't say I don't give ya anythin' :P

 

This may be the best quote I've heard in a long while.

 

This phrase made me think of another scene, soundtrack I saw before.

The music starts at 1:50, and it's not complicated. It's a perfect piece for what's happening.

You can hear the track uninterrupted here:

 

This is profound. The closest I ever got to your advice was way back in the day, I turned the lights down, put headphones on, enabled closed captions and made my own OST watching The Crow. It pulled me out of my(self-indulgent)self and into something "other".

I tell you, though, I can be a real creative, emotional and imaginative retard. Then I realized, I'm simple. So I should just be me. The fundamentals of all the complex things are at the root and it is primal and simple and can be explained without multiple syllables. This is the truth. It is binary. Knowledge is 1 and Wisdom is 0. We can always add 1 to itself and then again and again and we get all these different values. 0 is the lack of all the things that can complicate and confuse and potentially corrupt. We can have both but the more we add the more different things get. I just realized I'm not even talking about tempo.

 

Wow, Pinkman you've taken this post to another level. Excellent encapsulation of the absorption and usage of knowledge.

 

66bpm is sounding better then 60....space enough still

 

That's true for every instrument and every genre.
And for arrangement and mixing too, slow it, listen carefully to the details,
And the most important part of what you said "sing it" if you can't sing it, your brain didn't understood it.
While if you can sing it, you have it integrated in your mind, then the rest will follow.

 

I always sing bass lines (and play air bass guitar) before I work them out on a keyboard. I should try it for other instruments too. Maybe not harp glissandos.

 

@Pinkman

That's a great way to build off what you see and feel. I really like the idea of no audio at all, using your own thoughts to completely make the soundtrack. Great advice! It totally fits the general theme of this thread, where the music needs to make sense.

 

/edit

 

Last edited: Apr 17, 2020

my solution to your task:
half speed, double detail, a drum hit on every 1/32
take that teacher [*throws apple at teachers head]