Music Mentors And Our Music Heroes. Should We Listen To Them?

Most people look for tip/ tricks etc to make their electronic dance music better. They look to music mentors- artists or magazines/ websites that align with their point of view/ look up to. Thats cool from this websites point of view (ahem) but we must also take a step back and wonder why this might not be the best of ideas in the long run.

This also goes for the same for best of lists, whats new and out for X year etc.

Most tips and tricks are generalised- also everyone is going to read it. It also puts everyone on the same path. This is how you do XY and Z.

The problem, I find, is that they usually don’t allow you to experiment. Here’s a couple of examples to show you what I mean.

One well known magazine said that snare drums rolls were out- these were very common in the 90s where you would have a long snare roll build up. Well, snare rolls are still common, and that is 20 years later
A music magazine told people how to make dance music- saying which keyboard and drum machine. The problem with this? All the sounds are going to be the same.

Music mentors should help you design the framework- not what you should do.

Testing what is good and what works is the fun of electronic dance music. Rules have been made up to say what should and shouldn’t be used in dance music. The issue comes when someone breaks those rules and the music sounds good and no-one can understand why this happens. It is very bizarre when you read about these “rule” breakers and how baffled people are about the success of the track.

There is a 10,000 hour theory. In that it takes you 10,000 hours to master anything. What isn’t known is that the people studied already knew what they were doing. The extra 10,000 hours was to make them better:

to explore,
to find out what works,
what fails
what can be used more
what technique is better
what tricks and techniques can be discovered

What artists should do- is mentor. This is a much better idea. A mentor will allow you to run ahead a few steps. They give you the framework, the understanding and then it is up to you to go and do it and figure out your 10,000 hours. And remember, a mentor could just be your favourite musician and you know everything about them. These are the ones you follow and want to emulate.

Be careful on what you want to know from your music mentor

Sounding like Hans Zimmer is really cool. But I don’t want to sound like Hans Zimmer. What I would like though is how Hans does a certain technique that allows my music to sound better and more professional- but still be my music.

You hear and see it all the time. How did XY and Z artist create this sound. Or where can I get the same loops from. This is nice, but have your own voice. Find out:

what their thought process was,
why did they chose one bass sound over another
how did they create the snap of the snare drum
how do they build up loops

See the difference? Recreating exactly the same sound is nice, but the meaning behind it will lead you in a much better direction as it will give you a foundation to build off and to experiment. It would be really awesome to recreate the prodigy drum loops. But I wouldn’t be able to use them effectively because the Prodigy has already made claim to them. But…how they built up, how they chose their sounds, how they made sure they didn’t clash. These just make me a better musician.

How do you know?

Most tips and tricks are opinions, most lists are just that as well- opinions. We need to figure out what our audience wants and then run our tracks through them. Do they like the change or not?

Check out more EDM articles at the Jasonera blog.