You either have it or you don't?

eltoppo51 wrote:Yet I've been on different machines for a while now and try and learn and practice all the time and I'm still absolutely terrible at making beats....

Just ask yourself what you think is terrible about those beats and then change it up. Don't be afraid of breaking 'rules' and clipping/distorting stuff. Just be raggedy an let it flow. If it's shit, start another beat. Make tunes for you, not the charts.

clint246clint wrote:Even if you learn something, without a certain degree of SKILL, you will still be rubbish/ average at it despite knowing what to do.

To acquire skill takes time, devotion and resources.

To acquire skill you must take what you have learned and master aspects of it or all of it.

To acquire skill you must make sacrifices in other areas of your life, you cannot have it all all of the time.

To acquire skill you must be driven, highly self-critical, learn from your peers and understand exactly what you are doing.

Once you have acquired a certain skill, it can become 'second nature', but the learning must continue.

There are barriers to acquiring skill, at the top of the list are friends and often family. Usually there is no financial reward for someone attempting to acquire skill, becoming skilled is the ultimate reward. Others may suggest you are wasting your time because the results will not be immediate...it could take years of dedication to your craft.

You yourself do not decide when you have become skilled, if you get that far people will openly acknowledge it providing they are able to judge and recognise skill in the same context.

Learning is a lifelong activity, it NEVER should end when you leave college/ school.

Challenge yourself often or you will lose ground.

also, skill is an african bum disease

(sorry, couldn't resist)

Ibunshi wrote:Odd, i could have sworn i posted in this thread earlier.. but was posting from a mobile, dont think hiting submit actually did anything..

Agree with what MPC4k said above..

All talent is, is an individuals ability to "get" something.. Anyone
with a normal functioning brain has what it takes to learn.. And when
people speak of natural talent etc, its really just a person that has
learnt something quicker than what the norm might be....

But then you also have the people with with an abnormal "broken"
brain.. Take an autistc person that is extremely good at playing the
piano.. Would you say he is talented or would you think that because of
his disorder it has become easier for him to "get" certain things?


..anyone can learn, it just takes differently long for different
individuals depending on the brain.. kudos to anyone not giving up easily
and keeps at it even if it goes agaisnt what others might think

I think there is way too much talk about talent as if it was some kind
of mystical force, and it puts people off from trying, people that
could achieve greatness if they went at it, and kept trying.. No one is
born with a language, music is a language that has to be learnt, and
people will be differently good at grasping it and learning how to
communicate with it..

And things like having a good voice, ultimately it is nothing more than
a physical attribute and is not enough to make you a good singer.. and same with someone
that has very agile fingers, that alone doesnt make someoen a great piano player

And you may be completely physically disabled but still "get" it, but then you can
find another way to communicate those ideas.. You could be completely
paralyzed and still have more to offer musically than a complete
orchestra, btw many orchestras are filled with people that are nothing more than
machines trained to play what someone else directs them to play.. i met this flute player that was in the london philharmonic orchestra, she was great at playing, but could not pick up the flute and just play... many would say she was musically talented, but she really just was good at the physical part of the playing, which ulitmately can be compared to many other physical thinsg that arent related to music... but playing instruments is physical, being musical is in the mind, with that in mind, i've seen 5 year olds being more musical with re-birth making acid techno, than that flute player who cannot create anything, no offense to her and what she does is needed.... but the physical and the mental part walk hand in hand and both can be learned even though both arent needed in order to create good music.


If someone is interested in music he has to find his own way imo.. There
is no point in trying to fit into some kind general view of what talent is,
that is counter productive, counter creative and it hinders your personal development.. not to say one shouldnt keep an open mind, but you shouldnt compromise unless an idea speak directly to you.

COOO-sign...I totally agree...i try to explain this to my friends...STOP MYSTIFYING TALENT AND CREATIVITY!!

they'll never stop mystifying talent and creativity if they don't first stop mystifying gear

^

I think patience is the key to a lot of doors. I'm usually happy with the basics of my beats but when it comes to arranging and giving structure I end up losing patience apart from tonight, I went straight into my practice room from finishing work and just got home now, I only have a few turntables, a shit load of records, and an mpc 2500 in there (no internet either) and I managed to come out with a beat that I'm actually happy with!

Might of found a bug in jjos2xl ver 2.14 in the procedure though but thats for another topic.

It was good to hear all your thoughts on this..

Nym wrote:they'll never stop mystifying talent and creativity if they don't first stop mystifying gear

tru indeed

I know some dudes that been making beats for 30+ years and you can hardly tell. I don't know if the issue is "you have it, or you don't," but I do think it has something to do with being creative. You might have noticed a LOT of ol skool Artists still sound old. Grand Master Flash still scratches like he's in his Moms kitchen. Marley Marl's beats should sound RIDICULOUS today, but Kev Brown did the best joint on his bbe release.
When people get to a comfort zone, the creativity stops. They still do what they do, but their comfortable doing what their doing. Its the main reason to NEVER stop learning, and always be open to ideas. The first sign that the creativity is slowing down is when artists/producers/dj's start dissin' other styles for ignorant reasons. Trust me, 30 years ago, many dj's were thinking, "I'm not doing that scratching s#it..its stupid...it wears your records out!" I hear things today like, "I don't like beats with all them drum rolls!" Has me thinking "WTF do you mean??? Drummers don't do drum rolls?" Just because YOU can't program them today, don't give yourself a reason not to learn tomorrow!
You can't be ignorant and stay relevant. Change is always necessary because your audience will never remain the same. If your boy doesn't have an audience to keep happy, then he can be comfortable being uncreative doing the same thing. If he does have an audience, he better do something to keep them happy!

jimmie wrote:

eltoppo51 wrote:Yet I've been on different machines for a while now and try and learn and practice all the time and I'm still absolutely terrible at making beats....

Just ask yourself what you think is terrible about those beats and then change it up. Don't be afraid of breaking 'rules' and clipping/distorting stuff. Just be raggedy an let it flow. If it's ****, start another beat. Make tunes for you, not the charts.

reminds me of a quote. "if you do what you've always done, you're gonna get what you always got!"

Mike Boogie wrote:
PROTIP: JUST DO YOU...!!!

gotta agree. "you" is something you have to realize for yourself what it is....

another important thing to think about if you get stuck or feel like you arent improving.. workflow.. many people use tools and intruments simply because of the hype surrounding them, or because their favourite artist use it, and think "if he uses it, it has to be good and if he can do it, why cant i?"

but they miss out on the fac that some tools are just not well suited for you and whats best may be something you havent even thought about.. its one thing to train hard and practice what you got, but there is many people that just cling on to something when what they really need to do is to change their ways and instruments to find what is best for them and to have a bigger chance of unlocking some of their potential

no amont of praciting will help if your workflow doesnt feel natural (imo), so it can be good to learn to recognize in which way you are struggling.. if you feel like you have not improved even after years of practice, then it might just be wrong for you... its even hardr today to find right, especially with a million different software programs and methods, and its easy to get stuck just finding your way and then you will also not progress, and you will not becoem an expert of an instrument if you keep switching... back when the only type of instruments were the traditional ones it would go quicker to find whats right for you and then just stick to it and train your ass off

with that said, i also think that training can overcome thses obstacles if you just stick to it, but really hard to know what to do sometimes.. my workflow with the mpc feels great, feels like there is nothing in my way even though i see clearly that i can continue to learn for as long as i like, but then there is the integration with software that still feels a bit awkward, and still doesnt feel natural and i have no idea if i should change or stick to it.. multitrack recording in cubase for example, seemingly works perfect, but its somethign with having to translate its visuals into what i want to hear that isnt working too well yet, but i dont really want to change either because it is excellent for editing and processing.. lol actually what i should do is just practice more in this case

MPC4k wrote:Mozart never jumped out the womb knowing how to compose or play, he was trained like a little monkey by a driven father from a very young age.

While I'm 100% fine with what you say, and indeed have the very same perspective, your comparison here is not factually true.

Mozart was an innate musician of a very rare talent. He had perfect pitch since his childhood and could remember entire compositions note per note since the age of 5, being able to replay the melodies on the violin or clavichord after just one listening.

Think to him a bit as a Madlib or a J-Dilla (RIP) of his own age.

Surely his father drove him to further cultivate his gift, but Mozart really was born with some magic inna da earz

you can't get taught how to sing like MJ,don't care how much time you put in,what we have is the gifts we've been given.the thing you can do waking up out of your sleep is your gift.I know dudes who had all the latest gear and could'nt make a beat if you payed 'em $1 million.just was'nt his lane.you can't jump from the free throw line like MJ in a game, don't care how much you practice,just ain't you.

rookie wrote:you can't get taught how to sing like MJ,don't care how much time you put in,what we have is the gifts we've been given.the thing you can do waking up out of your sleep is your gift.I know dudes who had all the latest gear and could'nt make a beat if you payed 'em $1 million.just was'nt his lane.you can't jump from the free throw line like MJ in a game, don't care how much you practice,just ain't you.

oh but you can practice how to sing like him, you just cant do it with his vocal cords, but you can learn how to sing and imitate him... but just having vocal cords has nothing to do with skill or "talent" the skill and talent comes from practicing, which MJ also did a lot, and he had a teacher himself, Seth Riggs.

his actual musical skill and talent are a bit separated from physical attributes like that..

if not, its like saying that an actors skill sits in his looks, or that painting artists skill and talent sits in his hand or paintbrush and not in how he looks at things and how he uses that paintbrush.. those things are just part of the techniques he uses, they are very important of course, as they are part of your limitations and walk hand in hand but they are just physical attribute and i cant see having a hand or owning a paintbrush as talent or skill in itself.. and a musicians knowledge and view on things does not magically disappear simply because he loses his voice or instrument

and it is those non physical things that can be learnt, as long as you have a somewhat normal brain and dont suffer from extreme learning problems, even the physical parts can be learnt... a pianist might have some advantage with longer fingers and someone with abnormally short fingers is going to have problems performing, but those are extreme cases, most people have "normal" fingers and "normal" brains

if MJ was born with different vocal cords, he could still have done great.. but even with the voice he did have, i dont think he would have gotten that far if he never had pracitced singing and practiced how to control his voice.. if he had lived his life and never started singing, and then suddenly tried to sing at the age of 30, he would have faced the same problems that anyone else would face in the same situation.. but he did pracitce, a lot and he did it since an early age.


i believe most people can make music (or anything in general) and become extremely good , but everyone cant do it on the same contitions, and every individual must find his own way and find out what works best for him and it is going to take practice once you have found your way


owning lots of gear has nothing to do with anything unless they can properly connect with that gear and make it an extension of themselves.. infact, having too much gear can stand in the way of you finding your way as it can prevent you from getting any deeper insights and knowledge about an instrument if you keep trying out other things... it can successfully stop you from becoming better at what you do... and i see lots of people get stuck into consuming, they think that if they just get this or that piece of gear software, it will make them better, but they will be on the same level as thousands of others that does the same thing, they stay disconnected and if thy dont practice their musical skills, then the musical output will be mediocre, and the technical skill will be stay at a beginner level

and then every single piece of equipment may even be wrong for you, and then you might be wasting a lot of time with the wrong instruments.. still, has nothing to do with your musical skill though

Interesting to hear a range of views here.

We are all good at some things and crap at others.

Unfortunately for most of us, what we are good at isn't something that will pay or gain us any recognition.