You either have it or you don't?

krush777 wrote:

jpeg wrote:obviously if ur good at it and u like ur gonna keep going, im saying when a person is **** but wont accept that despite all the hard work time and money invested ur still **** u may as well quit

If Dre, Swiss Beatz, or Madlib told you that your beats are ****, would you quit? (I hope not!!). Maybe your music or style doesn't appeal to THEM. That doesn't make it bad or terrible. You seem hellbent bent on saying that someone is ****, wack or doesn't have it. I hope that person that you tell that to DOESN'T make a decision based on your opinion. What the guy just said about an "honest self assessment" are some of the most powerful words that I have ever read on this forum. Where is the line between "You can't play guitar as well as Steve Vai" so u are wack" vs. "You need to work on your rhythm playing and maybe increase your chord vocabulary so your music will sound better".

I never use words like "wack" because they are too general. I will judge an artist on how much EFFORT they put into their craft. Sonically, I will evaluate the mix, instrumentation, timing and technical side of it. I will then say that a track doesn't appeal to me for whatever reason. If an artist explains to me what they were trying to accomplish, I can give them my honest opinion on how close they came to it. But I would never use a word like "wack".

Exactly. The women that wrote Harry Potter was rejected by 8 different publishers. Now she’s shitting gold.
It’s about crafting your art and having confidence in it (while being real to yourself based on your own goals and artform). If a lot of known producers came to me as a no-namer next door neighbour and played me their music I would say it sucks. But they have all the fans in the world. I think a lot of people are trying to imitate and not innovate. I can’t personally do that. It’ll get boring in a second.

Problem is:
a) a lot people are trying to imitate, they aren’t an artist. They don’t think in a creative manner, nor do they understand music.
b) They're waiting for someone to knock on their door, proclaim them a genius and hand them a 7 figure cheque. Secret is: YOU have to create your own success.

jpeg wrote:Having an aptitude for music and putting **** together is part of the magic

Yep. You've got to break down the whole thing in its minute processes and practice/create each independently.

jpeg wrote:im sure if u took 500 nottz beats, 500 kev brown beats, 500 pete rock and 500 alchemist beats ud find the amount of bangers in there is significantly high and all that **** would sound up to par nothing in there would sound amateur.

a) All about taste, all 500 could sound garbage to someone.
b) How many unreleased beats were those 500 chosen from?

Nym wrote:at this point i never throw away a song. no beat is garbage.
i'm still finishing songs i started in 2007.
there are 2 songs on Warm Blooded Lizard that i started in 2006!

Exactly. Learnt this as a school kid in art class. I keep EVERYTHING. A certain (layerd) snare used in a crappy beat in 2007 has come handy recently.

I used to have a "trash" folder back in 2005. Any beat I thought was rubbish I threw in there, a friend one time told me to open it up and play him a few, a beat he heard back then is still in rotation today! So you never know. Art is crazy like that.

Response to original post:

In my opinion, I don't think you can either 'have it or not have it' in such words.. but I do think it depends on a few things, 1 being how creative you are, as in from day 1 I was that weird kid in school who frequently got in trouble for drawing all over books and walls and using different colored pens and pencils instead of black and blue joints.... where as my homie was a straight cut dude who got into trouble for fighting etc... yet now we both make beats (and started roughly the same time) yet we mutually agreed (me through ego) that i was a better beat maker, but he's a lot superior at mixing and technical aspects... In my eyes it's like these university students who have degrees in their study, they could go to a job in their field and be out performed by someone who doesnt have the degree but is able to do the work because he/she thinks differently.

I think what im saying is, being taught/practicing/learning will only get your so far but having creativity can really make your shit sound different to the next dudes. (hopefully you get my tangent and make something tangible out of it)