Having an Objective View of Your Abilities

Great thread. I find it hard to deal with my band mates who will take any take we do because they "don't want to have to play that again!"

good lord, I have a buddy of mine that wanted some acoustic guitar songs recorded after I got my equipment and man let me tell you. We'd get through a take. Play back and he'd say "why does it sound like this, the note sounds flat, it doesn't seem like the bend hit the right note, etc...etc....etc.." I'm like man, that's all you, your not going to get it perfect in one take and you may never. Needless to say he got pissed after I kept telling him to play it again, he thought I was basically saying his guitar playing wasn't perfect and he got a tude for the rest of the session.

Never did get any good playing out of him.


But that's how it is, your only as good as your weakest link, there's no way around that!
 
a man must know his limitations..... that being said, i improve everyday. i may not conquer the world but damn it, i will rock my living room!
 
a man must know his limitations..... that being said, i improve everyday. i may not conquer the world but damn it, i will rock my living room!

LOL...I`m hip...I know for sure my recording quality has improved atleast some since the old days of using one of these..for real..LOL

cassett player.jpg
 
...And Portable too. Ran on 120v or you could carry it around with the 12 pounds of C-cell batteries installed.

I got the same one for Christmas (*cough), a few decades ago, in a land, far, far away. However, I was more hipper because mine had the external mic that plugged in AND the little white (turned yellow after some use) earphone. That meant that I didn't have to hold the box to my face, to speak into the little mic next to the Panasonic logo when recording.

:cool:
D
 
Hi all,

Here’s my take on the necessity of "Having an Objective View of Your Abilities" based on a great many years of experience. This is what I tell myself on those occasions that things might not be going quite as well or as quickly as I hoped. It might work for others too.


A small dash of objectivity can’t hurt, but:


DON'T OVERDO IT! :)


The world is unlikely to resist the temptation to tell you when you suck. You don't need to keep telling yourself as well. What you mostly need isn't a pedantically accurate and objective view of your abilities, it's the opposite - a wildly optimistic and joyously erratically Subjective view. Wake up every day with the dreams alive (no matter how daft or unattainable others may think they are). Believe in yourself and enjoy the journey. Enjoying the journey isn't just a part of life - it's everything. Relax and remember:



  • It’s perfectly OK to own thousands of dollars worth of gear while you still have very little ability or talent -yet. If eyebrows are raised, tell them you’re a ‘Collector’ an ‘Equipment connoisseur’, or a ‘Student of the musical electron’. “F*** off and mind your own business” can work too.

    It’s not important that you can’t play, record, or mix like a pro yet. They all sucked once too. Some still do. Nobody in the world of music knows it all or can do it all. Stay enthusiastic and you'll be a little better by the end of the day.

    Ten lifetimes still wouldn’t be enough to master everything, so celebrate the bits you do discover and don’t spend too much time thinking about what you can’t do yet. Anticipate the future with pleasure but be sure to get all the juice from now. You can make satisfying and lasting music with only five notes and one hand on a piano, or by playing on one string of a guitar. Simple mixes can work well too. The answer doesn’t usually lie in making things more complex, it mostly lies in understanding the joy and value of the simple before you complicate things.

    Make all the mistakes you like, just keep your ears and mind open.

    The only terminally bad habit is to lose your motivation and quit. Everything else is either a valid alternative or correctable.

    Set your own standards and don’t listen to the nitpickers and gloom-mongers (especially if it’s your own inner downer-voices you’re hearing..). They are nothing but pimples on the bum of existence. Pop them and move on.

    Stay in touch with your inner Grandma. The voice that says “That’s lovely dear. You started from nothing, and look how far you’ve come already. I’m so proud of your ability.”

Rock on and have some fun. If I stand back a bit you sound like you're doing pretty well already... :guitar: :cool: :drunk:

Cheers,

Chris
 
What you mostly need isn't a pedantically accurate and objective view of your abilities, it's the opposite - a wildly optimistic and joyously erratically Subjective view.

I disagree with you, but if a blithe state of joy and optimism is the end to which you strive, you're doing it right.
 
The world is unlikely to resist the temptation to tell you when you suck.

You too, huh? :D

The trick is to know when their opinions really matter! :)


While some folks have a bloated view of their "great" ability, and others can have a totally self-deprecating view....
...I would say most people know in their heart and their mind where they really fall, but it's OK to know you are not THAT good at ________, 'cuz it might push you a little harder...and it's OK to realize that you ARE good at ___________, 'cuz that might keep you pushing a little harder.

There is such a wide variety of "ability" out there....and some with the best are still not able to do much with it, and some with not-so-good ability ARE able to do something with it.
Don't ever give up 'cuz someone tells you that you suck...especially on the Internet. ;)
 
I disagree with you, but if a blithe state of joy and optimism is the end to which you strive, you're doing it right.


Yes, that's just what I'm striving for - a state of blithe optimism - but it's not so much an 'end' or aim to me as a way of traveling. And "joy" is certainly what I get from making music, at whatever level I've reached at the time.

It's not that I disagree with the need to honestly evaluate ones efforts, far from it, it’s a very valuable tool. It's just that I think that a strong sense of self belief is even more important, especially at the start of new ventures. It's the glass half full approach compared to the glass half empty one. It's the same approach that says you'll get better results by rewarding the positive in a student than focusing too much on what they get wrong.

Here's some lines from your first two posts:

If you have a tin ear, none of this is going to help you turn around a decent product.

If you don't have an ear for pitch, and your instruments are out of tune with themselves and other instruments, your recordings will suffer.

If you are a "producer", and don't have a knack for arrangement, or understand how to incorporate space and silence into an piece, your client's recordings will suffer.

If you are a musician in a band, and you lack the ability to transpose chords, use different inversions, or envision and arrange your parts as pieces of an ensemble, your recordings will suffer.

Before you spend a fortune on things that will expose and highlight deficiencies in your technique and approach, work on identifying deficiencies in your technique and approach. That is, put the horse in front of the cart.

if you honestly can't find anything wrong with your own work, you're not listening.

Nothing wrong with any of the underlying ideas - I’d agree with them all - it's just that the delivery that seems to concentrate overly on the negative side. They're all about possible pitfalls rather than solutions. If you're a fan of what they call "deficit learning" - or concentrating on what you're getting wrong and what you don't know - then that's not an unusual approach. But I prefer to put forward a different view.


This forum is about encouraging newbies isn’t it? So I'd turn the advice around. Take the last one - "If you honestly can't find anything wrong with your own work, you're not listening". Geez, that's a pretty depressing welcome to a newcomer isn't it? Are newbies really that cocky that we think our early efforts are flawless? And should it matter to others if we do? My version might be something more like "Your early efforts may not be as good as you hoped but if you listen carefully you'll hear things that are going right, and next week you'll hear more". When I play the guitar I listen the most attentively to the good notes, not the bad ones, because it's the successes that I want to entrench not the mistakes. I don't pretend the bad notes aren't there but they don't get the focus that the good ones do. It works for me - I'm a far better player than I was and I enjoy the journey.

I'd also be happy to recommend putting the horse wherever you darn well please - ride it backwards up and down the street at two in the morning if you feel like it - this is about music not accountancy. I definitely own gear that can expose my weaknesses (of which there are plenty), but what I really love about it is that it's a pleasure to own and use and it does justice to my successes, when they happen. With cheap gear it’s never quite so easy to evaluate exactly what’s going on. With good gear, when I nail it I know I’ve nailed it! :cool:

I believe that blithe optimism is the best asset that newcomers can have. :D There’ll be all the time in the world at the intermediate stages to ponder some of the deficiencies if we so wish. Here’s some examples of what I mean:

  • Back in the seventies I started a graphic design and photography business with a guy fresh out of art college. He had some design skills and I had none, although I did have some basic business experience. He fancied the idea of designing album covers (which were big things with vinyl disks in back then). We had only the most primitive equipment, and no money, but we did have plenty of “blithe optimism”. Within a few months we were doing both publicity photos and album covers for a successful local label. We built on what strengths we had and learned as we went along. If I look back at a book of portraits that Graeme did back then it’s a roll call of some of the best Australian bands of the time. Many of the bands have since moved on (as I have) and some of the guys he photographed for the book - such as Bon Scott of AC/DC - are long dead. But the book reeks of ‘blithe optimism’ - both ours and in the bands who featured. You don’t get far in the music business without it, especially to get through the early stages.

    Some time later I was offered the opportunity to write a musical comedy for a local theatre group. I had no stage writing experience and couldn’t play an instrument. An objective assessment of my position would have said that it was well out of my range. But I had this blithe optimism… so I took it on. Other members of the group chose or wrote the music and I did just the script and lyrics. It wasn’t Phantom of the Opera, but it had a successful run, including performances in our state capital city and a tour in the country. I was paid a pittance but had the irreplaceable joy of standing at the back of full halls and listening to the audiences laughing and enjoying what I had written, and my friends were performing. I was well paid for the next one…

    In the early eighties my wife and I were without a house, and not exactly rolling in money. She liked the look of a cheap 5 acre block of land that had great views. However, it was up a dirt track, and on a very difficult site. I was neither a trained carpenter nor a builder but…well, you know what’s coming… we had some of that ‘blithe optimism’. So I built a two roomed shed/cottage and we lived in that for two years while I designed and built the house (solo). An objective assessment of the situation would have said we were mad. Perhaps we were, but it got done. It’s a comfortable and attractive house in a great spot and twenty five years later we still live here. The road is now bitumen and our home made dream is now worth three quarters of a million dollars. The money we saved by not having to pay for mortgages, interest on loans or rent has steadily accumulated and will help fund our retirement. Blithe optimism can pay off pretty well - when you add a bit of work… ;)

As I said in my last post - objectivity is a good thing - just don’t overdo it, especially when you start out. Sometimes it's a good thing to turn off the reality meter for a while, and fool yourself into aiming higher than you might otherwise have done. Believe in yourselves and may 2012 give you all a good supply of ‘blithe optimism’. :)

Good luck on the journey,

Chris
 
There is such a wide variety of "ability" out there....and some with the best are still not able to do much with it, and some with not-so-good ability ARE able to do something with it.

That's certainly an intriguing paradox. My money is on the ones with the best self belief being strongly represented among the ones that do get somewhere. I expect to succeed when I take something new on, so I usually do. I also expect to learn something useful if I do screw up - and sure enough, I always do learn something. :)

Don't ever give up 'cuz someone tells you that you suck...especially on the Internet. ;)

Amen to that. :D
 
It's not that I disagree with the need to honestly evaluate ones efforts

Are you sure? :)

It's the glass half full approach compared to the glass half empty one. It's the same approach that says you'll get better results by rewarding the positive in a student than focusing too much on what they get wrong.

I am talking about self-evaluation, not how to conduct some kind of teacher/student relationship. Self-awareness is what it is. You are either aware of something, or you are not. I am not asking people to be timid or hesitant, or to distrust their instincts. I am just advocating awareness.

Nothing wrong with any of the underlying ideas - I’d agree with them all - it's just that the delivery that seems to concentrate overly on the negative side. They're all about possible pitfalls rather than solutions. If you're a fan of what they call "deficit learning" - or concentrating on what you're getting wrong and what you don't know - then that's not an unusual approach. But I prefer to put forward a different view.

Your views are welcome, Chris. I'm sorry you don't like my advice, and ask that you try to take it for what it is. I don't believe there are solutions to a lack of self-awareness other than working on developing self-awareness. Do you?


So I'd turn the advice around. Take the last one - "If you honestly can't find anything wrong with your own work, you're not listening". Geez, that's a pretty depressing welcome to a newcomer isn't it? Are newbies really that cocky that we think our early efforts are flawless? And should it matter to others if we do?

It's not a welcome message, it's a thread titled "Having an Objective View of Your Abilities". I didn't tell anyone they were cocky, or that they mistakenly believed their efforts were flawless. Why would you infer that I think so? You did see the last bit in the first post about how the thread may not be directed at you, personally - right?


When I play the guitar I listen the most attentively to the good notes, not the bad ones, because it's the successes that I want to entrench not the mistakes. I don't pretend the bad notes aren't there but they don't get the focus that the good ones do.

Well, then we are in complete agreement. Because I would only be concerned if you didn't know the bad notes were there. Let me put it to you this way. If you couldn't tune a fucking guitar - I mean really couldn't get it done, and didn't know how to tell if a guitar was in tune or not - what business would you have setting one up for a client?

I think it is safe to make the baseline assumption that the newbies here have discovered some proficiency, talent, or passion relating to recording music. There is nothing wrong with optimism, and nowhere do you see me tell anyone not to try, or not to learn, or not to aspire. I'm not trying to write a dissertation on the psychological dynamics of talent and ego, just a little note about the importance of knowing what you are good at.

I'd also be happy to recommend putting the horse wherever you darn well please - ride it backwards up and down the street at two in the morning if you feel like it - this is about music not accountancy.

I thought it was a perfectly apt idiom. :(

Sometimes it's a good thing to turn off the reality meter for a while, and fool yourself into aiming higher than you might otherwise have done.

Emphasis mine. Nothing wrong with aiming high, so long as you know from which end the bullet comes out.
 
I'm sorry you don't like my advice, and ask that you try to take it for what it is.

Don't take it too seriously mate. We're just looking at the same thing from slightly different angles that's all. We don't have to thrash out which view is best. :)

Unless this is you:

duty_calls.png



Or perhaps it's me... or both of us... ;)
 
In the end, I think you're both talking about different things, which, when put together make for a priceless whole.
 
Some people can get by with no music theory though... The first stages I think will be solely your ear, but anything after that will have to rely on you being able to match the big guys.
 
Another maxim would be to start off with simple gear & a simple arrangement of a simple piece. When that's nailed it would be time to progress.

This is where I am at with this, my second, foray into home recording.

I really want to approach the subject by gaining a modicum of expertise in each area as I encounter it;
starting off with simple pieces, properly sequenced, produced and executed.

While taking the most time, this method is in actuality the "fast track" to attaining truly satisfying results.
You are going have to understand it, if you ever hope to master it.

I also "hear' things differently now.
You really have to learn to listen objectively; I think it may be the most important aspect.
 
Thank you! I totally agree with you Supercreep. HOW you do things is often more important than what kind of fancy gear you have. Has anyone read "Mixing with your mind"? It's a crazy book...
 
I don't think its that easy though... the "big guys" have been in it way longer and in turn have more experience than those trying to match them with no music theory and a good ear.
 
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