INDUSTRY WISDOM

 INTRODUCTION

This wisdom has been collected through first and second hand experiences, failures, successes, observations of the world around me, and direct advice from mentors.  A lot of these subjects can be applied to any career, especially entrepreneurship.

Now, I’m only part way through my journey as a mix engineer.  I still have a lot to experience and learn.  However, I have put in the 10,000 hours times over and soaked in experiences and wisdom in that time.  My goal is to offer these opinions to you in hopes that they will be helpful in developing a good trajectory in the music industry.  And as a bonus, I’ll be sharing a few personal blunders, examining what not to do.  So, where is a good place to start?

 

SUSTAINABILITY

“Luck Is What Happens When Preparation Meets Opportunity” – Seneca

  • When called on to step up to the plate, you had better have done all you could mechanically, mentally, emotionally, and physically beforehand to meet that moment with succeeding results.

“Past Success Does Not Guarantee Future Success.”

  • You can meet the opportunity and the door be open, but if you don’t continue to prove yourself, persisting in excellence, your success will fizzle out.

How does one insure Sustainability?
 

VALUE

  • the regard that something is held to deserve; the importance, worth, or usefulness of something.
  • a person’s principles or standards of behavior; one’s judgment of what is important in life.

How does one develop and demonstrate Value?

CULTIVATE VALUE

 

HAVE CHARACTER

  • Humility: Having a humble & positive attitude, efficient work ethic, and knowing your place. The skills come second; what’s most important is building relationships and trust. If they can’t hang in a studio with you for hours, who cares if you know how to operate a console. Be teachable and accept criticism, don’t make excuses.
  • Integrity and Excellence: Fix things no one knew needed fixing; be aware and deliver. If you see something out of place, make it right and don’t look for recognition for doing so.
  • Decorum: Care for others, respect others and the process, and be mindful of the journey others have been on to get where they are. Don’t solicit and self-promote, look for opportunities to shine and then deliver.
  • Know your place. Be mindful of attitudes, entitlement, arrogance, and inappropriateness in all situations.

 

BE INDISPENSABLE

  • Take initiative, find a way to serve in which no one is fulfilling. Know something others don’t, seek to know everything they know and more.
  • Being persistent and present will lead to being in “the right place at the right time”. If you’re the one around most frequently and proving your consistency, you’ll get used more and more.
  • Look to outside sources for knowledge and inspiration. Don’t just accept the confines of tasks, job descriptions, business models as you’re boundaries. See how other people, divisions, companies, industries, cultures, and philosophies operate.
  • Seek original ideas and hone skills in problem solving. Be dependable and consistent with solving problems. If you fail, learn from it and seek to get better.

 

HAVE KNOWLEDGE

  • Always be learning, but learn with a purpose. Seek to be solving problems, bridging gaps, and informing your current situations. Set goals and work toward them. Have a plan for your learning and seek to know how to apply it.
  • Develop skills that are specific to your field, go deep where you can. BUT, know that job fields come in seasons; most people pivot and evolve what they do. So, be mindful and go with the flow of learning. Learn beyond your current job field.
  • Find what works for you, test, try, be scientific in order to hone efficiency, effectiveness, and quality. Make rules and guidelines for yourself to work from, work toward goals but be flexible
  • Seek out others for wisdom; Mentorships, apprenticeships, collaborations, friendships, podcasts, articles, books, seminars, etc. Ask for the moon (respectfully), try to connect with your heroes, no one is off limits, and you never know who will say yes.

 

DEVELOP SKILL

  • Know your craft and seek to go deep. Glean from others and put into practice through method, trial, and error.
  • Put in your 10,000 hours and then some. There are no short cuts
  • Don’t be afraid of others who are skilled. Collaborate, learn, delegate,

 

PURSUE EXCELLENCE

  • Efficiency: How quickly can you get something done; with little fluff and trimming the fat?  Work with a purpose.  Get fast and instinctual at what you do.
  • Effectiveness:  Efficiency is undermined by how effective you are at completing the task.  If you were fast and sloppy, that bodes negatively for you.  If you are slow, yet get the job done with satisfaction, that will do.  But, if you’re able to hone being both efficient and effective in producing a fantastic outcome, that’s what is of value to people.
  • Amiability: Efficiency and effectiveness will only get you so far.  Developing a demeanor of servant-heartedness, integrity, kindness, meekness, excitement, transparency, honesty, willingness, and humility – to name a few – will round out your performance.  Work to communicate well with clients, helping them feel cared for, listened to, and valued.  Treat them with respect and urgency.  Don’t talk about your other projects or clients with clients.  Don’t be disingenuous and don’t make excuses.  Develop a spirit of excitement so that every clients feels special and feels like you provide them with a service unlike anyone else.
  • Harnessing all three of these qualities is a triple threat and will keep clients coming back time and again.

AWARENESS & UNDERSTANDING

 

PRIORITIES

  • The song is the star. Always be making moves that help the song be the best version of itself, which by extension will make the artist the best version of themselves. Don’t try to make a song or artist something it’s not; embrace what it is.
  • Music is a service industry. Seeking to serve others well, with kindness, respect, and excellence will sustain a career.
  • Whether company or client, whoever has hired you, do what you can to support them and make them shine.

 

PITFALLS

  • In efforts to make yourself useful and demonstrate your worth, you may try to interject ideas… be very careful with this. Know your place, scope the appropriateness of the situation, and respect the people you’re presenting to. A good rule of thumb is not to suggest anything until someone has asked you on 3 separate occasions “what to you think?” If you do have something useful, first seek to understand why someone else may have suggested/done what they did. That is a great to time to ask “hey, would [this idea] be helpful?” DO NOT enter into a situation and start critiquing or telling how you would you do something.
  • When trying to solve problems, don’t do so without direction or consulting a colleague to actually understand the problem. You could incidentally create more problems, or undo someone else’s work. Always seek for your problem solving to be helpful to others, and communicate well with others to make sure you’re heading in the right direction.
  • There is a balance between appearing too apathetic by staying out of the way as a fly on the way, and appearing annoyingly abrasive by inserting yourself into moments that end up distracting and derailing others. The best way to avoid pitfalls is to ask what’s appropriate and to also observe others. It’s best to listen first and assess before interjecting.

 

FOOD FOR THOUGHT / REALITY CHECK

  • Adele didn’t do a radio edit, changing her accent to fit an America audience; she defined it, now everyone tries to copy her.
  • The Eagles Hotel California single was the original 7 minutes. When the record company said, “you have to make an edit”, they said “no way”… and it was number 1 on the charts for a long time.
  • Bohemian Rhapsody wasn’t polished, edited, and was full of little errors… Did that stop the song from being great? Queen didn’t have autotune
  • To this day, Queen plays without a click
  • No GREAT artist walked into the studio and said, “I want my songs to sound like [insert song/artist name here], how can I replicate that sound”; they just wrote friggin’ amazing music. JUST BE YOU!
  • No matter how much time and money you spent making production perfect, the listener will probably spend less than 99 cents through basic headphones (or iPhone speakers) listening to the SONG one time. Does the song warrant a second listen?
  • No one else is going to hear what you hear, but they will know if the feeling is off
  • I don’t care which toys or how many you have, do you know how to use them. Know your tools.
  • “Wow, that studio looks cool” will quickly turn to silence when it sounds like crap. Work on the sound.
  • Louder does not equal “more energy”
  • People don’t remember sonics, they remember the song
  • Serban Ghenea mixes on a card table in a bed room
  • Tom Petty’s label advised him not to record “Free Falling” because they didn’t think it would go anywhere. Stop strategizing and just make music.
  • Never take a picture in front of a tool you don’t know how to use, otherwise you’re the tool