Every mentor visit is a chance to learn and explore new ideas. Each visit I am continually learning and getting better at my craft thanks to the guidance and wisdom of my mentor. This past mentor visit, the first thing Jonathan had me do was listen to Beethoven's 5th symphony. At first I didn’t see how listening to Beethoven’s 5th symphony was relevant or would help me with music production. Then the more we listened and talked about it I saw how important it and vital it is for a producer to understand classical music.
This past visit, we talked about how music should be like a party. A party with many people all in their own groups about the house. Each group is talking and having their own conversations, talking about various different things. Then you, the listener, walks into the party. At first everyone stops to greet you, then they go about their normal conversations. You then walk around hearing bits of every conversation. This is exactly how music should be, except with instruments instead of people. The piece starts with a main theme, then breaks out into many different musical ‘conversations’ between the different instruments as you the listener walk around and hear different bits of each conversation. All the while each conversation is going on you just hear the closest one the clearest. When Jonathan said this, it all made sense to me. Just like a mix, there is multiple things going on and when you want to introduce a new idea, the other ideas shouldn’t stop but should keep going lower in the mix. Similar to a party, when you exit one conversation it doesn’t just end, but just gets softer and replaced by the new conversation.
