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6 Tips for Hearing Your Own Music Objectively

 

I recently had a conversation with a young songwriter, who found it frustrating trying to objectively scrutinize her own music.  “I can’t even tell if a song I wrote is good or horrible.” It reminded me of the first time I was able to hear my own music objectively. It’s a really interesting story that I sort of forgot about. In recalling it, I realized there must be a way for songwriters and artists to hear their music objectively without the utter humiliation that I experienced. Let me explain.

In my early days of attempting to write songs at a commercial level, I felt I was a pretty decent songwriter. My co-writer, who was also the main musician and producer for the songs we wrote, was also really good. We loved what we were creating. We would play them for friends and family and they would be blown away. “You guys did that? It sounds like something you’d hear on the radio!”, they would say. So, when our music was getting rejected for sync opportunities (music in film and TV) we found ourselves scratching our heads. Usually, the rejection had to do with my lyrics but sometimes it would be the production quality or the vocal (MY vocal) not being “right”. Man, it hurt. But mostly, it was confusing. I didn’t know how to fix it. I’d listen back to a song we had just finished and have no idea if it was good or bad or somewhere in between. I didn’t know how to hear my own music objectively.

Around that time, over the course of a few years, we attended a lot of “pitch sessions”. Pitch sessions are opportunities for artists, producers, and songwriters to pitch their music to a panel of industry professionals; either music supervisors (the people who actually select the music for movies and TV shows), producers with hit song credits, record label executives, etc. The attendees would throw a CD into a bin (yes, it was all CDs back then) and they would randomly select one and play the track for the panel and the room full of attendees. After listening to the industry professionals talk about what they listen for, what matters to them, how they identify “broadcast quality”, what their thinking process is, eventually it became really easy to identify a song even 10 seconds in and know if that industry pro was going to like it or not. I found it really easy to determine whether or not the songs being played were at the standard they needed to be.

One fateful pitch session, over the loudspeaker, broadcasting for the entire room to hear, one of our songs began to play. My co-writer and I both sunk into our seats. We instantly knew that our song was not at the standard they were looking for. Now, it wasn’t horrible. It wasn’t way off track. But it just wasn’t quite there.

Those pitch experiences trained my ear to hear music differently and they helped me develop the ability to hear my own music objectively. Notice, I said it “helped me develop the ability” to hear my own music objectively. It did not happen at once and it is still hard to listen to my own creations the way I listen to others’ creations. But I have learned some tricks and tips over the years that I’m happy to share with you.

Just a word of warning, these suggestions are for people who really, truly want to be professionals and are seeking to be creating at that level. If you are creating music because it brings you joy and you aren’t hoping to achieve a measurable level of success, these tips aren’t for you. Keep creating and making yourself and your loved ones happy!

Stop listening to friends and family

People who love and care for you will always listen with a different filter than they listen to other people’s music. THEY will not be able to listen to your music objectively. Of course, be gracious when they tell you how amazing your music is and how amazing you are. Just know that they are not going to be the best judges of your work. That being said, your friends and family are usually your first “fans”. Don’t be tempted to dismiss them as such simply because they are your friends and family. This isn’t related to building a fan base, only to who to listen to for specific feedback about the quality of your music.

Stop listening to people on social media

This may sound a little counter-intuitive since most of you are building and connecting with your fanbase on social media. But this is one of the big reasons why it is important to move fans away from social media and onto your mailing list! Other creatives are on social media engaging, commenting, and so-called “connecting” with you for their own purposes, right? I mean, isn’t this how we get the algorithms to work in our favor? Isn’t this how we find and connect with new fans? Here’s the thing; these days we have two issues working against us as creatives when it comes to social media (only two?) First of all, yes, this is how we find and connect with fans. So we have to be there.  Second of all, we are living in an era of over-the-top positivity, which in so many scenarios is a great thing. But I have personally witnessed people posting videos or audio of themselves singing and they are…..really, REALLY bad. Yet, all of the comments are full of people telling this bad singer how amazing they are. I recognize these are dangerous waters I am treading in because the opposite response would be horrific and horrible. The truth is that even the really amazing singers have comments telling them how horrible they are. These comments are not reliable or accurate, either way! There are trolls. There are haters. There is also a reward system set up to benefit accounts for engagement. So, yes, you need to post, you need to engage, you need to comment, you need to respond to comments and all of this needs to be positive. Don’t be a troll! But also, this means you must not take any comment as meaningful feedback. Phew!

Study great songs commercially released that really move you and connect with you

There is no other way to know how to write great songs than to study great songs. Whether it’s the production you love or the “nuts and bolts” of the song (lyrics and melody), study them. Go beyond just listening for enjoyment. Break it down. Study the arc of the story, the way phrases work together, the change in melodic shape from section to section, and why certain parts of the song stick in your head.

Read books and blogs, listen to podcasts, etc. about songwriting and production

These resources often use great songs as examples and explain why a certain lyric worked so well or reveal the magical process a songwriter used to create the most beautiful melody. Be a better craftsman by studying your craft.

Become a helpful critic for other aspiring creators

There are songwriting organizations and Facebook groups full of creators who post their “works-in-progress” and ask for feedback. Take an hour one day a week and do some listening and offer constructive feedback. Remember to be kind, respectful and helpful. If something sounds so awful, that you can’t think of anything nice to say, then move on and find another post to comment on. This process of listening to someone else’s WIP, knowing the intention is to give helpful feedback, should help you begin to recognize the details of what makes a song move you.

Get professional feedback

Probably the best move I ever made to improve my songwriting was joining a company called Taxi. Taxi is a middle-man, filtering type of company. Let’s say a major record label is looking for hit songs for a well-known artist on their roster. They send a brief out to publishers and sometimes, directly to companies like Taxi. Taxi shares this brief; “major label looking for big ballads for a huge female artist’s next album, looking for hit songs along the lines of Celine Dion, Josh Groban”, something like that. Taxi members see these briefs and submit a song or two that may be a fit. Taxi charges a $5 fee per submission which I am CERTAIN is a way to keep people from pitching all of their songs to every brief because….they will. Anyway, when I joined Taxi, I really had never received any unbiased, professional feedback on my songs. The first year of my membership, every single song I submitted was rejected. For some of the submissions, Taxi would offer a critique. The critiques were coming back with specific instructions on writing better lyrics, writing better melodies, working on the production quality and so on. The annual convention Taxi holds is where I started attending my first pitch sessions. Getting rejection after rejection, reading the critiques, AND learning to hear what the industry pros were looking for sent me down the path to actually learning how to write at a professional level. Eventually, I started getting songs I submitted forwarded to the client and got quite a few sync placements that way. There are companies like Taxi but there are also organizations like NSAI (which I highly recommend if you are interested in writing for country artists) There are blogs, people like me, other professional songwriters, and/or producers sometimes offer feedback. You can also contact the press for album reviews.

The most important point of all of this is to understand that it IS possible to learn how to gain some amount of objectivity when it comes to listening to your own music. It does require work and some adjustments to your mindset. The most difficult obstacle to overcome is we often become emotionally attached to things we’ve created. The more you create and are willing to rewrite, change and even collaborate with others, the easier it will be to “detach” a bit. Keep going! Keep creating!

 

The Importance of Critical Listening as an Audio Engineer

For my first blog post, I wanted to talk about a fairly obvious but incredibly important topic the skill and practice of critical listening.

When much of our time and energy as audio engineers is spent zoomed in on developing sounds, it can be tiring to come home and want to really listen to music again. Sometimes I find myself wanting to sort of shut off to the experience; to put music on as background noise when I’m at home cooking, lounging, or even on my drive to or from work. It’s always good to have a balance, but I find when I can take time to listen to music mindfully, it provides an endless source of inspiration and helps me remember why I wanted to be an engineer in the first place!

Critical listening was one of the first ideas taught during my Recording Arts degree program at Indiana University, and I’m thankful my educators had the thoughtfulness to include this in our education. Going into the recording program at IU I was an avid music fan, musician, and music consumer, but I hadn’t quite grasped or even understood the value of critical listening practices until those first lessons. I remember searching for songs purely based on their sonic qualities – drum sounds, vocal reverbs, use of stereo field, dynamics, etc. We would be tasked with finding examples and then presenting them to the class to discuss our observations. It started to open my world in a way that made the idea of becoming an audio engineer much more tangible. It also helped me appreciate music in a different way, and, at the same time, develop a language to talk with others about what I was hearing.

As audio engineers, it is often our job to chase a sound. One of the first things that drew me to the field of was the idea that it could be a path of lifelong learning. Sometimes I’ll hear a guitar tone, a drum sound, the balance of vocals against a band in a mix, and it really captures me in a way that makes me want to learn how to recreate it. It’s a different kind of sonic earworm, one that brings me to a curious headspace saying to myself, “how did they do that?” I think this is extremely fun.

I try to ask every artist I work with about what they are listening to at the time we begin a project; what inspired them while they were writing, what reference albums they may have of sounds they’re seeking, and what they grew up listening to. It’s so helpful to have these as learning tools and reference points for my work throughout the process of making a record. I can research and go into a project feeling like I have a better grasp of what sounds we’re trying to make while in the studio. It’s also helpful at an interpersonal level – the more I can relate to and understand where the musician is coming from, the more confident I can be in making decisions, suggesting ideas, and building common ground with them. Creating music is such a vulnerable and personal experience.

There’s a certain language people use when discussing music that’s relatively consistent across the board, and it translates to practical applications. For instance, when someone tells me, “I want my kick to sound boxy,” or “I want my acoustic guitar to be less tinny” – although it sounds rather generic, those are particular and helpful requests.  When a musician knows what they want, it becomes my job to find and capture the ideal sound in their head.

Think about your favorite songs, how would you sonically describe the guitars, bass, or the drums? Maybe you use words like “deep” or “round” or “smooth.” Maybe even “glossy” or “warm” or “rich.” The more you listen critically, the easier those words will come to you, and the easier it becomes to interpret and act on those requests.

I started a project last year where I collected a monthly playlist of songs to share publicly on Spotify. The platform is not perfect, but I enjoy the social aspect of sharing music with friends. I was a big mix-tape maker back in the day. My friends and I swapped CDs regularly and it was a big part of my musical discovery, Spotify is a little bit like that for me as an adult.

My playlist-making experiment started out as a way to collect and track some personal data on how my musical tastes were changing. I wanted to be able to highlight artists and songs I was listening to (or re-listening to), as markers on my musical timeline – some data to look back on in a few years. It became an exercise I really started to love doing, and it gave me an excuse to work on my critical listening skills. Each song selected is purposeful, the sequence of the songs is purposeful, and all the songs have a unique and special memory attached to them. By sheer accident, I created a soundtrack for my year, and a whole catalogue of songs I knew really, really well.

Critical listening skills are so invaluable to all audio professionals. Feel free to follow along to my monthly playlist or start your own, whatever works for you! Remember the importance of mindful listening, and why we’re engineers in the first place: to make great music people can connect with!

 

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