biggsbeats
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Last week, Zaytoven sat down with Sway to chop it up about his catalog and Atlanta music scene. In a very insightful conversation, Zaytoven made a revelation that some already knew, if you been following Zay’s career, that he typically doesn’t spend more than 15 minutes on a beat. This quote caught traction through the week and I wanted to delve deeper into this topic to highlight the positives and negatives of this technique of making beats and my thoughts whether you as a producer should practice this technique.
Zaytoven’s Skillset
Before we go into detail about the positives and negatives, I think it’s important to highlight Zaytoven’s well-rounded skillset not just as a producer but overall as a musician as part of this piece. The origins of Zay’s skills as a musician started when he was younger when he took part in church with his family. According to Zay’s interview with HotNewHipHop, Zay explained he learned by watching older organists play and further influenced his development as a producer later:
“I’d go home and work my keyboard and try to learn the stuff that they showed me,” he explains. “I’d practice it over and over again, then I’d start playing for groups that go out and sing. I constantly had to learn songs, so that’s what start making me better. When you’re in church, a musician’s job is to set an atmosphere,” he says. “When I’m playing the keys, when I’m making the beats, it’s like I’m trying to create a mood or create some soul or add a feeling to it, when people hear it they like ‘Oh, I feel something about this beat.’ It’s not just a drum. It sound like people put their heart and soul into the beat.
Through this process, learning these skills as a youth, to now as a star producer, it highly benefits his workflow when it comes to making beats in such short amount of time. Not including elements such as sound selection, structure, mixing and etc, it makes it easier for someone like Zay to come up with chords and melodies (which is the main elements important in constructing beats) efficiently based on the feeling or vibe. This is a major difference to majority of today’s producers (not only in hip hop but music in general), where the improvement of technology removes the need to acquire those types of skills to create music, which may some producers somewhat longer to come up with chords or melodies to create a beat.
This development over time, along with what Zay said in around the same time frame in the interview, enables him to work faster and crank out more beats efficiently without sounding repetitive (for the most part).
*Sidenote: I didn’t include drums or bass because, for even intermediate-level producers, it’s pretty simple concept to get if you’re using DAW.
Check the rest of my article here
Zaytoven Says “I Don’t Spend More Than 15 Minutes On A Beat”, A Good or Bad Thing? – Sound Plug
Zaytoven’s Skillset
Before we go into detail about the positives and negatives, I think it’s important to highlight Zaytoven’s well-rounded skillset not just as a producer but overall as a musician as part of this piece. The origins of Zay’s skills as a musician started when he was younger when he took part in church with his family. According to Zay’s interview with HotNewHipHop, Zay explained he learned by watching older organists play and further influenced his development as a producer later:
“I’d go home and work my keyboard and try to learn the stuff that they showed me,” he explains. “I’d practice it over and over again, then I’d start playing for groups that go out and sing. I constantly had to learn songs, so that’s what start making me better. When you’re in church, a musician’s job is to set an atmosphere,” he says. “When I’m playing the keys, when I’m making the beats, it’s like I’m trying to create a mood or create some soul or add a feeling to it, when people hear it they like ‘Oh, I feel something about this beat.’ It’s not just a drum. It sound like people put their heart and soul into the beat.
Through this process, learning these skills as a youth, to now as a star producer, it highly benefits his workflow when it comes to making beats in such short amount of time. Not including elements such as sound selection, structure, mixing and etc, it makes it easier for someone like Zay to come up with chords and melodies (which is the main elements important in constructing beats) efficiently based on the feeling or vibe. This is a major difference to majority of today’s producers (not only in hip hop but music in general), where the improvement of technology removes the need to acquire those types of skills to create music, which may some producers somewhat longer to come up with chords or melodies to create a beat.
This development over time, along with what Zay said in around the same time frame in the interview, enables him to work faster and crank out more beats efficiently without sounding repetitive (for the most part).
*Sidenote: I didn’t include drums or bass because, for even intermediate-level producers, it’s pretty simple concept to get if you’re using DAW.
Check the rest of my article here
Zaytoven Says “I Don’t Spend More Than 15 Minutes On A Beat”, A Good or Bad Thing? – Sound Plug