How do we get better at producing/Beat making?

M

Muztee

New member
This is not like actually asking for help, more so how do actually get better?

For example, as months go by, i notice my beats are getting better and better, however I feel like I have been the same thing every time I start a new project, you know, melody, bass, add drums etc and yet when I look at my beats from 5 months ago, I feel like 'woah my shit has gone a lot better'

What do you guys think?
 
Knowledge and practice.

Knowledge about music and what makes a good beat and developing the skills to make good beats (the good ear, the creativity etc.)
 
Find new sounds to play with, use those VST's that you don't understand, learn how to play an instrument, learn sound design, learn how to properly mix and master, play around with an unfamiliar genre/subgenre, blend genre's, create a new genre, ear/sight/vocal train, remake a hit, remix a hit, put out an oldschool mixtape(your beats+songs/popular songs), put out a new school mixtape(album), learn the business side of things, enter some beat battles, watch some youtube seminar's, read all 1,000,000+ post in this forum, put a singing group together, take a class or two on human psychology, go to jazz/blues/live band clubs, network and most importantly.. keep making music everyday.
 
It's natural progression. Sometimes you don't even notice it. You hear music that you like and you might pick up on elements that make it good. you discover patterns and things start to make sense.
 
just make beats and beats and beats i made like 200 beats before i made one that was actually decent and from then on nature took its course lol
 
Im not asking how do i personally get better at it, we all get better through repetition, i'm just saying, its weird how we get better at repeating the same routine we do at making beats and we get better
 
In time your "process" becomes better and better an this in turn makes your music sound/appear better to you.

This could be anything from knowing where certain sounds are located on your hard drive to learning music theory or maybe a new inspiring chord progression, etc.

I personally feel like every beat I make now is better then the last one and in some ways it is....
 
Basically music is a craft, and they say to perfect any craft takes 10,000 hours of deliberate practice. I read it in a book written by Malcolm Gladwell entitled, "The Outliers". Basically that is the reason you've gotten better, is because of your deliberate practice on your craftsmanship. Regardless of the process, your trying something new every time, and in the process your building new neurons in your brain , which were never there before the process. You probably do try different things everything you make beats, regardless of how musically inclined you are, or the setup you have.

But basically I believe people get better by only two things interms of beatmaking practising your craft, and studying your craft. For practising your craft it would basically be the deliberate practise of your beat making, learning a musical instrument e.g. keyboard/Piano, practising your mixing techniques, incorporating musicality(different scales, chords, chord progressions), and etc.

Studying your craft would come from learning music theory, studying classic albums of any genre of music, studying and exploring different genre's of music, listening to music from different time periods, learning about equipment old/new, studying orchestrations/arrangement/composing processes, and etc.

Your a student for life, and always something new to learn.
 
the best way in my opinion is listening and analysing music, then trying to recreate what you are hearing and with time you will just wake up with melodies and chords in your mind
 
Effort is another one. Its one thing to "think" but to actually reach and try is what gets you places...thinking it doesn't count until its done.
 
One thing that's hard to describe is the ear for music. When I first started out I would read about how to mix, how to find if something is in key, or how to make music like whats on the radio. And every Vet would say you gotta develop an "ear" for it. Its a hard thing to describe but once you have it you start to notice it. And it only gets better with time too. So thats why I always keep everything I finish because 2 years from now I'll probably think it sounds terrible. If it doesn't then it was really a jewel. Plus there maybe an element like a melody in a bridge that is a gem buried in a garbage beat I may have made. Its just developing an understanding for what your audience finds pleasant to hear.
 
I dig the 10,000 hours thing. But if all of your hours are valuable learning hours, it definitely won't take 10,000 of them.
 
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Practice is the only way, as you said. But a great tip is to place CONSTRAINTS on your projects.

For instance, use weird samples from places you've never used before. Or force yourself to make a beat that reflects a mood you don't usually express.
 
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