Writing out the whole thing ….

Lately I’ve had some time to really delve deeply into the writing out of the various parts of the Production & Education system that I’ve been building, mostly in my head or as a response to experiences.  I’ve been through almost every level of the crucifixion for the idea that local spirits can come up with  -- I’ve dealt with being accused of not being a musician, of not being a musician with enough interest in certain kinds of music, of not being prepared for the responsibilities of a lifetime commitment, of being “tone-deaf”, of being stupid, of many things, obviously.  What I haven’t had was an opportunity to speak with people who can fix what they think are the problems with my being a “music producer”.

One of the educational lessons I learned when I was teaching myself through reading and interactive media is that there are three levels of direct learning:

1. Present – teacher and learner are physically “together” in a learning session.
2. “Presented” – this might be a live interaction or it might be a delayed prescience, like a video with internet or written, or even telephone follow up. 
3. Written – this is one way communication, where the idea of the teacher is still presented, but there is no way to interact, other than through trial and error of application of what is written. 

Obviously, when you can ask your teacher anything, and get a full response, the environment is conducive to learning.  When there are physical barriers, but there is still interaction, the environment can make corrections for misinterpretations.  When reading material produced by someone else, there is always room for error in how it is interpreted.  I think of these stages as “I’m here”; “I’m going, but I’m still here” [why do I think of Shirley MacClaine when I here that phrase “I’m still here”?]; & “I’m already gone” (but make of it what you will [hope I hear of, and enjoy the interpretations]) . 

Unfortunately, the exercise in writing out the “angles of my production company” is not being done in concert with a mentor, so far anyway.  I know that the ideas that I’ve generated are solid because they are built from the foundations of scholarship and experiences gathered by me from those who have written or “presented” their ideas about what music is, what music production is, how to approach it as an art and as a business, but there are levels of Production which are not so easy to describe and organize in writing.  Some of the problem with “not so easy” is probably erased as soon as the material lands not in the social wasteland of those who are not in a communion relationship, but some of it comes from not being in the field with contemporaries and contemporary teachers who want to share and mold information for the betterment of the craft and the art.  I’ve been writing from the same base perspective on production, and my approach to producing particular music projects, for well over ten years, since I started realizing that I knew enough to trust that my perspective was grounded in the fifteen years of observation of music and art that came before that in the workplace and in educational and corporate environments.  What I mean is that I’ve had to learn from “not music” as much as from music, and the basics of the music production itself haven’t changed much since I became focused on music theory and applying it to the business of music production.  Explaining music theory in “corporate terms” is however a task that can seem never-ending.

Mentors?  Where do they come from, and how do you find one who can actually help you in your musical search?  That question came up in 1997, then it was in a religious and in a business context, but I was already well on the way to understanding what it was specifically I wanted to “teach” in music.  Having been escorted through the maze of the golf industry teaching field, I realized that in the music business, there was probably something similar – where individuals are whisked off to an Elementary School music teaching job, but only if they are “certified”.  There is of course the “way up” through the players school – produce your own work until somebody else asks you to produce for them.  That requires no educational training at all, and is experiential.  The “music people” I was involved with in Los Angeles in the 1980’s probably qualify on this path – they were working  musicians, perhaps well known, perhaps not even regionally known, who were seeking to improve their ability to make a living from music enterprise.  It’s easier to make a living in music if you can get a “gig” anytime you want one, and even better if you know that the venue will make money on the “event”.  And then there are the people who came to music because the Corporation sent them there, and they may or may not know anything about mentoring, or about the musical arts for that matter, but they have their position and they do their best to keep it.  Nobody has the time to take on the outside world ….

When I watched professional tour golfers, I was following them to learn how to see the golf swing.  I made it to the top of the Golf field’s “professional teacher club”, but I was unqualified as a direct teacher because I’d never taught someone else before.  Even the few lessons I’d given were admittedly awful, from my perspective anyway, because I didn’t know how to organize the material so that somebody else understood it, and could use it in a way that might help them to enjoy the venture. 

When I listen to music, I am listening for the lessons also.  Soon after I knew I had to make the switch from “education” – golf as “player” – to music, I realized that in order to really express music “theory” you need to at least have a passing ability to demonstrate the concept on some form of instrumentation.  I began working on guitar in order to improve my bass playing … .  The whole exploration of “guitar application of music theory” was really a venture into the theory of how to “teach” music production.  It isn’t easy to teach production with instrumentation, unless you are the composer, because the artists often are temperamental about what they have created or are trying to create.  There are producer arrangements where the Producer is strictly an  “engineer in charge”, and there are also those situations where the Producer is someone who is like a motion picture film producer to the musicians’ Director.  So having a system of production, and getting it to “paper” is not an easy undertaking.  It is a delicate process because the misinterpretation sends the meaning of the point being written about off course, in a great percentage of cases.  There are so many details.

Even as I started this month re-writing “all the points to here”, I soon realized that what I have is a monster production process.  Perhaps, that is what is necessary to produce “world class music”.  Perhaps that is why I seem to nearly always find the mentor [and employment] hopper empty – pursuit is consumptive.  And just maybe, it is why I hear the sound of the Eagles singing ALREADY GONE while I wonder if hell has frozen over ….