Talent is Never Enough Archives - Computer Music Production School; Audio Recording School; Audio School in Florida, Atlanta, Los Angeles or anywhere in the World

Disputing the Hands on Training Myth

If you have heard phrases like ‘You need to be in the studio to learn’, ‘You must have a mixing board and record in a sound proofed studio’, ‘In order to learn, you need someone to show you how the studio works’, then you have crossed paths with the Hands on Training Myth.

These are common misconceptions, however, hands on training is when you are alone in your studio, on a deadline. You do not have time for writer’s block, issues in your studio or time to doubt yourself. It’s very simple, either you get radio ready results in your studio or you don’t.

What Hands on Training IS NOT:
–Hands on training IS NOT when you sit in a studio tweaking knobs and playing with faders.
–Hands on training IS NOT when you look over an instructor or tutors shoulder.
–Hands on training IS NOT when you sit in a classroom with a workstation.

It’s quite possible the hands on training myth is blocking you from achieving your dreams.
Anyone can go to a classroom or listen to an instructor but that doesn’t mean you learn anything.

Here’s how to know if you have been duped by the Hands on Training Myth.
–“How come when I get ‘Hands On’ with my equipment I still have questions?”
–“Why am I in the studio for 8-10 hours and my music is still not finished?”
–“Why have I been doing music for years and getting no where?”
–I can only learn if someone teaches me or if I watch a video tutorial.
–I have to much to do to slow down and read. I don’t like reading.

What Hands on Training IS:
–Hands on training is being alone, in your own studio, using the gear you have.
–Hands on training is when you complete a project to the ‘radio ready’ industry standard on a deadline ALONE.

How the Process Works: The hands on training process consists of 3 simple steps:
1) Learn. You first must learn what to do, where to go, what to listen for, etc.
2) Apply. You must take what you have learned and make it yours. The only way to do this is applying it.
3) Ask Questions. Keep asking questions on a specific subject until you have no more.

When you use these 3 steps, the process of hands on training becomes a simple solution that can be utilized anywhere at any time. This requires that you read, study, grow and stretch yourself. You must educate yourself no matter how you learn. This is the only way you can achieve your dreams in every moment of the day.

–The Computer Music Production School first gives you the knowledge and education to know what to do when you work in any studio with any gear. You have to know what you’re doing before you can get your ‘Hands in it’. When you sit in a studio, where do you start? How do you know your finished?
–Secondly, CMPS gives you 24/7 Hands on Training so your education stays in your long term memory.
–Last of all you have one-on-one student adviser support to help you every step of the way and to answer all your questions.

You can become a music producer and audio engineer in as little as 7 weeks, 7 months or take as long as you need. You can then produce and record as many albums as you like for the rest of your life.

3 Ways to fit Music Production into your Busy Schedule

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It seems that everyone today has one major thing in common. So many goals and so little time.. Especially when ‘life happens’ its easy to get discouraged from doing music. Family, friends and some people you don’t even know may say ‘why you doin music when you got all this other stuff to do?’… Next thing you know its been a few months and it seems like your music is stuck.

Also, with consistently developing new goals, fitting music into your daily schedule can be challenging. Between life, work and family, music can easily come last in line on our priority list.. Why?

The answer is simple – because it is fun!
It makes your heart sing and dance!
It is what you want to do every moment of every day!

Sounds crazy but its true – there is this inner critic that says if circumstances of finances, family life, and your job is bad, then you can’t enjoy music either… So let’s start there….

How to fit music production into your busy schedule:

1) Think about what you’re thinking about. If you’re in a bad mood, uninspired, bored, frustrated, 95% of the time you listened to someones negativity or got a hold of a bad thought. Thoughts are like a virus or medicine… which one do you want running around in your head?

2) Choose what is important in your life. Are you spending time on meaningless tasks or wasting time in front of the TV watching other people live their dreams? By eliminating meaningless tasks, you free up a clean slate of time that is fresh for music.

3) Schedule time for music and keep it. The only way to get anything done on a deadline is to schedule the appointment and keep it. This requires faith. If you don’t have faith, a music career is going to be a long and hard journey for you. When you commit to doing music you’ll find doors of creativity and opportunity will open up. Not only that you’ll finish the music your start! To create music daily requires you to be a self starter, highly motivated and passionate to go above and beyond when you are faced with obstacles. Remember, creating music isn’t ‘just creating music’. It is also learning the music business, marketing, taking photo shoots, developing your website and having relationships with your fans and clients.

Making the Most of your Time

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Let’s face it; none of us knows how much time we have here on earth. None of us knows the time or date of our death and none of us knows if we’ll make it to old age. Being young we always assume that we will live long and it’s easy to take on an immortal attitude. But at any moment things could change. Each of us is given just 24 hours a day. Each day we have 1,440 minutes to invest or 1,440 minutes to waste. Martin Luther King had the same amount of time each day. So did Jesus, Albert Einstein, and Ludwig Van Beethoven. Bill Gates has the same amount of time. So does Michael Jordan and President Obama. What do all these people have in common? They all have managed their time well.

I heard a story of a man who was getting up in his years. He calculated that if he lived to be 75 years old that he would only have 1,000 Saturdays left in his lifetime. So, he went to the toy store and bought 1,000 marbles and put them in a huge glass jar. Diligently, every Saturday he took one of those marbles out of his jar. Slowly over time he watched the marble depth get smaller and smaller. This was a daily reminder to him that his time was limited. Finally, on his 75th birthday he appeared on a radio show and declared, “Today, I took the last marble out of my jar, every Saturday from now on is an extra gift to me, I am now on borrowed time.” With his little experiment, he gained a fresh perspective on the value of time.

Let’s say you are given 5 million dollars in your bank account today. The only stipulations are that you have to spend every cent by the end of one full week. Anything you did not spend would just be taken back and given to someone else. Now, if that happened to any one of us we would be sure to spend each dollar wisely. Think about how we would calculate a couple thousand here, a couple thousand there. We would make lists of who we’d give some too, lists of places to book travel, and things to buy. Why would we do that? Because money is valuable!

But there is one thing that is more valuable than money, and that is time.
Once you spend your time you can never get it back. Once it’s gone, it’s gone.

Are you investing your time wisely? Are you making the most of every moment and spending your time on the things that really matter? I come across a lot of people who are ‘waiting’. They’re waiting to release music, waiting to get their big break, waiting for love, or waiting for the perfect time to act on a dream. The truth is there is no perfect timing. There is no reason to wait. There is no invisible alarm clock that’s going to go off when the time is just right. You just have to do things with excellence and hope for the best. Make a decision, stick to it, and go for it! Waiting will only get you farther from your goals because the longer you wait the harder it is to keep yourself motivated to follow through. Leaders and innovators understands the power of time; understand that we are each given the same amount each day. And that time is a precious commodity. Don’t take it for granted. Don’t assume you have all the time in the world. You have a destiny to fulfill and a dream to conquer.
So what are you waiting for?

“The best way to predict your future is to create it.” Abraham Lincoln

Tutorial: Making the Most of your Time
1) Do you know what the top 10 most important things in your life are? If not, time can definitely get away from you. Write down 10 things that are the most important to you. Things that if you were on your death bed and didn’t do, you would regret..
2) Now write a list of 10 things that interfere with doing your most important things.
3) Now give yourself some time and think of solutions to get rid of the things in your life that are keeping you from making the best of your time.

5 Ways to Detect a Poser in the Music Business

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Often times I get a call from someone who says. “Uh, is this GotchaNoddin? …Oh, I’m so and so and I’m in the music business. I was hoping we could help each other out…you know, I make hits!“

“Ok,” I say…and start to ask my routine questions. What do you do? What have you done? How long have you been doing this? Sometimes people will actually cut me off with accolades of famous people they know and on and on they go with, “Oh, I made a hit with this person or that person and I got some industry connections!”

While I appreciate this, I am more interested in learning what projects and things are being worked on.
It doesn’t matter who you know… it matters what you are doing.

You are not who you know but what makes you successful is the results in your life, how you go about achieving results and how many people you’ve helped. What I see lacking in the industry is heart and hard core common sense. I don’t know where it started, but for years there has been this ‘not enough’ mentality that there isn’t enough business to go around and that only a ‘select few’ can live their dreams in the music business. On the other spectrum, I get many folks calling with stars in their eyes thinking that success and fame can happen in a couple days. The reality is that I have to get through many hard layers of ego and self promotion until I can get to the center of a person’s character.

Now this is the exact same thing you have to do as you embark on the journey of your music dream. Don’t believe what people tell you. In the music business everyone talks. The only way to determine who to let in your circle is by actually witnessing the results in their life to back up what they’re telling you.

Don’t worry about asking too many questions. That will get rid of the posers. It will also start great conversational interest and connection with someone who is not a poser. The biggest point to make here is YOU NEVER KNOW WHO YOU ARE TALKING TO – if you respect everyone you talk to, you’ll never worry about meeting the right people – they will always return phone calls and keep appointments.

Sometimes, I tick people off with my questions and putting people on the spot. But like clock-work they always call back a few months later. And the call goes something like this:

“Hey man, you think you could help me out. I still haven’t had any luck since we last spoke. My studio isn’t working right and I haven’t been able to work on my beats. I been trying tutorials and other people just aren’t giving me answers that help me.”

“Sure” I reply. “What do you think the problem is?” As I probe deeper I find out that this person has little experience, little knowledge and doesn’t know how to ask for help. I sit back and say to myself “Wow, this is the same person who said in our first conversation he’s got connections, makes hits and we should help each other out.. It’s a good thing I ask my questions!”

I cringe thinking about what many people’s “hits” must sound like who love to run their mouth, show up late to the studio, never return phone calls and have no consistency. If a person’s life isn’t consistent how is their music and music business going to be consistent? I know I sound harsh in saying this but its important to discern who people really are that you would like in your circle. All the sweet talking players who think they can smooch their way through, it’s conversations of honesty and being real that true connection can happen. How can any of us help each other if we’re not up front and honest from the start?

Now that I have painted a picture for you, what do the paintings of people in your life look like? Are they playing hardcore game, talk but no walk, name dropping but the results in their life don’t add up? These people are toxic to your success and interfere with your needed encouragement while on the journey towards your dream.

Tutorial: 5 Ways to Detect a Poser in the Music Business:
1) Consistency: When someone calls the person you’re trying to work with, do they say “ahh man, why they calling me!” or do they respectfully say, hold on I got to get this call. How do they treat other people, friends and family when you are around them? Don’t listen only to what someone says when you meet them, watch for consistency in their life with others and you’ll see right through them on how they will treat you in business and as friends. This process takes time. Also, everyone goes through phases in life. Sometimes you may meet someone in an inconsistent phase of their life. 6 months later they call you and are constantly calling you. This is a good sign. It’s not about judging but watching and always being open and attentive, being understanding and not burning bridges works wonders for connections too.

2) Reliability: Reliability is never seen on the first meeting. You can talk about a lot of plans and ideas. Some people live in ‘ideas’. However action is the only thing that counts. As with consistency, reliability is on a day-to-day basis. Set appointments, times to talk, meet or attend events. Watch for patterns of lateness, promptness, ‘unexpected issues reoccurring’, do they show up, do they call? Consistency and reliability go hand in hand. Relationships take time, effort and continual pursuit. If there isn’t a great common ground then the effort may not be worth the consistency and reliability of yourself or the other person for that matter. Also look to see if they are consistent in other areas of their lives. If someone hasn’t been consistent a few times, maybe its time to give them some space. If the relationship is important to you, call them back in a few months to touch base. It could be a season of inconsistency for them. There are many seasons of inconsistency in our lives. These can change at any moment. In the present situation, this lets you know that they are more of an acquaintance rather than a potential business partner. Never start business partnerships until you have tested and established that they are reliable.

3) Integrity: One of the definitions of integrity is honesty. The word honesty these days seems pretty lame… However, the results of dishonesty are flat out appalling. Let’s paint a picture of how important honesty is. If you are building a house and you decide to use cheap cement to cut costs, decide to do poor quality job in building the foundation and don’t put forth a quality effort, that house will crumble from the inside onto itself. This is the same thing that happens when surrounding yourself with dishonest, shady, inconsistent, unreliable, game playas. All the time and effort you put into building your music foundation and career will be destroyed from within itself. What is the opposite of cheap, ego-centric, poor quality and laziness? Surround yourself with encouraging, passionate and motivated people who enjoy the learning and growing process with you. You’ll then have lifelong friends and potential business partners as you achieve your goals.

4) Value: What is the value of the person you are meeting? Are they a giver, a taker, a friend or mooch? Are they always broke asking for money, asking you to make beats or record them for free? Do they ask you to do something and then respect your time and give something back? Or are they asking you ‘to put them on’ and ‘give them their shot’ but when the time comes they have nothing to offer, are not prepared or just simply flake? Or do they come prepared, asking questions and on time? It is important to determine the giver, taker, friend or moocher as soon as possible. This can avoid much wasted time. Consistency, Reliability, Integrity and Value all integrate together to form the character and trustworthiness of the person you are considering doing business with, partnering with or working with creatively. Time never lies and will always reveal the truth of your relationships.

5) Results: The last and most obvious is the results in someone’s life. This is the easiest to detect. I hear from at least 10-20 or more people a week telling me about how they run a record label. Before I can determine if I can help them, I first ask: How many artists do you have, how long does it take to put out a record, how many units did your last release sell, do you do production, mixing and mastering in house or is it outsourced? Often, I get the response “Well, I don’t have a label yet but I’m in the process of starting it”. OK, now we can get somewhere!

What are the results in their life? What does their music sound like? Does what they tell you about their business and music match up with what you see currently or is it where they are heading? This is SO important! I have seen so many people miss opportunities because they misrepresented themselves. The change that must be made is not to tell people where you are going but to tell them where you are currently, what you need help with NOW FIRST. Then the doors of what you need and where you are going can be established.

These 5 ways to detect a poser in the Music Business are important to reference when you are seeking relationships and also to reference in your own life. This is only a small part of what it takes to not just talk but to live your dream. If you love music and have a passion to do it for the rest of your life than making some personal changes to avoid posers should be easy.

If you are in the middle of a business deal or networking and are not sure what to do,