The Rhythm of Craft / the Chaos of Creativity

1:34 What's good, everybody?I'm Scoobert Doobert.Welcome back to love music more today.I want to talk about the difference between creativity and craft, the daily act, and thechaotic one.How easy it is to get the two mixed up and how easy it is to burn out in music becauseof it.That's kind of my personal theory and one of the things that keeps me going is separatingthe two and trying to find that balance.I don't always.

2:02 I do burn out sometimes, but you try not to burn out too much because when you burn outtoo much, then you just stop doing stuff.What am I talking about?It goes back to one of the conversations I was having and then also one of the solopodsabout the act of cleaning your environment or having everything in the right place.I actually focus on that more on the craft side.The craft side is the meticulous.

2:32 It is the honed, the refined, the editor.When you have the creative side, which is the chaotic, the immeasurable, the unknown.When you index too far onto one side or the other, the music can suffer.You might be saying, well, no, index farther than the chaotic.

2:57 If you index too far in the chaotic, you just might not ever make a second record.You might just like, here's all of my music and that's it.Not that there's anything wrong with that, but the craft is what keeps you going.The craft is the lightning rod in the storm.The way that I have segmented my personal career and do it, however you want for whatever

3:22 you're trying to do, but I use mixing, production, the technical, the business, all thatkind of stuff as my daily craft in practice, it's like the scales and whatever picking upinstruments.That's all the stuff that I do in between waiting for lightning to strike, ways to pass the

3:48 time, the ways to pass the time so that when lightning strikes, I don't have anything inmy way to turn that lightning into an actual releaseable commercial song.Not that I'm saying my stuff is the best in the world.I'm just saying my stuff is the best that I can do, so I'm perpetually held back bymy own abilities, by my own singing abilities, by my own playing abilities, my own recording

4:11 abilities, my own mixing abilities, all of those are weak points in the chain if I don'ttend to them.I have too many things to tend to, but that's the only way that I found that I can structureit where I don't get bored.I always have something to do and I can kind of like fill up all the cups in the waysthat I feel I'm most interested in at the time or in the ways that I feel like what

4:33 I'm being called to do creatively, that shadow self, that chaos agent.And then I look and I go, okay, where are the roadblocks?Where are the things that, when I made the last song, I was disappointed in whatever turnedout.Like, oh, I didn't love the way the synth base sounded.It's like, okay, I need to, now when I don't have anything to do or I don't know what

4:54 kind of song to make, I'm going to research different synth bases.I'm going to open up a session and just go through a bunch of presets.Things like little things that, now when I get inspired to make a song, I already havea bunch of things that I've preset that are rough ideas of things that I think soundcool that I can grab.Another way to put this would be like, you're foraging, you're grabbing your ingredients

5:19 and then you cook, but you're segmenting them into two separate distinct actions.A lot of the conversations I've had reflect this, even just like mixing engineer, whichis they separate out the craft of the, I color my tracks, I make sure that nothing'sclipping, I get everything in order, I bus everything, you know, all of the minute detailsof just getting ready to go.

5:45 This is the work that an assistant engineer would do, but if you don't have one, like mostpeople don't, you do that yourself.And there's actually, is some value in doing it yourself because then you get to familiarizewith the session.And then go take a break, come back, put on your creative hat and go.It's never that clean for me.That's just not who I am as a person.

6:05 I will be constantly making creative decisions the second I'm impelled to do so.So I will sit there and be like, okay, all I'm doing is cleaning up and making surethat all of these, oh wait, that kick drum, that's really cool.Oh, I hear how that could, and then off I go a little bit.And then I stop when I run out of steam and then I go back to my craft because I ran out

6:25 of steam, but the craft is that constant heartbeat, that tempo, that pulse.And it's kind of like when I'm running or when I'm working on my language skills, communicatingJapanese endlessly difficult, but I don't know what I don't know until I go out anddo it.And the going on and doing it is trying to have that conversation or trying to go runup a hill.

6:52 So I was like, okay, my left calf is a little messed up, so I got to do more stretcheson that.And that's the craft.And then the action is the running or the, and I like running because I'm incrediblymediocre at it.Every single race I've ever run, I am in exactly the middle of the pack.I am in the middle of the bell curve exactly, you know, 50% that is me in my age group, mygender.I have 50%.

7:17 And so, but I like that because it's like one of those things is like, I'm not naturallygood at that.But I'm able to derive some, some learnings of, you know, what maybe brought me up fromthe lower core tile up to the middle of the pack that I can apply to the things thatI'm naturally better at.Because if you're only doing things that you're naturally good at, you are never challenging

7:39 yourself or you're never feeling that horrible feeling of just not having enough talentto squeeze out.But it's also freeing, though, too, because when you're, you're engaging with somethingthat you're not looking at as something you're going to stake your entire life around,like I've done with music, where taking away those stakes allows you to re-examine process.

8:01 And so sometimes it's good to do that with music too, where the craft can turn it moreinto a job, which is dangerous.Don't get me wrong.It's good to do, but don't do too much.Because when you do too much, you can get really salty, you can get really bitter.You can start to look around and go, why didn't I do another job then?One that actually paid well.One that actually made me happy.

8:27 By keeping the passion alive, that's the creative side.And mixing is really cool, because it's a total foot in both worlds.But literally anything you're doing in music, you can do both of those things.It's just, I think, it's really important to tend to that flame.And by doing stuff around it, but not getting swallowed up by the day to day, I think you

8:50 tend to that flame in the way that gives it the kindling that it can burst into a beautifulsong, you know?Because the song is the derived output of a million decisions, the way you're goingto pronounce every single vowel, the way you write everything, the way you record everything,the way you mix everything, the way that everything interacts with each other, the ways that

9:15 you go back and redo things, or choose not to redo things, all of those are built in.And so by streamlining and stripping away anything that stands in your way, even versioncontrol, or understanding where you are kind of nesting different playlists.So like, for example, if I'm one of my favorite ways to write a part is to actually just recordit.

9:37 Like, why do I need to add an extra step of a demo when I'm already recordingit?I'm already learning the part.I'm confident in my playing.I practice it all the time.That's the craft side.So why don't I just loop record and learn the part, figure out the part, and recordthe part all at once.And not only do you save two extra steps by combining that into one, you can capture that

10:01 moment of inspiration and that moment of improvisation.That's one of the things I really like putting into the music, is that that sudden burstof, oh, I came up with something new, and then leave it in the final recording.Like, that's a really cool thing.One of my buddies, he goes by Okudaxij.He's worked on my stuff as Gokudaxij, but he and I had a conversation, gosh, really

10:26 long time ago, like 10 years ago now, about, why do songs never sound as good the nextday after you wrote them?And we threw out a bunch of things like, well, maybe you forget slight nuances of thephrasing of the words, maybe the recording that you had didn't capture, like a certain,like of the demo, didn't capture a certain thing that you were going for because you onlyrecorded one take.

10:52 And so you lost a little bit of fidelity, you lost a little bit of something, or maybeyour emotions just aren't there anymore.And so now, even though you're playing the same notes, it's just isn't hitting.By demoing and recording at the same time as much as possible, you stack those beautifulthings, the emotion.And then you also get to ride the wave of creativity without it getting too deep into craft.

11:16 Because like, think of that, for example.And this is hugely known and respected in the entire industry.Sometimes the demos sound better than the actuals, and the reason why is the demosyou were actually inspired when you were doing them.The actuals, you were trying to make a hit record.You're trying to take over the world and take over the air, airwaves instead of just

11:38 singing the song that really meant a lot to you at that moment.So the craft, sometimes, if you're just like, I'm going to sing this melody really well,I'm going to be really locked in and I'm going to be a singer.That's the worst recording session I've ever had in my entire life was when I brought thatmentality to it.And it was embarrassing.There were a bunch of people watching me.

12:01 I sounded like crap and I didn't release, you know, it was like, it was bad.The reason why it was bad is I went in just trying to be a great singer instead of justbeing a musician, instead of being a songwriter, being an artist.Become a great singer earlier, not when you come into the recording studio.When you come into the recording studio, it's like self-song in a way that feels authenticand real to you.

12:26 Be an artist.I can hire a session singer and they will give you the right thing.But the best session singers bring themselves as artists and that's what I'm trying to doas a mix engineer is I'm trying to bring myself as an artist and it's not always going tobe the best cup of tea.But that's the risk and risk reward is saying I'm going to invest myself into your music

12:50 in the way that I invest myself into my own music wholly and chaotically.I will never do the same thing on your mix again because I am approaching it the way thatI would my own love.It isn't templated in the same way.But sometimes I don't have that inspiration and have to find it.I always find it.But sometimes it takes a little while and during those moments that's when I go throughand I color all of the tracks.

13:18 All of the drums are blue now, all of the basses are orange, the basses go into a stem,the drums go into the stem and then the drums in the bass go into a stem and then wehave percussion and then I decide to want the percussion to dance with the bass or not.What sounds sonically interesting, but every once in a while I go, no, inspired, percussion,

13:39 they're going in with the vocals, drums, you're going, you know, like do stuff the weird,but it is led by a different thing, a different source.But when you don't have access to that source, that's when you have a bag.That's what I feel about music theory.Music theory is the ultimate, I think manifestation of that entire idea where if you are followingmusic theory as a rule book, it is a rule it will sound bad.

14:06 If you reach into music theory when you're at a crossroads and you go, okay, I don't knowwhat to do next, or I have section A and section C and I don't know how to connect them.I need a B in order to get from A to C and then you kind of look at, okay, this is thekey in the chords and the vibe of A, this is the key in the chords and the vibe of C.

14:28 And one of my favorite techniques for music theory is especially for modulations.Write out the chords or write out the notes or write out the voicings or just have themin your head.I usually just have them in my head now, but find where the common tones are and physicallycircle them.Or on the guitar, what I'll do is I'll make little triads and the little three note chords

14:46 and I will play them with as little of movement as possible.So I am trying to move my fingers the least.So if there's a note that is common in between the two chords or the two sections or thethings that I'm trying to bridge, whatever it may be, I keep it there and I just movestuff around it.And my goal is to not have to turn my wrists, not have to do anything weird.

15:09 It is I'm physicalizing the music theory of common tones and of modulation.Fancy words just to say like, I'm getting from A to B. I'm getting from A to C.I need a B and you find these different techniques.And that's what works for me just in terms of my craft.And I hope that those little things might inspire you and whatever your craft is.But also leave some clutter on your desk sometimes.

15:38 Leave some openness in your mind to throw it all away.The second you get inspired because that's all you're doing the craft for.You're not running scales to run scales.There's something magical and I was thinking about classical pianists because my wife andI just saw one at the San Diego Symphony Hall.It was awesome.He was very good.He was very, very good.

16:04 But I was listening to it and he's technically incredibly impressive and I'm not hatingon him whatsoever.I really, really liked it.It was a wonderful performance.But I was trying to figure out what's different between what I feel from him and my favoriteclassical pianist right now, Nobuyuki Tsujii.And Nobuyuki has just this middle thing.A lot of pianists can play really well, super quiet, really well, super loud.

16:32 Nobuyuki Tsujii has got this middle, this space between A and C. It's emotional.It's different.It takes me to a different plane.It draws me in as an artist where a lot of classical musicians draw me in as craftspeople.Clearly, Nobuyuki's got incredible craft.

16:58 But he's got that middle thing and I want that middle thing and I want you to have ittoo.If you enjoyed this podcast, I'd like to invite you to subscribe to it, rate it five starsand share it with your friends.If you'd like to hear my music, you can go to scoobertdoobert.pizza, the very legitimateplace to listen to music that I've talked so heavy about.And I hope you like it.

17:24 I hope you hear a little bit of that middle thing and the stuff that I'm doing, at leastsome of the times.I'll do as much as I can.We've got some incredible guests coming up, so definitely stick around.And I'm sure that after those conversations, you'll love music a little bit more.See you next week.