Unconventional Mind States and Slow, Slow Progress

0:59 what's good everybody Scoobert Doobert, and here welcome back to love music more today'sepisode I wanted to recap a couple of my last few podcasts guests and some ofthe things that they're making me think and feel specifically about beingunconventional altering your mind state and that progress takes time so let'sstart with the unconventional bit so there's this thing that I like to call

1:45 the deadline effect but I want to unpack it because naturally anybody that'sbeen in school like a like probably all of you you have had deadlines and you'vehad exams or you've had a midterm that you need to cramp for all those thingsmotivate you and in the same way that even in like normal day job working lifeit's not that different from school where there's always these surges these

2:09 pushes just I really think that human progress is in bursts rather than aslike a slow steady state industrialism tried to change that with like afactory but ultimately non factory work is impossible to fully mechanize in partbecause it is creative and when you're doing the creative arts it is theultimate manifestation of like try as you may try to put this thing into a box

2:40 and it will surprise you or you won't get the intended output that you'relooking for so instead you need to kind of create systems and structures towork within to inspire yourself to unlock different parts of your potentialand that's why I liked that conversation that I had with Noam Wallenberg wherehe was talking about unconventionality and unconventional challenges be it as

3:04 a mixing engineer when you're given hey make this record sound likesomething completely different or as a recording engineer or producer whereyou're making the conscious choice to take a left turn where you're deciding todo something quote unquote wrong like having unmatched unpaired drum overheads sofor those of you that have never mic to drums lucky you by the way because it's

3:26 super hard it's fun it's fun but oh my god it's so hard and oftentimes it takesyou recording like 15 16 drum kits before the 17th one you're like oh thissounds good so it is a it is a joyousmasochistic experience making drums but part of the reason why is because you'retrying to create the impression of either being in the room or being the

3:50 drummer or being supernatural like the widest possible drum kit so it goes aroundall the times all around your head every single one of those decisions isultimately a choice and there are so many choices to be made on a drum kitjust because there's so many pieces of a drum kit and they're all beingplayed at once so one of the secrets that doesn't get talked about a ton in

4:12 music is some of the best sounding records don't actually play all the drumsat once they will track them piece by piece or they will just do tom's andsnares and then overdub rides and then overdub high hats it's part of whatmakes modern music sound like modern music is you're actually borrowing fromthe tradition of sampling music or of electronic music and applying it to a

4:36 physical drum drum set that's an unconventional choice another unconventionalchoice was like what no one was talking about where you unmatched the microphonesso typically you buy a stereo matched pair of microphones to record drums asthe overheads as the thing that's capturing the majority of the picture of thedrum set so if you like picture the way that drums are in a studio if you don't

4:57 know what that looks like check it out online because it looks crazy becausethere's sometimes like 20 microphones all pointed at different things so you havea close mic on one of the tom's you have a close mic on one of the snares maybeup above and below the snare but what's really typically catching most of thepicture of the drum kit is something that's floating above the drums which

5:18 also is kind of a natural if you think about it like how many people listen todrums from 15 feet above them but there's a reason why it's there because you'retrying to get all the top end information that like not as much of like thatlow-thirty boom boom kick but you're trying to get more of the sticks hittingthings so you can separate that out and create the impression like an

5:38 impressionist picture a painting of what a drum kit feels like by adding upall the different parts and so you think with the overheads what you're tryingto capture some of the room a lot of the sticks hitting things a lot of thetop end a lot of the clarity the presence of each of these individual drumsyou're trying to do it in a whole list of ways so it sounds like one stereo

5:59 picture and so you get scientifically perfectly matched you have somebody inthe lab testing it so that's why it's more expensive because there's variationin all manufacturing processes no matter what you do shout out Boeing you knowlike it's it's statistics comes back to bite you and so you have to do a lot ofthings to try and fight against that and that's what stereo pairing does is you

6:23 have these electrical engineers that develop standard operating procedures topair these microphones so there is perfectly similar as possible so what canyou do what Noam did is the exact opposite he said not only am I going to usea stereo matched pair I'm going to use completely different microphones withcompletely different physics because there's different ways to capture sound

6:47 through a microphone through a diaphragm and that decision puts him in acorner now he's already made that decision you can't go back and recut thosedrums it's done so we're going to do with it so better be cool decision youbetter have foresight and you also have to believe in yourself and believe inyour experience to deal with an unconventional choice and make it cool make it

7:11 sound intentional make it matter and that's what a lot of musiciansparticularly ones that are deeper in their career or bands and they're likefourth or fifth studio record start to do stuff like that and that's a goodthing it's a really cool thing because if you don't I think that you end upjust trying to repeat yourself or chase what you had before but your physical

7:34 and mind state mental state is going to be different you have changed as aperson it's like the ship of Theseus you are rebuilt every record and ifyou try and capture exactly the same magic guess what you won't be able tomay some people sometimes can but if you're growing as a person your music isgoing to grow too and sometimes it's going to grow in directions that is less

7:56 popular to a mass audience but you know what that's what we sign up for youcan't you can't predict a lot of this stuff and a lot of the best music comesout of like I was talking with the collaboration between Queen and David Bowie themagic of left turns of putting yourself in unexpected places doingunexpected things and seeing what comes out it's like a fox cornered you really

8:28 get to see what you're capable of so how in whatever your creative pursuits arebecause everybody is creative no matter what you do even day jobs and stuffthere's a reason why you're getting paid and it's not just a robot it's becauseof your creativity and that is more important than ever if you're a youngperson like about to enter into music or enter into the workforce creativity is

8:51 the number one thing that you need to index for and you index for it byconstantly putting yourself in uncomfortable situations it's it's constantlearning and adapting and luckily or unlikely the world around us does thatfor us like that's the only defining feature of existing since I guess2001 you never know what's around the corner there's a pandemic there's

9:18 another page of history you can have to roll with those punches but you have toroll with it creatively otherwise it can destroy you and I choose not to bedestroyed I choose to be happy because when you're happier you have more togive you can wake up the next morning get to it you have to roll with this isan adventure and understand what matters and understand what matters in your

9:42 scope and what you can control and then go and control that letting go of whatyou can't not meaning that it's not important the meaning that whateverdisempowers you is something that shouldn't be around it's not like toxicpositivity that's not I'm trying to drive at I get sad often I deal with theworld often I write about the world often but there are all these inhibitions

10:11 there are all these little things that actually are counterproductive and make itso you don't wake up and try that on conventional you don't have enough inyour cup to approach a challenge with creativity and excitement rather thandread and feeling jaded and I want to talk about Bubby Lewis so he was one ofmy first guests I work with them on music all the time this record that I'm

10:37 working on US is a big feature of Bubby Lewis because he's just so good and Ilove his energy and who he is as a person one of the things that I've beenlearning from him and thinking a lot from him is thinking a lot from workingwith him is that he is constantly making music there's constant that's howI'm trying to be too but he's making music in the airport he's recording

11:03 tracks for people that are going to put on the records in an airport waitingfor his baggage or in a hotel room or in three a.m.

11:10 in Tokyo like he was doingfor me it was crazy but he's doing it from a place of joy but he's also doing itin an interesting way from my perspective of just altered mine states alteredmine states typically like I'm doing this history rock a lot of it talks about drugs that's like kind of cheating it's like like what about the alteredmine state of fasting which Bubby does a lot and you know be careful with it if

11:35 like I don't trust myself to fast I think that I could get a little carried awayand I could see it devolving into something kind of you know dark ordangerous but I do sometimes for like certain religious moments and stuff Ithink that's kind of cool but you know I can't make that a big part of my lifelike Bubby can't he's he's incredible with that but he fast frequently he does

12:01 these athletic challenges for himself and I guarantee you that changes the wayhe plays bass he like a thousand pushups a day kind of stuff anime stuff Iguarantee you that changes his outlook on life the way that he plays bass hisspirituality his musicality all of that you can feel in the way that hewrites and it's part of the reason why I like writing with them so much is he has

12:28 that same pace so for one a lot of times when you send music to a musician it'slike two three weeks and the song kind of loses momentum you know okay likewhere were we but with Bubby it's like I got you tomorrow but the other thing isit's always it's always a little different there's always a different lensthat he's operating with him and so I'm trying to apply that to my own life and

12:49 my own music and I have been for a long time but thinking about a deeper that'spart of the reason why I like being quote unquote prolific is that you'reconstantly digging into your well and that the water in that well changesevery day and by doing so you can find unexpected things you can write songsyou probably never would have written and experience things you probably wouldn't

13:12 have ever experienced but it is pressed in wax it is on the record and people cantap into that at any time and I had a really nice experience on DM where you knowsome people have reached out talking about the things that my songs have donefor them in really dark times and how they have re-approach the musicfeeling a different feeling than when they first heard it where I was like

13:42 listening to happier music because you're in a sad place and I are listening tohappier music rejoicing that you got out of that sad place it's the same songand I was like that's that's crazy it makes me emotional to be like I was partof that but I was only I think I only was able to tap into it because I got outof my own damn way I cornered myself like the fox I treated creation of music

14:12 unconventionally or trying to do it all the time whenever I can and all the cracksit's not the perfect time it's not the perfect place it's just whatever you havea moment go go make music and it was also that mental state of like somethingabout where I was at connected with where they were at and is reconnectingwith them now I think that's really that's really crazy and awesome and is more

14:35 important to me than anything else and it's I wish that I could hear more ofthose stories because I know millions of people have heard my music so there'smore out there but at the same time I don't need to because it's kind of cool thatthat could be our little secret that could be the relationship with my songrather than the relationship with me and at that it might be more special the

15:01 final thing I wanted to talk about was David from Mixbus TV progress takestime so I I've been working out a lot I've been going to the gym I got agym membership and it's gross it's a gross gym it's absolutely disgusting butI've got my shower shoes and I'm making it work no no ill effects yet but butthe the progress of going to the gym is really funny because I'm not I'm not

15:32 trying to be a bodybuilder something but I am trying to figure out ways to youknow just stay healthier and continue you know I want to keep up this pace and I'vehad carpal tunnel I've had these issues with my wrist and suddenly by likestrengthening my forearms I don't anymore really I don't feel those sensationsanymore so something that I thought I needed to rest and lay off I actually needed

15:58 to go the opposite direction but it's funny because I was working I worked outfor like six months and for like four and a half months I was like where whereare these muscles that I'm supposed to be getting I go on that podcast withDavid Gnozzi he and I are docking before and after the podcast aboutand during the podcast if I work out routine because obviously it's super buffed out

16:20 dude and it's commendable because like obviously he's dedicated years and yearsand years of his life with maniacal focus to be able to get that big and strongand I was like where's mine but it just took a while and talking to himtalk to this of other people who've done this they're like your body just needstime to be ready for the progress there are all these other things that

16:51 needs to check the box for before it gives you quote-unquote muscles and I feellike that applies to so many things like language learning and learningand instrument writing songs you aren't gonna get the stuff that shows up orshows out to other people until you like train your neurons until you trainyour ligaments until you get your fitness up and then after that you have

17:18 something to build on but that first three months I swear that first three monthsof anything you do like skill wise creativity like I was I've been tricked andmisled by YouTube videos and fad diets and P90X even the P90X is pretty awesomebut all of those things where it says like hey in 90 days you want to be able torecognize yourself it's like guess what in 90 days you might have zero visible

17:43 progress in anything you choose to do but will you go for the next 90 daysbecause after 180 days you best believe there's gonna be progress but stopglying to people because those first three months of anything you do can bebrutal in the same way that was songs man like even now I have I've probablydone well over a thousand songs like not all the stuff that I've released not

18:12 all as on Spotify also a bunch of stuff that I did before Scoobert Doobert, wellover a thousand and I can't I still when I work on a song you get like 55%done and you go this sucks I hate this song but the second you get to 70 you'relike oh never mind what was I thinking and so it's kind of like how do you howdo you steal your mind how do you get that mental state like Bubby to be like I

18:40 am going all the way I'm seeing this idea through there was a reason why Istarted it and I need to finish it and then after then you can reassess anddecide do I want to do it again do I want to keep going like I feel that waywith Japanese were I had a goal with Japanese it took me a long time I've hitthat goal I'm there and now I'm reassessing like do I want to do the next goal

19:03 because the next goal is going to be exponentially harder than the first whichis like much more native level like I'm doing right now fluid speech whereyou're not having to thank you're not having to use what word do I know that'sclose to what I'm trying to say like I have to do in Japanese where it's likefrequently you know you like I'll think of a specific topic that I want to

19:22 bring up that might be a little bit more difficult or collegiate or whateverand I'll have to kind of like circle around it make sure the listenersunderstanding where I'm going and then we can talk about it rather than justgetting to the point but I don't know if I want that or not yet because Iknow the cost that it's gonna take and I know that if I sign up I better finish

19:43 it and progress takes time and it's okay I think not to take on every battleor to wait on some like I do want to play saxophone but you know what for nowI'm hiring Nicole McCabe who's infinitely better than I will ever be on saxophoneand that's okay but by working with her music and listening to her playing

20:06 under a microscope I guarantee you that when I am 55 and I actually start playingsaxophone I will have a head start and I'll have better taste because I willhave been around and influenced by automatically Nicole McCabe who's likeone of the best saxophones in the world in my humble opinion and she plays on mymusic that's so cool yeah recapping unconventional being yourself the

20:35 deadline effect altering your mind state in natural ways and that progress takestime this stuff and not only does it take time but progress will test you andto test you again just like just like this music career and it's always right atthat point where your back's almost broken and if you can just firm up thoseshoulders for one more push that's usually the time and it's just reminding

21:10 yourself like I've done this before I've been here before and if you haven'tbeen there before trying to develop that kind of muscle that mental musclebecause if you get that when you get that so many more things on lock and I'veexperienced that in my life and I hope you can experience it in yours I believein you I hope you believe in me because I need the belief too if you enjoy this

21:31 podcast please rate a five star share it with your friends share it with anothercreative because we got to do this together and if you want to hear my musicstuff I'm talking about you can go to scoobertdoobert.pizza and hear it and watch itnext episode will be another guest episode been really loving those and Ihope you enjoyed this little recap of them be sure to check out the episodes

21:59 that I referenced here have a go in