Beware experts and expertise

A big part of the reason I was inspired to start Jamie’s list was that I saw a huge hole in the “ideas about production” marketplace, the size and shape of humility.

I don’t know whether your experience on the internet has been anything like mine, but mine has been that, seemingly every time I try to look something up, to ask a question about how to do something, there’s a guy — it’s always a guy — telling me The One Right Way!™ to do something or other relating to music production. Slick video production values and no empathy.

I think what I’ve realized is that, at least for the way I aspire to do art, the more someone professes to be an expert in something, the more I should probably run in the other direction from wherever they’re heading.

This isn’t to say that expertise isn’t a real thing, or that it’s not helpful or valuable. Learning is good and knowledge is helpful. I proudly admit to being an inveterate reader of manuals. It’s that when someone approaches a situation from the point of view of being an expert — when the idea of expertise is implicitly or explicitly centered in the conversation — that situation is invariably charged with ego and insecurity. And that’s exactly the opposite of the energy that I think nurtures creativity the best.

Expertise is reductive. A dead end, at the end of which is the expert’s answer. And what fun is that? How is that helping me be creative? I don’t want answers, I want questions. I want suggestions. I want ideas. I want strategies. I want to be told two conflicting approaches and to be left to sort it out for myself. I want the opportunity to be wrong.

Because, I’ll tell you something: a whole lot of my favorite records were done “wrong.” And, on the other end of the spectrum, so many of my least favorite recording moments over the years have been engineering masterpieces. Technically impressive and utterly boring.

Nothing against you if you’re trying to make the next technical masterpiece. I appreciate obsessive behavior as much as the next person. The point is that what I’m interested in, personally speaking, is idiosyncratic expressions. Recordings that couldn’t have been made by anyone but the people who made them. I.e., art. I’m interested in art.

So, here’s my idea for you today: fuck experts and expertise. Do your own thing. Learn how stuff works, sure, but don’t be dogmatic about it. Be open to the idea that there’s someone who knows more than you do. Be equally open to the idea that there’s someone who knows less than you who makes more compelling recordings than you do. Stay humble. Be open to weirdness. Find an open lane. Stay away from presets, or at very least mess with the ones you like. Turn all the knobs and see what they do. Have more questions than answers.

Kill the expert in your head. I bet you’ll discover that there was a beautiful, vulnerable creature right behind him the whole time, with a lot to teach you.

Long ears and a short tongue — jamie