Working in non-native genres
I was talking today with one of my mentees, and I was catching her up on what I’d been up to recently. I mentioned that I’d finally turned a corner on an EP project I’ve been working on. I continued:
It's the artist's first EP, and so there's the question of what exactly is the sound going to be. The material presented in the recorded tracks as indie, and our conversations seemed to indicate that’s what the artist wanted, so I went that direction with it to start with: guitars a bit more to the front, drums a bit toward the back. But it turns out that actually what's feeling resonant for him in this moment with this material is more of a pop approach! I.e., drums and bass and vocals to the front, everything else in a more supporting role. I.e., exactly the opposite of my first thought 🤣 But I sent him a round of mixes on Thursday-Friday that he LOVED. So now all of a sudden I think we're really close on the entire project!
And her response was:
Man that’s so fun. It’s insane to me that you’re so comfortable working in so many genres. I was thinking the other day how cool it would be to do some lo-fi stuff… but like I wouldn’t know where to start? Same with electronic music… 🤣 I get that the principles of mixing still hold, but it still feels like a different universe in a lot of ways. I guess that’s what decades of doing production give a person. 🤷🏼♀️
First: sure, the decades of experience don’t hurt! But, second: it’s really just about being intentional about learning something new.
In my mind, I liken working in a non-”home” genre to learning a foreign language.
At first, I might only know a few words or phrases. I might be able to get by, but it’ll still sound basically like a non-native speaker who knows how to make a couple of gestures in a native-feeling way.
After some more practice, I might have a conversational understanding of the genre. Work that I do might still sound like it’s done by someone whose home genre is elsewhere, but it will have enough native gestures imbued in it that it will sound at least familiar to someone whose home genre is the one I’m working in. (By the way, this can be a very sweet spot for someone who intentionally wants to sound not exactly like everything everyone else in their genre is doing.)
And eventually, if I keep at it, I might achieve fluency! This is where my work in the genre just sounds “right” — i.e., like the work anyone else in the genre would be doing.
The thing here, though, is that this is something you can get better at with practice. And, if you need to get better at it quickly, then you can practice in a more focused way! If you’re constantly comparing your work to the work of the standard-bearers in the form you’re exploring, and constantly refining your work in light of that comparison, you’ll make progress quickly.
For example: Shannon and I are working on a composition side-project at the moment. It started with us making a bunch of songs that sounded like they could be “Good to Me” b-sides. But then the design brief evolved, and now they need stuff that sounds more modern. So we had to get up to speed, really fast, on what it looks like from a technical perspective to make modern-sounding dance-pop!
So we did exactly what I talked about above — lots of back-and-forth comparative listening and tweaking. It’s a pain, and it makes your head hurt — but it’s absolutely doable. And, also, learning new techniques is fun — and will for sure give us some new items in our toolkit for when we make Shannon’s next record.
And to my mentee’s question about “I want to get into making some lo-fi but I wouldn’t know where to start”: that’s easy. Find a bunch of lo-fi that you like, and copy it. It’s a great way to get started. We can worry about making your magnum opus lo-fi record in a little while; first we need to achieve at least a conversational familiarity with lo-fi, if not fluency. One step at a time.
Like a dog learning a new trick — jamie