Artist tips: Mark Fell shares his thoughts on experimental electronic music production:
1. It’s good to be fixated by technology—and I clearly am. But that fixation should be in terms of how it behaves, not what it looks like on the shelf or how much you paid for it.
2. Don’t worry about what technology you need. Use what you have.
Don’t get hung up on trying to create the perfect studio environment—there isn’t one.
3. If a piece of music is not working, simply adding more and more components will not rescue it. Instead, I find it helps to be selective and subtractive, and to keep things as simple as possible.
4. Face up to the fact that music making is mentally and physically demanding; it’s hard, not fun, and probably unhealthy. Because of this I recommend taking lots of breaks, doing housework, walking to the shops, eating good food and so on. Also, I find that it helps if I listen at a relatively quiet level, and to listen carefully. Your ears, like anything else, get tired if you use them too much.
5. A clear idea is only any use as a starting point; it is never a destination. It is what you uncover in the process of making a piece of music that makes it interesting.
6. If you have a plan, don’t stick to it.
7. Don’t try to make a masterpiece.
8. When I first started making music I thought that tracks had to be complicated with lots of different ingredients, levels of energy and sections. It took me a while to realize this was a problem. I remember spending about a year on one track that just kept getting worse and worse. My approach now is to make lots of related tracks that explore the same materials and processes, but each is a different outcome or combination of those materials and processes.
9. There’s no place like home.
Don’t move to London or Berlin to further your career. It might work but it’s not worth it.
10. Be aware that the music industry is as corrupt and annoying as any other. Your task is to survive in this box without turning into a suicide bomber. Despite this, one should never forget that house music happened so that people could come together in an environment of safety, acceptance and mutual respect, under a banner of love, not of hate.
