#jon makes beats

[upmala]

what a day to find out jonwayne is still around, alive and thriving, making music, two yt channels, happy?? we LOVE to see a big long-haired beautiful man beating his demons and finding fulfillment in exercising his talents

[agapi-kalyptei]

Jonwayne is a fountain of wisdom

Resuming my occasional habit of writing down notes from good youtube videos, mostly about workflow and creative practice, here's two by Jon Makes Beats:

While the "10'000 hour rule" still applies, what makes you better faster is deliberate practice - focusing on what you do, not just spending time doing it.

Jon believes that originality is a remix of things you already know. Whether you agree or not (I don't), if you expand your horizons, you can be more original by having more to remix from.

Don't just search "Ableton tutorial". You'll watch a lot and then forget it 3 days later. Search for as specific tutorials as you can. (My advice: you can watch ad-hoc tutorials but you have to apply/practice what you learn within 24 hours, or right away if possible).

Make mistakes

Don't buy more stuff. Learning a new piece of gear will take time, which will take time AWAY from making music with what you already have. You risk being creatively fragmented if you have too much.

Jon, being a voice of reason as always, says the obvious: he doesn't know you, so he can't recommend you hardware that helps you make music. Focus on what actually inspires you and motivates you, not on technical specs like RAM, polyphony, etc.

Jon shares an anecdote of being hyped to buy his first drum machine, learning it in a month and getting disappointed. After some time he Marie Kondo'd into seeing the machine not as a flawed tool, but as something that inspired him to learn how to make beats.

Don't aim too high when you're starting out, because the burden of learning something very advanced could be too much of a time investment before you get to get the habit of making music.

[agapi-kalyptei]

[12:13] "Efficiency doesn't deserve to control your relationship with your own art. That doesn't mean you shouldn't use things that are more efficient, but your process shouldn't be defined by it, because inspiration and efficiency aren't mutually exclusive.

The thing that's the most sensible might not be the most inspiring. [...] Efficiency is objective and art isn't."

jon makes beats dropping some real wisdom here