I have a bunch of “thought seeds” for these Producer Thoughts blog posts. As I’m working on a project, mowing the lawn etc. and ideas will start rolling around in my head so I jot them down as a heading with a note of two so I don’t forget them.
As I was considering what to write for this post I was looking through these thought seeds and nothing was lighting the creative match. Then I realised I really wanted to write about “the struggle”.
What is “The Struggle”? For me it is that awkward place where you feel like you’ve hit your “out of my comfort” threshold. Maybe the way forward isn’t clear and I’m not sure what needs to happen next. Maybe I might be having doubts about even finishing what I’m working on.
Today I was dealing with “The Struggle”. I was working on a mix and it was good but I knew it needed to be better. I’m checking my references and gleaning ideas to tweak what I had but on the whole I was getting to a place of things feeling a bit overwhelming and not knowing what to do next.
The Struggle is actually a good place. It’s usually where you’re going to learn something new if you persist.
In the book “Peak” Anders Ericsson (The originator of the 10,000 hours meme which is often misunderstood) talks about deliberate practice. Deliberate practice involves being fully engaged with your activity. It’s outside of our comfort zone. You’re pushing yourself to break through into something more than where you are.
The Struggle is very similar to deliberate practice. You’re pushing to break through that ceiling. That’s a good thing.
The Takeaway: So how do I approach “The Struggle” in mixing? Here are some things I try:
- All faders down: pull everything out and start to build the balance of the mix up again.
- Small moves: listen for problem issues and make small volume moves to see if it fixed it.
- Walk away: I’ll step away and come back
- Get out of the studio: I’ll bounce a mix and listen to it outside the context of the studio. I’m not so much checking the mix like I would when finalising but removing the studio setting to help highlight what I’m not hearing because I’m deep in the process of mixing.
There are other things you can try but these are some of my go to approaches. You can of course apply this concept to other creative efforts too.
What’s left to do? Face “The Struggle” and break through into new levels of creativity, perspective and understanding of your craft.
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