Wine, music, and alchemy? What is this… a french wizard house party?
I promise this article is 95%, not a french wizard party.
Grenouille.
Now that you’ve experienced once of the weirdest introductions ever, let me bluntly tell you what this article is about.
How the process of winemaking and music production are the SAME.
Check it.
Gaufre Coeur
Heart waffles, if you don’t speak french.
When I was growing up I often had sleepovers at my grandmas aka “Ma Mamie” (yes, I’m a Frenchie). Fun fact: a sleepover in french is called “une pyjamade”
It’s almost like Pyjama-Lemonade. HA
We had such a special bond, I loved her with all of my being. *heart emoji*
We engaged in all sorts of activities together. We tended her beautiful garden, played hide and seek, finished puzzles and ate heart-shaped waffles. The best.
Now you understand the reference!
Throughout those multiple experiences at her house, I couldn’t help but notice she had a spare room that almost looked like a laboratory. It had all shapes and sizes of odd-looking bottles, multiple racks, and all these strange-looking liquids.
It wasn’t until I was a little older that I realized she made wine as a hobby.
Though, it seemed to be more than just a hobby for her. Although she wasn’t a professional, there was a certain “je ne sais quoi” to her process.
There was an art and creative process to her winemaking.
My grandma didn’t go as far as to pick her own grapes (most of Canada is in winter-mode for about half the year).
The winemaking process may appear to be straight forward: pick the grapes, mash them together, filter the pulp, separate the juice, combine them with other ingredients, ferment, age and finally bottle.
However, there’s actually a plethora of decisions that need to be made at each step that will determine the final outcome of the wine.
It’s those subtle decisions at key parts of the process where art and creativity truly express themselves. This is where music production parallels winemaking.
There are also some broader type questions that have to be answered before starting to pick which grapes will be used. These will largely be based on the type and quality of wine being produced.
There must be a vision, an end goal, and an intention.
Winemaking connoisseurs have a very delicate and intentional decision-making process.
I would argue that all high-level music producers and musicians have also developed a creative process of their own.
A creative process is where every step directly affects the outcome of the next one. Where every step allows imagination and creativity to blossom within a specific, defined scope.
This type of approach allows your creative brain and logical brain to work in harmony. As your creation transforms, as does your process, and as do YOU.
Alchemy at it’s finest.
Ze Creative Process, Oui Oui
In order to become an alchemical artist, professional producer or masterful musician you MUST develop a creative workflow.
Alchemy knows a thing or two about creation and transformation. All creative endeavors can find themselves within these 7 steps!
In other words, you need to understand every step behind your music production and develop a personalized creative way to complete each step.
If we look at music production through the lens of making wine, we can easily identify the crucial phases.
- Pick Your Grapes
This is where you clarify your vision and intention for a song. What are you trying to express and how do you want to share it with the listener?
What type of music do you plan on making? What genre? What style? What instruments will be used?
Clarifying your intent will allow you to select your instruments and design your sounds to best embody the vision you’ve established.
This also consequently sets certain limitations for you to work within. Although it may seem counter-intuitive, many studies have shown that our creativity is actually enhanced with fewer options to choose from.
2. Mash Your Grapes
Once you have your musical grapes selected from step 1 you can now proceed to mash them all together!
What does this mean musically?
It means it’s time to flow. This is the step where you free flow and improvise any and all musical ideas with the pallet you’ve previously created.
The goal here is to completely engage your creative right brain. You have to let go of your analytical thinking and allow yourself to channel your subconscious genius. In this phase, there are no such things as mistakes.
PRO TIP: This phase can be ultra-creative by setting up adjustable parameters for instruments, or adding effects to enhance your expressive abilities during your jam session.
No judgment, no fixing, and no menu scrolling!
3. Extract Your Juice
Now it’s time to extract the gold from the plethora of creative madness you’ve created. Switch over to your analytical left brain and start giving your ideas judgment in the form of musical death sentences.
The goal in this step to keep all of your best ideas and eliminate all the musical pulp.
AKA: Scrap the stuff that sucks.
Be honest…
By allowing yourself to do this process in a separate step, your improv sessions will explore a deeper depth of creativity (from the lack of analytical judgment) and generate ideas you would have never thought up.
The biggest benefit is that you’ll have tons of material to work with, as opposed to staring into the soul-sucking void of an empty DAW session.
4. Combine Your Ingredients
This is where the magic happens. Well actually, magic happens in every step…
TAKE 2
This is where your separated and fragmented ideas start to compose themselves into the form of a song.
In this step, you begin to arrange all of your musical ingredients into a full course dinner. With an entree (beginning), main course (middle) and dessert (end).
In other words, all of your motifs, riffs and melodies must now be bound to a structured timeline. This step might flow seamlessly, or it may take some sonic massaging and some extra transitions to smooth out the final arrangement.
Be sure to make your musical meal deliver an experience that expresses your original intention!
5. Ferment Your Wine
You guessed it, this step is all about editing your song into it’s finalized form.
Does everything flow well? Do you need to remove parts? Add transitions? Change notes? This is about removing imperfection, timing issues or questionable harmony.
Then you can start to get creative with the art of editing itself; enhancing the music with detail and depth that would have been otherwise difficult to achieve.
Before you know it, you’ll have crafted a completed song!
6. Purify Your WIne
This is the phase where you continue to purify and age your wine to create a bouquet of balanced flavors. The secret family recipe.
Within music, this is when you mix your song to enhance its clarity and maximize its impact.
Mixing is a careful and subtle refinement process to bring about balance and maximize the sonic impact of the song.
This phase is a technical and methodological process, smoothing out the edges and eliminating any unnecessary information.
The goal is to dial in your mix to find a balance of tones, textures, and dynamics to satisfy your artistic ear. This is the final stage of creative input.
This expands on the last phase and brings the song to its final form.
7. Bottle Your Wine
Bottling your wine and shipping it out to your customers is the equivalent of mastering your music.
This phase is when you make sure your song accurately translates onto different sound systems. Headphones, car speakers, smartphones, studio monitors, etc.
You want to make sure that regardless of where someone may experience your music, the experience is consistent. Just like if you were to purchase a specific type of wine from a reputable brand.
The most difficult part of this final step is that you have to make the crucial decision as to when something is finished.
Nothing will ever be perfect. A piece of art can perpetually continue to be worked on. A finished creation could of always “been better”.
Once you’ve decided that your work has effectively captured the essence of your intention you can then release it, share it with others, and grow from its completion. And the cycle continues.
Wine Making is Alchemy
Alchemy is Music
Music is wine? … okay, maybe not that last one.
Interested in learning more? Click here to download your Mindset Map and discover your next steps in your musical journey.
My name is Alexandre Joyal. I help music creators achieve success with their music by teaching them how to produce themselves and adopt a creative mindset.
