MetaMindMusic

The most useful tool that you have in your arsenal for mixing is the all-mighty equalizer (EQ).

It’s also super fun to call it a spectrum processor and imagine your navigating a harmonicraft.

What Is it?

A good analogy for EQ is modeling a sculpture. You can add or subtract material to adjust the overall shape and perception of the piece. Apply this to mixing, and your sculpting sound!

EQ allows you to adjust the various frequencies of a sound, imagine a bunch of mini faders spread across the whole frequency spectrum. You can alter the frequencies in two ways by boosting or cutting.

The goal is to make enough room for all your sounds, remove unnecessary information, and accentuate their shining qualities. You can also use it as a fun, creative tool.

Filter sweeps for dayz.

Whether they are in plug-in (software) or outboard (hardware) form, the principles of EQ are universal. You’ll see these on guitar amps, home studio systems, and even your phone’s audio...

As music producers, we often face internal resistance. We face self-doubt and have to listen to the dreaded imposter syndrome.

Who invited him anyway?

This type of hesitation is something we will constantly face as creatives, we have to develop the skills and work ethic to overcome these types of problems.

+1 Creative Confidence!

I don’t know about you, but I’m somewhat of a gamer myself. I know Super Mario World like the back of my hand, and can definitely destroy you in Smash Bros.

Hadoken!

Gotta say it… I’m kind of a nerd. Though, I think I’ve struck a healthy balance.

I’d like to explore the mental framework of the “gamer” attitude and how it can level up your creative confidence within music production.

Researcher and game designer Jane McGonigal coined the term “Urgent Optimism”. Described as: extreme self-motivation, the desire to act immediately to tackle an obstacle. Coupled with the belief that we have reasonable...

What if I told you that achieving greater creative freedom, developing your authentic voice and finishing more projects, are all directly linked to your flow state?

You know you’ve experienced it. It could be described as an ecstatic bliss; the liquid moment when you are actively engaged in creative acts.

When you “lose yourself” in the moment.

Flow state is what drives the creative process of music’s most gifted artists. A sort of transcendental experience that gives rise to raw inspired creation.

Your authenticity will show itself when you allow yourself to create from that place of zen.

The question is, how can you tap into your flow state on the regular?

The Flow, Defined

Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi is a major contributor to positive psychology. His research spawned many discoveries that contributed greatly to creativity and mindset. Cool dude.

Being a psychologist, and author of “Flow: The psychology of optimal experience” he founded the...

Guitar is my instrument of choice, my baby, the bread and butter of my music expression. I can play drums, as in hold down a beat, but I am by no means a drummer. I’ve always loved exploring rhythm, and annoyingly air drumming on tables.

The problem is I still wanted to create finished projects. Since I can’t always outsource to a real drummer, I learned the nitty-gritty tedious work of programming realistic drums.

How are your rhythmic chops?

Over the years I’ve come to understand the concepts surrounding rhythm thoroughly. The experience of playing around with MIDI and different groove ideas lead to an expanded arsenal of beat making. That knowledge has leveled up my rhythmic chops and my overall production skills.

If your like me and don’t play drums, or you produce music where the drums are programmed. Or, even if you a drummer but are feeling more “programmy” then hit “stuff-y”. These tips will level up both your rhythmic...

What’s needed in today’s music world to achieve a successful career?

MINDSET.

More specifically, a creative mindset of success.

A headspace that supports your creative talents and guides you towards building the career of your dreams.

What is “mindset” though?

Your mindset can be defined as your general attitude and how you shape your perceptions of the world (and yourself) based on your experiences. It is the single most powerful tool in your arsenal to support and serve you throughout the entirety of your life. DEEP

Your attitude and thought patterns are the mental architecture that will support all of your future efforts, opportunities and artistic creations.

Did I build it up enough? Lol

Ze Musicpreneur, Hon Hon

To be successful as a musicpreneur, you need the right mindset. Thankfully your mindset is something that you can control, you just have to learn to utilize it properly.

Success in the music world today has greatly changed from a linear to a...

Decision anxiety, talk about a first-world problem…

Have you ever been sifting through the massive Netflix catalog to then realize you’ve been browsing for half an hour? This is a great example of what happens with too many choices.

It stifles your decision-making abilities, and thus your creativity.

While this applies to practically every creative pursuit, it is especially true when it comes to the modern 21st-century music-making DAW.

We’re bombarded with possibilities: plugins, effects, routing possibilities, instruments, microphones, arrangements, chord progressions, samples, melodies, etc. The choices are endless.

You must find a way to render the vastness of infinity into your creative work. You have to constrain, clarify and calibrate your options to stimulate your creativity.

Analysis Paralysis

The myth we seem to have bought into is that if choice is good, more choice is better.

However, in his book “The Paradox Of Choice” Barry Schwartz says...

Have you ever listened to something so attentively that you start hearing layers that you never heard before, or perhaps that aren’t even there in the first place?

Thank goodness hearing music in your head is a lot more socially acceptable than hearing voices!

When you synchronize your mind with the musical pallet you’re working with, it sparks ideas. It enhances your sensitivity to the dynamics. It gives you a new perspective. It magnifies details. Which leads us to the question…

Can mindfulness enhance musical creativity?

What is Mindfulness?

Have you ever been the passenger in a vehicle and couldn’t remember a single thing about the directions you took to get to your destination? Or forgot someone's name within 5 seconds of learning it? Or read a paragraph without remembering anything you just read? (Hopefully not this one).

That would be the opposite of what we call “mindful”.

As humans, many of us aren’t actually “present”...

In our current information age, we have never before seen access to create and listen to music. As a music artist, how do you stand out? How do we remain memorable? How do you pierce through the veil of information fog that surrounds us?

Authenticity.

You want to be original? You want to be different? Unique? There’s one surefire way, my friend…

Be yourself, exceptionally.

Then, all you need is the confidence to consistently share YOUR own experiences!

Know Thyself

Partially pioneered by rock, punk, and metal in popular music culture, authenticity could be described as “@#$% you, I’m gonna do what I want” or“being yourself”. Familiar themes are challenging the status quo and ignoring the mainstream mass appeal.

What’s ironic is, that’s what’s appealing!

I can sense your left brain urging to comment “Alex, being authentic is a completely subjective concept. There’s no way to objectively measure or gauge it, how...

The creative mind has always been an enigma. Abstract, right-brain thinkers and artists usually are the first to come to mind when the subject of creativity arises. From fanciful euphoria to self-perpetuating depression, creatives explore themselves through their expression.

The truth is that everyone has the ability to be creative. Yes even YOU!

If you think about the formation of celestial bodies or the process of making wine, the act of creation in itself aims to break the mold, explore different states, to destroy and combine things to produce new results.

In other words, ALL creation is a form of transformation.

I’d like to show you how unlocking your own musical creativity, through the lens of the ancient practice of alchemy, can spark new perceptions and reveal the hidden genius inside you!

Artistic alchemy is truly the leader in self-transformation.

A paradigm for creative, personal and spiritual development.

“Art is not a thing, it is a way”—...