In my time as a music producer, there is one skill that surpasses all others in terms of its use to accelerate your development as a musician. If you’re an experienced music producer, you may do it already – however, if you’re just getting started, then this, in my opinion, is the most important skill you could acquire as a music producer. It’s called active listening.
We all listen to music, often while doing work, sitting on the train or cooking food. However, this music often simply provides a background noise to the activity we’re doing. I would call this passive listening.
Active listening, on the other hand, is a different beast. To actively listen is to listen to music and hear nothing but the music, concentrating on nothing but the music you’re listening to, dissecting and reverse-engineering every layer of the music you’re hearing in order to unlock its secrets.
It’s a skill that, once practiced, will stay with you forever as a producer. It also goes hand-in-hand with your journey of development as a music producer, in that as you gain experience in music production techniques, you will better spot the techniques that other producers have used.
It is also a skill that becomes easier with practice – it might feel difficult the first time you do it, but with enough attempts you will find yourself applying elements of active listening every time you hear music.
Active listening is an essential skill for any music producer. I’m sure you’ve heard basslines in music that you’d define as “deep”, “heavy” or “dirty” – active listening will enable you to precisely identify the attributes of these and recreate them in the studio.
This article will conclude with an exercise – an active listening exercise! Even if you’re used to actively listening, you should undertake this exercise, as it’s always good to refresh your skills in this area.
Exercises – Practice
- Find a song you want to actively listen to. This could be your favourite song, or one you admire for its sound.
- Sit comfortably, wearing good-quality headphones or using studio monitors.
- Eliminate all distractions around you. Turn off your computer monitor, turn your phone over – turn your lights off and close your eyes if possible.
- Find the best-quality sound source you can – be it vinyl, CD or FLAC/WAV file.
- Play the song. Instead of enjoying it for what it is, listen to it as a set of different layers. Break them down – listen to each instrument at a time. Are you aware of all the instrument layers in the track? You may discover layers you were previously unaware were of in the track!
- Play the song again. Does the song change its narrative tone at any point? If so, how is this accomplished?
- What texture does the song have? Does the texture change at any point in the track?
This article is an excerpt from How To Program Any Synthesizer by Ashley Hewitt – available from Amazon UK here and US here.
Stereo Output 