WWMBD: What would Michael Brauer do?

[The_Metallurgist]

One other point to the poster above, the idea that "talent... the gift at birth.... genetic inheritance" determines success in any field is a total myth. It has (almost) no bearing at all on any kind of learning outcome versus persistence, effort and practice. If that sounds completely implausible, which it does to many people who aren't aware of educational psychology, I encourage you to read Carol Dweck's book Mindset: How you can fulfil your potential. Speaking of which, I should probably get back to the essay I'm meant to be writing about her work at the moment

academic debate can offer supporting arguments from both camps and i'd caution about taking one persons view...mine included. personal psychology is an area i've had a lot to do with, both academically (i hold a degree in Business and Finance, and a Post Grad in Management and i'm also a corporate member of the Chartered Quality Institute and have been for some 26 years) and professionally in Business where my roots were manufacturing, on both finance and technical levels.

i had an interesting exposure in mentoring a teenager who's out and out passion was, and still is music, from performing in his own band(s), composing, arranging, to recording. i mentored him for about 6 years and did so pretty extensively. he also went on a formal training course (SAE) and still failed miserably at grasping concepts and applying them at the mixing level. however, he found his strengths lay in working with artists (names you will have come across) in the studio, and setting up the gear. his determination was exemplary, being the first to rock up on site as an engineer for a gig, and the last to leave it. and trust me, he was taken advantage of by vultures but he took it like a man for the sake of gaining experience. he's now assistant engineer in one of the top studios in his place of residence, but he still can't mix to save his butt (academic question here: who defines when someone can mix....how, or who makes that judgement call? what is the criteria that helps define a competent mixer?). will he ever be competent? time will tell....but he's had 10 years so far.

there are many, many, many books on motivation. why is this so? because EVERYONE has a basic need to succeed (whatever success is at the end of the day - and that's subjective) so there's no shortage of buyers with aspirations. so, if you want to make money, write a book on motivation and market it well through a good publisher. i'd suggest the principle behind this forum is based on Mike's needs to help market his books and indeed his services to musicians.......even though i have a problem fundamentally, with a place where the blind are all to often leading the blind. a novice cannot teach another novice....only so far as their own knowledge and experiences go...but is that knowledge correct and was the experience applicable and appropriate? i am a firm believer in the "Continual Improvement" ethos whether it's a commercial enterprise, a charity or a sole trader, or someone with a passion in a hobby. it may take one individual a lifetime in striving to achieve a satisfactory level of competence (as they themselves define it), where as another will get to the same performance marker in only a couple of years, say. and it's got nothing to do with the stuff in Dweck's et al pages, but i would agree that having motivation is a key ingredient to POTENTIALLY moving forwards.....even if it's at a snail's pace. but i'd suggest that someone would give up, if their pace of learning outstripped the benefit gained in the struggle. businesses fail, governments fail, students fail, and i can assure you, it's not because of lack of motivation and mind-set. sidestepping slightly, may i point you towards the Economist's approach to inputs, namely that of "OPPORTUNITY COST". i recommend you research it. It's a tangential leap in direction, but i think you and other readers of the post will make the connection.

i'd assume that the essay demands that you look at both the legitimacy of the author's approach, as well as the contra?

we are all individuals. the human psyche is way bigger than Dweck's pretty narrow delivery, and you'd be advised to look at the big picture. but with time, i'm sure you will, of that i have no doubt....it's a complicated field and one that is still the subject of significant research and discovery, as Floyd himself would likely concur.

to close, mind-set hasn't got a darn thing to do with sitting a room that has a dreadful frequency response (the smaller the room, the bigger the acoustic catastrophe), nor has it anything to do with one's choice of listening device employed within that environment, i'd suggest. one can have the mind-set to mix, but lack the intelligence (what is intelligence?) to comprehend the issues that are getting in the way of "hearing" the mix and the effects of parameter changes in the DAW. most people in the forum, i'd bet, don't have a clue how much they are actually listening to their room rather than the mix. and when they affect parameter changes like a compressor's attack and release time, they are simply hearing the consequences it's having on the room and less so their actual mix. headphones offer different challenges also.....i hasten to add. the plight facing many youths and young adults is the sheer time it takes to learn all this stuff before we can actually engage in mixing per se. i'd ask a fundamental question: could the musician's time be better and more profitably spent pursuing the alternatives of "opportunity cost" factors rather than trying to avoid shelling out for someone else to do their mixing for them? indeed, i don't know ANY musician, for example, who's capable of being IMPARTIAL when it comes to making mixing decisions on their own recordings. that's another discussion, hey.

as an audiophile of 4 decades, i can testify that most people, and i include musicians, haven't had the benefits of listening critically to "Quality" audio over "Quality" equipment to help develop their Terms of Reference and have therefore missed the development opportunities of both the academic understanding of the concepts of acoustics and indeed the technical aspects of the hardware. who in the forum knows about the limitations of speaker technology and how this impinges on the process of critical listening, for example? perhaps one should be embracing the concepts surrounding how our Terms of Reference helps, or even hinders, such as when people spend their time listening to mp3's and making this establish their Terms of Reference, say. if one's mind-set is based/shaped on being brought up listening to mp3 and it's artifacts along with distorted audio that most encodings suffer with, AND while being presented over equipment that is equally quality compromised, then consider how this impinges on one's assessment of not only our own mixes and outputs, but those of others....furthermore, bring in the dynamics of poor room acoustics and it doesn't take much to conclude why many mixes are a problem even before they are loaded into the user's DAW. but the user can still be highly motivated and have a determined mind-set along with all the passion in the world.

QED?

i do sincerely wish you all the best with pursuing your ambitions and progressing your studies and indeed swapping relevant discussion in the forum. looking forward to catching you later.

apologies to Pauli for the [relative] off-topic nature of this post.