Hey y’all!
I’ve had such a BLAST integrating more philosophical-esque questions into the blog and exploring all things music from a slightly different angle. The topic of this week’s blog is the noble art of music production. As a new producer, I have much to learn about the craft. I’ve been curious about what aspects I may be overlooking or misunderstanding.
On that jolly philosophical note, I chatted with Grammy Award-Winning, NAACP Image Award-Winning Producer and Composer Devine Evans (Camila Cabello, Pharrell Williams, Rihanna- to name a few) to get his take.
The Most Misunderstood Aspect of Music Production
I asked him: “What do you think is the most misunderstood/overlooked aspect of music production?”
He said: “To answer the question of “what is the most misunderstood/overlooked aspect of music production?” I would like to start with a question of my own: “What is music to me?” To that question, my response is simple, “music is the silence between notes” and in that silence, lives the most important element of a song, “human emotion.”
Silence: The 8th Note of a Scale
When the eyes of a child lock with the eyes of their parent’s, and the parent says, “I am proud of you,” followed by a moment of silence, this gives the child the opportunity to submerge in, and absorb the message. It grants them the space to cherish and experience human emotion. If, instead, the parent says to the child, “I am proud of you, what do you want for dinner?” The opportunity for that child to receive, embrace and appreciate the moment, and embody the full potential of human emotion, is lost. In the production of a song, the same holds true. Too many words, too many instruments, too many effects, and too many background vocals, deny the music listener and the music producer the opportunity to experience the very essence of the human emotion.
As a double entendre, “silence” serving as the absence from the world, is a majorly “misunderstood/overlooked” aspect of music production. In the past, recording studios had no windows, they had no clocks. Walking into a session was equivalent to being transported into a world parallel to the pallet of a painter. It was a world completely void of distraction and in the control room, the producer's mind was a blank canvas. The musical portrait he/she would create was free of distraction and absent from influence from the outside world.
Distraction: The Creative Killer
Today, with the emergence of technology and with most of the world being intoxicated by rapidly evolving trends on social media, the creative mind has become drowned out by noise from the outside world. Cell phones now bring the clock and the windows into the studio, replacing isolation with a constant connection to reality that wash away imagination. The introduction of this “noise,” prevents the Producer from reaching their full potential which by default denies the listener from experiencing the most important moment of all “silence, the 8th note of a scale.”
My Takeaways
I thoroughly enjoyed reading Devine’s insightful answer, It really got the wheels in my head turning. Firstly, I absolutely love the child>parent analogy, it drove home the importance and value of silence as a musical tool- a way to create space for the listener to experience emotion. I get carried away every now and then and add WAY TOO MANY elements to my productions, so this really helped me refocus and be conscious of that. “Silence, the 8th note of a scale.” 😉 (but also- who doesn’t love adding a good unnecessary sound every now and then to a production?)
Secondly, DISTRACTION. As a Gen Z gal, I’ll be totally honest—being distracted by technology really hits home for me (not that I ever doom scroll cooking reels or anything like that…). It dawned on me that I’ve never consciously created a full separation between myself and my phone or other technology distractions during sessions/while producing. It’s powerful food for thought—how many great ideas have I missed out on because I picked up my phone to check texts or scroll mindlessly? This realization was an Oprah-level “Aha” moment for me. I absolutely plan on disciplining myself in this area ASAP and creating that separation between myself and doom scrolling cooking reels.
Thank you Devine for your insightful answer!
Catch y’all next week!