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10 Tracks 10 Weeks Week 6

10 Tracks 10 Weeks Week 6 – Old Joanna

23rd August 2010

What makes a piece of music good?

Is it its ability to touch many people? Or that it stirs strong emotions? That its technically clever? Simple? Does it fulfill a function well (such as making you dance)? Is it original? Shocking? Fashionable? Timeless? Maybe it perfectly sums up the Zeitgeist?

All are valid reasons to decide that a piece of music is good, and depending on who you are, your judgement of its quality will depend on which combination of these are most important when you listen to it. Why we think of a piece of music as good is complicated, and crucially not the same as liking it. I don’t like much music that I know is objectively “good”.

The reason I’m talking like this is that I’ve been asking myself this question constantly this week. I wanted to do something more carefree than the last couple of tunes, and had this piano idea saved in my sketchbook since late 2008 which I thought would make a good starting point.

I spent four days adding to it, changing it, trying to make it more clever, powerful or original. But every time I altered it, the next morning I realised that my initial idea (that if my memory serves me took me about an hour to put down) was better – or closer to “good”.

You see, there’s a few criteria that have become important to me as a producer. Originality, emotion, and how technically complex or clever (while still sounding effortless and simple) the piece is make me think what I’m doing is objectively “good”.

But Old Joanna doesn’t tick any of these boxes. Its simple almost to the point of being naive and certainly couldn’t be described as cutting edge or original. But ironically that’s what I found appealing about it and throughout this week I confronted this disconnect between what my mind and my ears were telling me.

So – is it any good? I have no idea. But I like it.

You Might Also Enjoy:

  • Introduction – The Plan
  • Week 1 “Hello Hello”
  • Week 2 “Robot Go Disco”
  • Week 3 “Contains Nuts”
  • Week 4 “Crush”
  • How I Finished “Crush”
  • Week 5 “Lullaby”
  • Week 7 “Tiny Talk”
  • Week 8 “Weird Beard”
  • Week 9 “Do Be Do” (I didn’t write much this week!)
  • Week 10 “Moov”
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Claude VonStroke (Dirty Bird, USA)

Mike Monday’s process has helped me enormously. I have two record labels, a heavy touring schedule, a wife and two children, and a music production career all running in tandem. There are times when it seems unmanageable and i get lost in a downward spiral that limits my effectiveness as a leader and my ability to be creative in the studio.

Whenever i have a session with Mike we talk it all out and a sense of calm comes over me. i get back to basics and work out all the things in my head that need to get worked out. His process is both calming and therapeutic.

I would also like to add that the additional fact that Mike is a music producer himself and a veteran DJ lends itself to an extra level of trust. I don’t think i would take advice or listen to someone in the same way who was from outside the music industry. In an nutshell I find Mike Monday’s process to be an extremely valuable way to organize and free my chaotic brain to do what it is supposed to be doing.

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Radical is a good word for it! The most unexpected thing I’ve found about the course is the impact it has had on other areas of my life – I was quite surprised about that…

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Managing to get a average of two hours every day producing. This is a huge turn around for me and am loving it. It hasn’t been easy though but I have kept at it.

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Joe Roberts (London, UK)

“Mike has helped me to start living the truism that it’s not what you use to make music, it’s your ideas.

Those ideas only mean anything when you start putting them down though and that’s what this course has already helped me to start do regularly.

I’ve made more headway in two weeks than I’d managed in a couple of years on my own starting projects, then giving up and starting something new but never seeing them through till completion.”

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