Just like sport commentators, many music critics are sometimes previous musicians themselves or just overly obsessed music fans. We are always searching for new ways to better analyze and properly breakdown the wonderful music we share with you, so here we sent one of our writers back to school.
Ever listen to a song by your favorite artist and think “Damn, I wish I knew how to make music like this” If you’re serious about this question, there are a few ways you could go about it. You could:
- search the internet for YouTube tutorials and/or other free resources
- find an experienced producer to personally tutor you
- enroll in a school that teaches music production
If you’ve done any research on schools that offer a formal education in electronic music production you've almost certainly heard of the name Point Blank. The London based institution is an award winning electronic music school which has been voted ‘world's 'Best Music Production & DJ School' by the readers of DJ Mag for six years running. They teach the creative process of making music at the highest level and have sit in classes in London and Los Angeles as well as online courses. Point Blank offers everything from ‘Intro to Music Production’ to a ‘BA in Music Production and Sound Engineering’ and even courses in DJing and music business. Whether you’re a beginner with little to no knowledge of music production or a an experienced producer with tracks already signed to labels, Point Blank something to offer you.
Being someone who has thought to them self the aforementioned statement, I was pretty excited when I was told that Point Blank was interested in having an EARMILK representative take an eight or sixteen week course of their choice. So, for the next sixteen weeks I will be chronicling my experience taking ‘Complete Electronic Music Composition’ through Point Blank's online program. I will be sharing various topics that are covered and resources that are given to students, demonstrating skills that can be learned and discussing my general thoughts on the structure of these courses and the overall experience.
For starters, here's why I chose to participate. I became interested in electronic music in 2008 when I discovered artists such as Deadmau5, Daft Punk and Swedish House Mafia. In 2009 I bought my first DJ controller and began digging for new music and teaching myself how to mix. After attending Electric Daisy Carnival’s last year in Los Angeles in 2010 I thought to myself “Damn, I wish I knew how to make music like this.” Still in school, I didn’t have much time to be working on music but after graduating from Cal Poly San Luis Obispo in 2012 I obtained a copy of Ableton Live and began producing under the name Nasty Nate (lol at myself for that name). You can listen to the first track I ever made HERE if it interests you. After producing for a few years as Nasty Nate I decided to create a duo with a close friend in which we called ourselves High Rizers. Below is my personal favorite song we ever made, “Vendetta,” so you can get an idea of where my production level was at prior to taking this course. Let's see where we can go from here.
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After a while my production partner and I decided to part ways where he went on to start a new project and I got into the business side of things. I’ve helped long time friends and quickly rising future bass duo TastyTreat with MGMT and tour MGMT and now work with up and coming trap duo Tuslo as well as G-Rex in addition to my brand new position here at EARMILK as a writer.
Be sure to follow my weekly posts as I dive back into the production side of things courtesy of Point Blank and if this sounds intriguing to you, check out what they have to offer on their website below.
