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Hi, I am posting as I am hoping to one day write for movies, tv or games and would like some feedback to let me know if I'm getting anywhere. Pls be brutal enough so I learn, but not so much that I get discourged:) Thanks!! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YYT7RTc4mJk

Your teacher sounds amazing! Names of the scale degrees. I prefer to just say numbers like a normal human being. I'll often use the term Tonic and Dominant as you tend to hear them a lot more, but between that its just second degree, third degree etc. I call the 7th degree the Leading Tone because it has so much pull towards the Tonic. You don't really land on a 7th unless you want to go to the 1st afterwards, so the name makes a lot of sense. I never actively learned this, i just stumbled upon it one day, probably when i was supposed to be doing something more important. This community and their work is the reason I changed my my career prospects.

You're right, thanks for pointing that out. After just a few years of piano lessons I found out I could do a lot more than I would have ever dreamed of. So who knows what I'll be able to do with more time, practice and patience. Too much on the analytical can be not so helpful, yes. I definitely need to go against the very fiber of my being when my teacher tells me to "stop thinking and feel the music". It is much more rewarding when I play a piece imperfectly but with feeling in it, than when I play it perfectly with no feeling in it. The analytical emphasis comes from my desire to discover patterns and laws/rules that always apply (which gives a level of security), but I recently found out that the theoretical principles don't always have to apply. That's cool! I can imagine how you must have felt when you found that out. I only recently learned of those Greek sounding names for... what, scales?, and the way teachers present it online is just utterly useless for me (so I decided not to bother with it yet). You're right, knowing the jargon doesn't help if you can't apply it. I don't want to give the impression that I'm just looking for the theory as information. I am interested in the application obviously. Other people have said the same thing, so maybe you're on to something there. OCRemix has definitely been an amazing source of inspiration with so many different styles and genres being applied to the same source material. I also like to take my old favorite tracks and then try to reproduce them on the piano or in Musescore with just simple instruments. That way you can learn a lot of cool things and you practice your ear while at it. I'm glad it was beneficial to the both of us :)

I won't pretend to have any valuable experience to offer in your situation, but if i was to advise something, it would be not to establish your self limitations too early. It takes a while for ANYBODY to naturally start asking those questions. Just being able to isolate and analyse a single sound out of an ensemble with only your ear is a skill in itself. I'm a few years in and it's only now that i'm really thinking about music, because frankly if i had been too analytical too early then the passion would have worn out (in fact it did for a while). Years ago, I bought a theory book and began writing out fake lessons (they were planned for YouTube, because obviously YouTube needs MORE videos explaining what a major chord is haha), and i was abosrbing all this new information while doing so. I ended up with about 12 pages before stopping and i felt like i hadn't even scratched the surface. What did i retain from doing that? Mainly the formulae to build scales and chords because that was the one thing that was ALWAYS useful, but that's about it. I consistently have to remind myself how modes work, despite using them all the time, and who actually gives a fuck what a subdominant and submediant are. I can hear when notes work together and when they don't. On paper, i was getting it, but the time spent writing this stuff out was time not spent on just working towards what i was hearing in my head, which was much easier to realise by simply placing my hands on a piano or guitar. I would feel forced to apply something just for the sake of memory retention and frankly was uninspired by the whole thing, and i wouldn't even feel like i was learning how to utilise it properly. Theory rarely ever tells you how to actually apply all this jargon you're learning unless you have a good teacher right there with you, and the application is the most important part! However when i just sat down and played something that resonated with me, i would WANT to find out the theory. For example, i discovered that i naturally, in almost ever scenario, gravitate towards the Mixolydian mode when playing. It would always come through in my music, and from this i began to notice how much of the old video game music i used to listen to as a kid was also Mixolydian. Just making that personal connection was a thousand times for satisfying than learning the Circle of Fifths. Nowadays i definitely spend more time (not a lot though) reading about the "why" more than the "how". Sometimes i'll find something helpful, sometimes i won't. But asking "why" allows me to pursue the "right theory", which severly narrows the learning required, and you can gradually allow the not-so-important stuff to come together naturally over time. Patience is important in this, and i notice you mentioned impatience in a previous post. We're definitely not so different as people. Overthinking is creativity-cancer and i've been a long time victim myself. Overall when it comes to learning music, I believe that listening to what you like and imitating is the most important thing and i stand by that. That way when you're brainstorming your own ideas, you'll be applying more complex theory that they used without even realising it, and you don't have to worry about the analytics of it all until you're ready to. And you will never be completely imitating other peoples work because something will always happen mid way through the process that sets you apart, usually some form of happy accident. The key is to turn it into a happy not-accident As for your comment about motivation dwindling when it comes to the "tiny strokes", i don't know a single person who doesn't go through this. I don't believe it's possible to love a project from start to finish. Just because you care about something immensely doesn't mean you love it, or love sitting in front of it for hours every day. The two main points i've found to be consistently stressful are the halfway mark and the final stretch. The halfway mark is where you will most likely be lost for where to go next and also start obsessively fiddling with the material you already have. The final stretch is due to the fact a project is NEVER FINISHED. Perfection is impossible and even if you feel amazing satisfaction on the day you call a project finished, you'll listen to it a week later and want to change things. For example, i just submitted an OCR that i was immensely happy with. Listened to it a week later and wondered how the hell i didn't realise the rhythm guitars were too loud. Now i'm hoping they ask for me to resubmit it so i can fix it. It's natural and everybody goes through it, and i still struggle with it as much as i did when i started, maybe even more so now that i have a lot more knowledge rattling around in my head. My goal to eventually overcome this is again, consistency. Repetition breeds confidence, of which i have very little, but i do believe gaining confidence over time will make the process less stressful and the quesitons in my head easier to answer. EDIT: Btw i appreciate you creating this thread, as it's not only helped you but given me a good outlet to really sift through my thoughts and read back to myself just how i feel about these things. I've never said this stuff "out loud" to myself or really pinpointed my feelings this way. It's quite therapeutic.

My experience so far has been somewhat similar to yours. I just started playing around on the piano, gradually "discovering" more things like chords, 8th notes and what have you. And then after having made the so many-th song using just whole note chords I figured its time to move on to something more interesting. I did simultaneously dive into music theory using the website with the same name. I understand perfectly what you're saying and I think the "just do it" approach does work well enough most of the time. I do personally benefit from a bit of theoretical approach because I had zero knowledge when I started. I need those basic building blocks or I'll stay paralyzed. Usually I'll take whatever I learned and work that into a new piece. Things that are yet too difficult I just drop and forget for the moment. I mainly learn by literally seeing how something is done (I'm more of a visual learner I think) even if something simple like seeing my piano teacher do the circle of fifths. That's why I found one OCR member's video on EQ-ing profoundly helpful. I can see what he's doing and hear the result of what he's doing at the same time. I need that connection between the theory and the practice or it won't stick, and if I do, it will stick amazingly well. Your comments on those questions that arise in your brain when you're listening to music ("Why does this and that sound do this or that to me?") are very helpful. You may think "Well, doesn't everyone have that?", but ever since I got my diagnosis (Asperger's) I learned that I don't do a lot of things that other people do naturally. Consciously asking myself such questions is one of those things. But once I am aware of such principles, I can start applying them anyway, so thanks for bringing it to my attention :). In general, I do have a good feel for where I want my musical piece to go, but the difficulty finishing has more to do with stamina, discipline and dedication than with creativity per say. To draw a parallel with painting: it is easy to come up with an idea for a picture, drawing up the lines and putting down the broad strokes. But when it comes down to the details and those tiny strokes, that's where I tend to break down. That's when the motivation starts dropping and the discouragement kicks in. Like you, I do keep a list of things I learned. And I do experience that joy when I realize my next mix is better than the first was. I need those encouragements or I'll feel like I'm not getting anywhere. My piano teacher would agree with your statement "Don't listen to the voice in the back of your head..." Thanks for your detailed response!

Honestly, this doesn't even really seem all that short to me, and even if it is, there is a lot of impressive work in this mix for only three days. Strong Eastern arrangement with some glitchy synths to add energy and action makes for the kind of ReMix that partially reminds me of some of the later levels in some Prince of Persia games, just with better production if you know what I mean. Great mix, and I gotta echo DJP in that I'd love to see you tackle some Shantae themes with how well you you handled faster energy and Eastern sounds from this one. Nice work!

The more, the better. :D

My life. I'm starting to find that having more of a "leap before you look" approach to things helps. Come up with a project idea and then try to fulfill it to its full potential. You will naturally do all the learning you need along the way because your curiosities will guide you. Theory books do nothing for me unless i need them for a specific purpose. Reading through a few consecutive chapters about chords, scales, modes, cadences, circle of fifths etc just overwhelms me, because i can't possibly apply all that to the next thing i write and still have a natural flow of ideas or any amount of FUN, and without application all those concepts are just abstract, which really doesn't gel with me. However, If i'm halfway through a piece and i'm struggling to make a melody and harmony work, then it can be helpful to maybe ask myself what my notes are really doing and what my options are, and the experience is far more beneficial because i can apply my learning right there and then. To begin with, you can't easily come up with a direction for a piece unless you listen to the music that fascinates you and pay attention to the composition, arrangement, sound design and production in said music. That will raise questions in your head. "Why does that lead sound soar so well?", "Why does that melody over that chord change give me butterflies?", "How is that kick drum so punchy?". This will start your process, even if it's simply Youtubing "How to make dank kicks yo?" (Disclaimer: I can't make dank kicks). Doing this will eventually open up a rabbit hole of resources and learning; the tricky bit is trying not to fall too far into it otherwise you'll get distracted and the project will get shelved in "that folder". You know the one, with the 50 other projects you never finished that makes your stomach sink when you think about it. I think we all have that folder. So make sure you only go as far as you need to in order to fulfill the project. The next project will reinforce and build your learning further as you'll already have that base experience that you'll be applying and can afford to dig a little deeper. Don't right off the bat think "Fuck! I need to know sidechain compression! I'll never be able to do a proper music without it! All those popular people like Skrawlex and Ziggy Dog Dog use it!". Yes it's useful, but not using it doesn't make your mix unlistenable, and not every genre requires it. Unless you're trying to make a dance music-esque "pump" then the mix benefits of sidechaining are subtle and only necessary on something that repeats a lot e.g kick and bass as it's really just automatic amplitude automation. Don't think i'm understating the benefits of sidechaining though, it does make a noticeable difference that's worth it when you get a better ear for mixing. But before worrying about "mix tricks" like that, i'd say it's more important to understand general mixing practice and balancing of levels, then enhance that understanding with sidechaining. This will make you more assertive and justified in your choice of using sidechaining, rather than just doing it because other people do and you think it's helping (I'm saying all this because you mentioned sidechaning in your post above). By the end of a project you probably won't remember everything you've learned, but something i do is to just have a small notepad on my desk for "Session Notes", stick the date at the top and any time you learn something or discover something that could be important, just jot it down quickly. For example, i learned when doing my last remix that the tom drums in my plugin needed to have their release times turned down to almost zilch because they were overlapping and creating a lot of mud and resonance. I wouldn't have been able to pinpoint the toms as the "bad mix culprit" without painstakingly soloing EVERYTHING, but now i don't have to do that again and i'll have a note on how to set up my drums next time. I still don't have notes on how to make a perfect snare drum, but i have some notes here and there. Over time i'll have more and i'll start to realise what it is i actually like in a snare sound, and then crafting what i like in the future will become second nature. By the end you'll have a pile of these notes and you can flick through them to remind yourself of small things. Eventually you'll have so many you'll want to consolidate them, and by this point you will have been through a fair few projects so it'll be easier to know which notes were valuable to you in the long run. Maybe by this point you'll have experience in mixing an entire drum kit and not just the kick, for example. Why not use your compiled notes to write a mix strategy for drums and pin that shit on your wall? What i'm trying to get at is that it's more important to just "do". The learning comes with the doing. I can vouch for it as i've been doing this for a few years now and this is the first time i'm reading back a post and feeling like an actual human who kinda knows what he's talking about. Sitting, paralysed with anxiety over what i should be learning didn't get me anywhere. I'm assuming from your OP that you know a fair bit of piano. Well when i started i was just putting my fingers in random places, but it was enough to get SOMETHING down (I also cared a lot less back then). Over time i'd just hit a wall and start to ask myself "Right, how the hell do i make Major and minor chords, because this shit just ain't working for me anymore", and that was my learning motivation. When Major and minor chords weren't doing it for me anymore i started adding some 7ths etc. Simple example, but you see what i mean. The "doing" part is daunting, but not necessarily difficult. The hardest part for me personally is coming up with a defined style in the first place, which is where listening to already existing elements of your favourite tracks comes in handy. The best starting point for anyone in my opinion is to take elements you like from the genres you like and try to mash them together and see what happens. That's your ruleset established and your necessary learning narrowed down and from there you can refine your style. That's how i made my frankenstein of a debut track on OCR. I mean, I'd love to learn how to write beautifully composed scores on a piece of manuscript and conduct a symphony orchestra, but that'll only come after i learn how to make a song out of mic feedback and guitars processed through 12 synthesizers while i play with my feet! This is how you make a Doom 2016 soundtrack and change the game, guys! Mastery comes with repetition. Don't listen to the voice in the back of your head telling you you're doing it wrong, or you should be learning this or that. You can't do it wrong, and i believe it's an impossibility to somehow lose progress and get worse over time. Just keep doing shit. As @Rozovian said to me when i made a similar post some time ago... "Keep making pancakes."

Thanks Silverpool!! You're getting better too! Er which sound at 1:57? The brass? There's a lot of sounds there hahaha. Hey my reaction-button works now!? Wonder how long that'll last haha. Umm. My primary go-to is Damage Drums https://www.native-instruments.com/en/products/komplete/cinematic/damage/ It's a Kontakt (Native Instruments or a partnership with NI). Gonna go off-tangent a bit and say that while back that @Neblix told me that it's more worthwhile to purchase Kontakt as a whole product rather than individual VSTs...and I think he is right, because for (x amount of $$$) ~ you can get A TON of products rather than individual products that are can be upwards of $200. So you're saving mad bucks that way. I didn't listen to him though...so I probably spent twice that much in the long run by picking up single VSTi products from NI lmao. Here's the pricing for KOMPLETE https://www.native-instruments.com/en/products/komplete/bundles/komplete-11/compare/ Hey I'm glad you think so Dex!! Umm...I learned from ***someone down the grape vine*** that a lot of my products were already pre-mixed (EQ'd) very well and using FL's Parametric EQ stuff actually hurt my mix more than help it - so I decided to only mix really shitty samples (usually Soundfonts and crappier VSTs). Funny how less work can sometimes amount to better sound. For 13,000 Struggles I used Kontakt/NI, IK Multimedia's Philharmonic and Aria Player (Garritan). The latter 2 aren't really studio quality, but they seem to work OK. EDIT) Oh sh*t! I also used Hybrid for the risers and a couple of synths. Pardon the mass of edits.