Study the music you listen to

If you want to be able to make better music and you want to be able to make music like the music you listen to, you need to study it. Learn how it’s made.

How do they program their synths?

How do they mix their material?

What’s the form of the song?

What types of chords are used and what types of chord progressions are used?

What type of rhythms are being used and what’s the meter?

What type of samples are they using and where do they get their samples?

How are they combining sounds?

Try to figure out as much about the music as you can. Even if it’s just from listening. Try to figure out how the music you like is made. It’ll not just give you a deeper appreciation of the music, but it’ll give you a look into the music-making process. You’ll have a greater understanding of music composition, music production, and the whole entire music creation process.

You might want to learn some tools to help you understand music like solfege or music theory. Then you could learn tools like harmonic analysis and how synths can be programmed. All of those things will help with being able to understand music while listening to it. That’s the goal after all. We don’t just want to be able to understand the written version of the music. We want to be able to hear these things. Start from that perspective.

It takes a long time to learn how to do all of those things, but with practice it’s doable. All the music producers and music makers that you listen to once didn’t know how to make music. They had to learn it. You can learn it too.

ISJ