 Hopefully you've never heard this one before. They'll tell me how to play my instrument, and I won't tell you how to play yours. You know, it's the type of thing some fragile child pretending to be mature enough to handle a collaboration says. If there's one phrase I've heard uttered by countless musicians who make music no one wants to listen to, it's that one. On the contrary, I've been lucky enough to be in the studios with tons of the classic bands who've made amazing records over the years, and I've never heard that come out of any of their mouths. And that's not a coincidence. And even in the most ego-filled music environments, this is not what goes on. Yet every band who makes unlistable music seems to utter that phrase. As much as you want to show off some awesome technique you just learned, it's probably not the time and place. There are countless reasons someone needs to comment on your part. In this video, I'm going to talk about how an open environment is the only way you end up writing great songs. Hi, I'm Jesse Kennan, and this is Muse Formation. Every musician at some point can get lost in not challenging themselves enough, or play a part that's fun for them, but not quite the emotion of the song as a whole. You're not always the most objective judge of what your part is doing within the context of a song. No one is immune to objectivity, so cutting off comment on your performance, you lose the ability to further your music. To write a good song, new ideas need to be welcomed, not shunned. By shutting down everyone's suggestion, you'll never know if you could have come up with a better idea. We need to remember that while music is an emotional expression, none of us are beyond reproach, since we all can lose our objectivity. Since we should judge music emotionally, it's entirely appropriate for someone to make a comment that what you're playing is not emotionally appropriate for the song. To get the best ideas for your songs, you must keep an open mind, and try any idea given by someone who's passionate, dismissing others' ideas by saying they won't work before hearing them, destroys the passion of the person with the idea, as well as making them less prone to share ideas in the future. This behavior creates a closed-off environment and makes the project suffer when they withhold future contributions. Even the worst contributors to a musical project that suck at their instrument usually have at least a 10% success rate of contributing worthwhile ideas that help the greater good of the song. And hell, oftentimes hearing a bad idea often gives you the idea of what should be done with the song. The need to try ideas instead of discussing them further is further evidenced when someone describes a part with words instead of playing it. The idea usually sounds terrible. I've been in the studio countless times where I hear somebody describe the idea, and I think it's the stupidest thing I've ever heard, but that same part often sounds amazing when played within the context of the song. Even when these ideas are bad, they usually inspire better ideas by hearing the possibility of possibility. This openness isn't only there to keep egos happy and passion towards a project, though. Trying out others' ideas is what leads to improvements. An environment where everyone is free to share is one that continually improves its output. Even if you're a solo artist with a dictator-like vision over a project, wending the time to hear others' ideas will often inspire better ideas of your own. Film producer Ron Howard screens his movies to audiences countless times. It's presumed these screenings, though, are used to genetically modify movies into perfectly consumable products that make lots of money, but that's not what he says it is. Instead, he says it's not to let the audience dictate the shape of the film, but to make sure what he's trying to communicate gets across. He has lost his objectivity after working on a film for so long, and since he knows all the details along with everything that's left in the cutting room for To get around his loss of objectivity, he is engineered a way to make sure the intent of a movie is working despite any changes made. In music, we can often get lost in the ideas that our intent isn't being communicated the way we think it is, so it's necessary for collaborators to comment on our work. Howard then talks to people who've watched the movie and makes sure what he's trying to say in the movie gets across, and that's the whole reason he hears comments on them. A truly great musician doesn't cherish their ideas, since they can easily come up with many ideas in a short amount of time that can work in a song. If you go on to success, there will be other times to use the idea you're being asked to abandon, and it may be even better with further development in a song you write in the future. In fact, those musicians who are amazing at it recognize that failing in mistakes are part of the process. Scott Adams, the creator of Dilbert and notable Twitter Crank, says creativity is allowing yourself to make mistakes. It's a matter of knowing which ones to keep. Studio budgets are usually below our ideal scenario. Time equals money, so those paying for a project can get pretty antsy about making mistakes and failing at ideas, or you may be recording yourself and only have so much time at home to make music between your day job. To make matters worse, many musicians are impatient and want to get the creative process over with. They will force their will on the process to get it over with as soon as possible. No matter what obstacle your team presents you, know that there needs to be room to make mistakes without punishment. Bad ideas lead to good ideas in time, so knowing what not to do gets you closer to what you should do. Expecting every idea to be a good idea is a ridiculous notion. Pixar CEO Ed Catmull put it this way, mistakes aren't a necessary evil. They aren't evil at all. They're an inevitable consequence of doing something new. David Chang, the chef at Momofuku, who does amazing work says, the more you fail, the more you learn. When Skrillex and Diplo decided to work with Justin Bieber, he was at the lowest point in his career. This production duo was at the rare point where they were maintaining credit in hipster circles while still being wildly successful. When Skrillex was asked about why he worked with the Beebe, he said, my fans get what I do, and like that I'm not afraid to fail and not afraid to do things people don't like. This attitude netted them not only their biggest hit yet, but also the song regarded as very original by pop standards that's changed the sound of the genre today. I would argue is the song that changed pop the most in the last decade. This lack of fear has allowed him to go from being a popular emo singer to an unknown EDM producer to having the most streamed record of 2012 and now being an ultra successful pop producer. To call his career trajectory rare is a huge understatement, but it's inarguable that this lack of fear of failing has allowed him to achieve great heights in multiple genres. Try again, fail again, fail better, Samuel Beckett. Study after study shows that innovators fail constantly, but they persist past these failures until they find what they're looking for. Allow collaborators to pursue bad ideas how you get to good ideas and nothing will hack that need for that experimentation to get good ideas. You need to hear and emotionally react to every idea. Otherwise you'll never get the vetting for your songs your favorite artists achieve. Thanks for watching. That's it, am I missing anything? Is there any way you would have done this? I need to know your questions and what no one else is telling you since I wanna answer them. So leave them in the comments. I hope you liked this video and if you did please like and subscribe and get notified for my future videos since I'm gonna be breaking down the concepts in this video along with tons of others on promoting your music and how to make music you're more happy with. As well, I have a Facebook group that's linked below that has only helpful information. No one tried to sell you anything, playlist or con artists, only helpful information for musicians looking to be better themselves. If you wanna learn more about me, make a record with me or check out any of my books, podcasts or anything else I do, head to jessecanon.com or at jessecanon.com on any of the socials. Thanks for watching. One last thing, if you liked this video there's two playlists here with tons more videos that you'll probably enjoy. One's about how you promote your music and the other's about how you make songs you're happy with. Otherwise, you can hit the subscribe button here to see the rest of my videos. Thanks so much for watching.