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learning an instrument

I find the important thing in working your brain is being in that zone of frustration, and pushing through it. Music is a great avenue for that. I’ve been playing consistently for the first time since high school, and it’s been the most frustrating, but rewarding feeling I’ve had in years. I can feel myself wanting to quit sometimes, but the feeling when you finally get something you’ve been working on for a while is indescribable

@hermandem

Jun 2, 2024

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*consistent* practice

i only have an associates degree in illustration and had to further my skill set on my own and i taught myself how to play [mediocre] bass and the most important thing is consistency. i’ve always been told practicing something five minutes a day regularly is better than once a week for two hours…and it’s true! for visual art, try doing a self portrait every day, a plein air painting or sketch… really anything! even if you don’t like it you’re learning and growing. don’t bombard yourself with fancy supplies and remember you have to learn the rules to break them. art history and foundational drawing practice are very important. hone in your skills with line and value and once you master that explore some basic color theory. drawing observationally (still life, models, landscapes) will help you immensely no matter what you decide to do with your talent. if you’ve got the budget for it, see if you can take a class at a local arts council or community college. digital art is just as valid if you’re worried about going through materials and a great medium for quick warm ups and practice. you’re really interested in painting, try doing master copies, that’s where you copy an existing work to kind of get a feel for the techniques the artist used and it’s completely fine and dandy to do so. i had a professor who would make us do weekly pencil self portraits in the style of various artists and it was extremely helpful in terms of problem solving. art is basically just problem solving with form and color. as for instrumentally, i had no background in music and no schooling or guidance to help me. i also decided to play bass with no background in guitar which i am told is slightly blasphemous but i just really enjoy a juicy bass line! i’m def not perfect, in fact i am quite a wonky bassist, but i’m having a good time ☺ research different styles and models of the instrument you enjoy along with basic maintenance and caretaking. do you need any additional materials for this (pick, amp etc…)? sort of like the master copies, find a few players of said instrument that you really look up to. i taught myself VERY basic music theory via youtube (that site will be your best friend!) and scales and warmups there as well. once you’ve got the muscle memory for all that you can begin to emulate the music you look up to. i would teach myself the bass tabs of my favorite songs, and once i got the hang of them, sort of dissected them to see what makes them work, which helped me develop sounds of my own invention. hope this didn’t sound like too much! it’s hard to comprehensively give advice on this sort of thing as being self taught isn’t a linear thing in my experience. i hope this helped some and best of luck with your creative endeavors and remember having. fun triumphs over all else <3

@deardoveswings

Jul 31, 2024

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It all started on an ipad

Throughout my whole life, I had awful music teachers. I had a piano teacher that made me sit on my hands because he was frustrated with the way I played scales and a music teacher in primary/middle school that gave me so many anxiety attacks that my doctor finally gave me a note so I didn’t have to go anymore. I was told so many times throughout my life that I had no music talent, discouraged from going further than scales but all of those people (teachers!!!!) were wrong. They just couldnt fathom that I had a different musical brain than them. When I was 23, I ended up having to move back home from LA after my job rescinded their promise to sponsor me for a visa. I was depressed and heartbroken and lonely. I went to school for writing but didn’t want to write anymore so I ended up opening GarageBand on my iPad. I was inspired by all the things I could do on it. I suddenly felt like I was entering a new world. After making a couple beats, I started moving everything over to the laptop version of GarageBand. I bought big headphones, a cheap usb mic and a keyboard off of a guy from Craigslist and continued to tinker. One of my favorite things to do at the time was to download karaoke midi tracks of popular songs I loved, import them into GarageBand and change the instrument until I felt like I was making something new. I would then use my shitty mic to wail on top of it. I used GarageBand for years after that to make tons of songs that I just uploaded to SoundCloud without thinking about it much. Eventually I got a controller/sampler and access to Ableton and thats when the fun really started. My love for music making snowballed after that, I amassed more gear and skill and eventually made an album after a couple years. I was obsessed with making it and while I feel really whatever about it now, I don’t feel whatever about the experience. Music has allowed me space to express parts of me that there are no words for. The best thing I can impart is to take advantage of this. There are some things that you can only explain with a kick drum or a sine wave or a really hard bassline. Music is still a huge part of me! I made another album after that first and now I’m working on my next project. I recently reincarnated myself (everyone in the ~industry~ advised against this but I’m a different person now) and I’m excited to see what’s in store for me. I don’t expect to make money or become famous but music feeds my soul in a way nothing else can. Have fun!!

@nicky999doors

May 4, 2024

Top Recs from @broti-gupta

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NIKO, MY DOG!!!! Look at him!!

My dog is the coolest guy around. I highly recommend him. He is a Siberian Husky named Niko, we think he’s roughly a little over 3 years old, he has a really human sense of shame, and he loves babies and kids. He loves holding hands and when you pet his belly he literally pets you back (another human thing… unable to just accept love without paying it back…). Any time he walks into a room or sits down or lies down or buries his head anywhere I clap like he’s a stunt cast guest star of a TV show.

@broti-gupta

Feb 24, 2022

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Wallace Shawn

By the end of 2020, I was incredibly depressed (which is a unique experience I went through), and I found Wallace Shawn’s essays after I read this piece in NYRB. I devoured Night Thoughts and Essays probably in one sitting and I’m obsessed with the Designated Mourner (which is now in podcast form, directed by Andre Gregory). I think he acknowledges the world as it is and has a very empathetic approach to humans and that kind of simple, readable humanity was something I really needed. Because, again, I was going through a personally tough time due to a crazy global pandemic.

@broti-gupta

Feb 24, 2022

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John Swartzwelder’s Self Published Books

John Swartzwelder is the funniest writer in the world. I don’t know that I could write about him and do him justice, but he was a longtime Simpsons writer and then started self-publishing books that are so incredibly joke dense it will blow your mind. Here’s a quote from The Time Machine Did It, one of his many books following a strange detective named Frank Burly: “When I first became a detective I had tried solving crimes the way mystery writers do: coming up with the solution to the crime first, then working back to the point where you don't know what the hell is going on. But for some reason every time I tried that I ended up locked in a closet.”

@broti-gupta

Feb 24, 2022