And here I found a piece of gem: The Seven Secrets of a Tetris Grand Master
This is all nice and good. All nice and good. But as I read on, I found more and more myself finding these words... almost familiar. At the end of the article, I emerged, infused with the sudden epiphany (well, I kinda knew this in my heart before, but this article just clinched it all together) and set out to educate and inspire fellow musicians.
I found that these 7 secrets for the Tetris Grand Master apply almost perfectly to the Master Composer, or Master Performer, or Master Wub-ilizer., or the Master Swaggerizer.
The 7 secrets are listed below for the tl;dr crowd:
1. Excessive practice pays off
2. It's not over 'til it's over
3. Aim for 'second nature'
4. Pick your battles
5. Embrace the competition
6. Know when to take a break
7. Ignore the critics
Sound similar to the advice the people in the forum and Skype chats keep telling you?
I: EXCESSIVE PRACTICE PAYS OFF
If you haven't heard of this, or the phrase "practice makes perfect", or other musicians saying "stop whining and practice", or Makkon saying "are you practicing? If you are, good, keep practicing. If you aren't, go practice Philly," then you either 1. haven't been in this community very long, or 2. you haven't been doing music for very long. There's a reason almost all masters of any field say practice is the main component of their success (not talent or innate ability). There's a reason why Olympics athletes all train furiously for several years at a time. There's a reason why we all sprout this mantra: it works.
And notice something this Tetris Master says:
Kevin Birrell wrote:Those hundreds and hundreds of Tetris rounds “consumed his life,” he said, as did the time he spent recording and analyzing his gameplay. But each round helped him find an approach or variable he could tweak to get better.
“I’ve become pretty good at isolating my weaknesses.”
Do take this to heart. It's not just mindless practicing we should be doing (though, for physical performance stuff, us performing musicians should practice our chords, scales, progressions, etc. More on that later) It's both practice AND isolating our weaknesses. Only by knowing our weaknesses can we efficiently eliminate them, and as a result, create songs of a higher caliber. This is where fellow musicians can help you on, but this step is something you must undertake yourself. Listen to professional musicians. What's lacking? Isolate one element that you find yourself struggling on, and work on it. Maybe it's mastering, or mixing, or melody creation, or lyric writing, or lead/bass synthesizing, or whatever. Deal with your weaknesses, and your song will naturally improve.
II: IT'S NOT OVER 'TIL IT'S OVER
It's worded this way because in Tetris, especially in notoriously hard games like The Grand Master line of games, a single mistake could drive you close to the Game Over screen. However, in music, while we don't have any Game Over screens to reach, we do have the "I'm stopping this project I'm working on because it is 100% suck and there's nothing left to salvage wah" screen. While I'm not here to recommend polishing crappy songs, I do recommend finishing any song you have lying around. The entire process of music composition and production is educational. I know for a fact that I can more easily start projects than finish them, and as such, I have less experience in fancy things like mixing and mastering and other final touch polishing skills.
Nothing is un-salvageable. It's all about perspective and context. If someone can use white noise to make an entire electronic song, you can use or improve your lead/bass synth, melody, backing track, drum loop, etc. It's not over 'til it's over.
III: AIM FOR "SECOND NATURE"
This one focuses more on performing musicians, but I don't see why composers and producers can't do the same thing. Personally, as an piano improvisationist, it's not hard for me to see why practicing scales and chords and arpeggios and all the mumbo-jumbo is necessary: If I need to play something on the fly, I'd need to know how, now wouldn't I? Besides, once it's in our muscle memory, every other song we have to learn after that will be that much simpler! I can't see why this same tip cannot be applied to, say, the mixing and mastering process. Know what you need to do for vocal mixing, know what you need to do for drum track compression. Bam, BAM, BAM. And if you can't get to this point of expertise, read the first tip again (Spoiler: IT'S PRACTICE).
IV: PICK YOUR BATTLES
Now this one I don't particularly agree to, but I'll include it for the sake of comprehensiveness. In context, Birrell is pretty much talking about how he can't possibly master ALL the games in the world, and that he needs to be realistic with the time he has to be practicing on games he can master (he's abandoned StarCraft for this reason). Well... now that I think about it, this does apply to musicians as well, but in a different manner. I see this more as a workflow type of a tip: know what works for you. If two different methods give the exact same product, use the one that you can pick up on faster. Do know what works for you and what doesn't. Personally, I'm a fan of diving into multiple diverse genres, so of course I won't say "you can possibly master all genres, so don't try." Take this interpretation as you will.
V: EMBRACE THE COMPETITION
And here we come across one of the main reason this very forum exists: the congregation of fellow musicians. To quote the article:
Birrell checks in with Japanese players on social media and others in IRC chat, reporting his stats and catching up on theirs. In October 2011 he saw many of them in person at the Classic Tetris World Championships in Los Angeles. They share tips, tricks, even tutorials. It’s like they all realize that only by knowing how the others are doing can they fuel their own drive to improve.
Sounds a bit like My Little Remix? Or even just us musicians in general? No? Well this is what I've been feeling being around fellow musicians. There's this sort of pressure for me to make something once somebody comes out and reveal their latest masterpiece. Overk might show some of his contrapuntal orchestral pieces one day, and that will be enough to drive me to write a short 8-bar invention. StormWolf might come in and show bits and pieces of his lead synths, and I'll brush the dust off my (software) synthesizers and tweak with the sounds. Nothing like a bit of friendly competition to drive our motivation. In the end, everyone walks off with a lot more knowledge and experience than they would have if they hadn't met each other.
So yeah, bask in the light of each other, create songs of marvel and wonder to further inspire fellow musicians. Let the guilt of not working on music at any moment in time be emphasized by the constant stream of quality other musicians release every day!
VI: KNOW WHEN TO TAKE A BREAK
Not going to talk much about this, because, really, sometime all you need to do is just put down the song for a good day or two (or a week!) Play some well-deserved game of Team Fortress 2, or Left 4 Dead 2, (or Tetris!) and come back to your project with a fresh perspective. I've caught numerous wrinkles in my songs by doing this, though now I have the problem of playing too much video games...
VII: IGNORE THE CRITICS
To clarify: the critics that have no business being critics. The critics that go "YOUR MUSIC IS BAD AND YOU SHOULD FEEL BAD" (unless your music is truly abysmal and should not see the light of day ever... I KID, I KID). The critics that would say things just to cover up their own insecurities. Bear in mind that this tip, in the original context, is more along the lines of "why are you spending hundreds of hour on a single video game". If you plan on doing music seriously, either as a hobby or as a profession, this tip also applies strongly to you. The only thing that differentiates a musician that will go far, and a musician that just wallows in his self-pity is perseverance and patience (and self-control).
So there you have it, the 7 secrets that make a Tetris Grand Master, and also the 7 secrets that make a Master in ANYTHING. I can just as easily apply these tips to drawing, or cooking, or academics, or League of Legends, or reading, or trolling, or knowing when to go to sleep, or actually writing a good article and not half-assing my way through it, or seriously I should go to sleep what am I doing right now.
Hope you guys can take a bit of lesson with you, or that I didn't completely bore you guys.
PS. THIS is the level of Tetris Birrell is playing at. No reason why that level of skill can't be attainable in terms of music.
