Get your free 30-day Audible trial today: audible.com/12tone or text "12tone" to 500-500 Some additional thoughts/corrections: 1) I actually thought of, like, a bunch of other anecdotes while working on this, but I couldn't fit them all in, so if there's interest I may wind up doing a follow-up video. Let me know if you'd be into that. 2) That's it for now.
Me too. I'm presently in music school now and I'm seeing that what I thought was going to be the main part of the journey isn't exactly what I thought it'd be so your insights were really helpful
"Most hard concepts aren't actually hard, they just rely on previous knowledge. When something's confusing, it's probably not because you're incapable of understanding it. It's just that the person explaining has made some incorrect assumptions about what you already know."
An expert is a person, who has chosen his own very narrow field and has made all possible errors in that field. Niels Bohr said once something like that ;)
"Looking back now, not becoming a teacher was the best thing to ever happen to me." You DID become a teacher and with more students than you envisioned... Thanks for your lessons. 🙏
Lessons in this video: 1. Do Stuff! 1:06 2. When learning a new skill it really helps to NOT know how bad you are 1:54 3. Find the right environment for you 3:29 4. Most hard concepts aren't actually hard, they just rely on previous knowledge. When something's confusing, it's probably not because you're incapable of understanding it. It's just that the person explaining has made some incorrect assumptions about what you already know 4:21 5. Be realistic, but not TOO realistic. Plan for failure while preparing for success. 5:27 6./7. There is no time limit on learning/Find a mentor 8:13 8. Help others! 8:50 9. It's okay to do things that just have to get done even if you don't like it 9:48 10. You can't always tell what is actually important 10:23 11. Sometimes your plans are bad and it's ok if they don't work out aka Grass might be greener on the other side11:20
If music school was just the curriculum, it wouldn't be worth it. Being around other young musicians, being able to ask pros questions, and having deadlines to motivate you are all more valuable. My best advice for new music students is to be social and ask a lot of questions.
I’m super introverted at my school but I recognize the value of making connections with other musicians, I should definitely put more effort into speaking up more
@@noel1626 I think there's more to it than networking, at least as I understand the term networking. To me networking just implies job and career opportunities, but there's more to it than that. Even if you cut ties with everyone you met in school after you leave, there's value in being around a lot of other musicians while learning.
@Marklar3 I probably should have said meeting fellow musicians instead of networking. To clarify, i was thinking of this definition 'Networking is the exchange of information and ideas among people with a common profession or special interest, usually in an informal social setting.'
You just have no idea how perfect timing this video is for me and my life like it's so weird. I literally just met with a piano Professor on campus and he told me to at least minor music. My minor is computer science but now I'm thinking I should have minored in music but I always felt that I shouldn't go to school for music because I've been told it was a waste and that I would be throwing money away and wouldn't get a job but I love music so much. Computer science is okay but it's one of those things that I just do because I know how to do it. Thank you so much for doing what you do this channel has helped me in ways can't even describe and continues to help me.
If you want to mix the two, it's worth knowing that modern music production involves a lot of computer-based tools. There's an entire niche of the music industry dedicated to developing and selling software tools to music producers, but even the producers themselves benefit from having some programming skills. If that's a direction you'd like to go in, I'd suggest trying to fit in some courses on signal processing. It's also worth getting a free DAW and experimenting with it to make music. Most schools (even music schools) won't actually teach much about DAWs themselves, but the math courses are valuable to help understand what the tools are doing.
@@danbryant1027 You don't need a computer science degree to learn how to use a DAW (although it might feel like it), but having knowledge in both computer science and music might open up jobs for software development like VSTs.
I wish I'd realised that. I basically gave up music in my mid-20s and spent the next eight years studying computer science, specialising in AI (as it turned out, my postgrad supervisor was also someone who had basically given up on a music career). Now I'm in my late 30s and realising, no, actually, music is what I want to do after all, but it's frustrating to realise that when you're old. It's not like I think I'm "too old" - I'm sure if I were an absolute beginner now, it would be less of a problem. Instead, I'm definitely not as good as I used to be because my skills have atrophied through lack of use, but at the same time I do retain the curse of people who *are* skilled, which is a keen awareness of how much I suck. It's not a good combination.
I understand where you are. I studied music, but I later became a software engineer, which is what I do now. My opinion is this. It's easy to avoid practical questions in college, like how you're going to make living after you graduate. My parents never pushed any kind of practical thinking like that. I wish they would have. You could end up tens of thousands of dollars in debt without a job that will allow you to make loan payments and do other things, like save any money for a home or family. You owe it to yourself to consider those things. Also, you can continue to do music outside of your career (whatever it is). You can take piano lessons, take college-level music courses online, learn new instruments, compose your own music. Music school mostly teaches you history, theory, and how to play your instrument. You can continue to do those things without music school. My guess is that most music school grads are employed as music teachers, professional musicians (a very small number, probably), something arts related (like fundraising for an arts organization), or something completely unrelated. Where do you see yourself in that lot?
@@OneWeirdAngel if you want to play music, do it. just do it. you don't have to be Miles Davis, Joni Mitchell, Throwing Muses, Jeff Beck, Ravi Shankar, Bjork, Mozart or even Amadeus. Malvina Reynolds started a successful songwriting career in her 60s.
"Being autistic I've never been great at tasks I didn't understand the point of" - SO relatable, and cool to hear that someone I look up to is on the spectrum like me :)
Just writing along for myself 1. Do stuff 2. It’s good not to know how bad you are 3. Find the right environment for you 4. "Hard" concepts just require previous knowledge 5. "Plan for failure while preparing for success" 6a There is no time limit on learning 6b Find a mentor (6c "Always drop the ladder back down") 7. Some things just need to be done 8. You can’t always tell what’s important 9. Plans don’t always work out and that can be a good thing
Byrnes’s “How Music Works” helped to motivate a 59 year old music lover to take up the piano. I am now surrounded by pianos, keyboards and synths and writing my own music. Never ever stop learning and of course “keep on rockin”!
The art of teaching is figuring out what your students know, how they know it, and how what you're teaching fits into this. The art of learning is drawing connections between what you already know and what is being presented to you, and continuously reassessing what you know in light of this new information.
I appreciate this video a lot, 12tone. I went to college with the grand expectations to be like Bach; I wanted to play organ and harpsichord, found an ensemble and choir, and hone my compositional skills. Of course, I was young and naive, and had no idea how the 'real world' worked at all. And nor did I get education which really helped me navigate the real world. I had thought that all I needed to succeed was a Bachelor's degree, and through my passion alone I'd 'make it big' as a composer. It turns out that Baroque music isn't as prominent as I had wanted it to be and this affected me a great deal. My professors, as helpful as they were and as much as I admired them, weren't sure what avenue I should take in life. It's still something I'm struggling with. I appreciate everything you said in this video, though! thanks for sharing your story.
Ah yes, I’m an alumni of “that school” and was a student in some of Coreen’s classes that you shadowed. Good memories! My main regret was letting social stuff cloud my judgement and distracting me from like, trying out more genres as a vocal student there, or just generally just make more my time there networking and getting more of my money’s worth out of it...cause woweee the cost! Alsooooo, yeah the for-profit bit - I originally went to “the school” for guitar but suffered a bad arm injury almost immediately that would’ve made completing the guitar school do permanent damage cause of the amount of practicing involved to graduate. I was gonna drop out, but the school wanted my money, so they let me transfer to voice despite my near total lack of prior singing experience. Sorry I sucked and you had to witness it, lmao
I'm a software developer, been one for years and a constant in my life always was that when I thought I had everything figured out, turns out I started learning stuff that threw my knowledge upside down. Always keep learning, learning starts at birth and should stop on your deathbed
I'm a software developer as well. It's especially critical for us, I started out as a Flash developer. Had I not constantly been learning new stuff, I'd be 100% out of a job right now. Technology moves extremely quickly.
"Succeeding at something means failing at it long enough until you run out of failures" I love it! Of course, that requires that you learn from your failures, because if you keep making the same mistakes over and over, you'll never run out. Music school (any kind of school) is most valuable because you have people who can point out those failures and the lessons to be learned from them. I just had a social media discussion with someone who was waffling on whether to go to post-secondary education because they wanted to do something creative and figured talent and "who you know" are more important than what you know and this is kind of the point I was trying to get at. Kind of. Okay, maybe not, but related. Also, if "who you know" is important, a school is a fantastic way to starting knowing people; the instructors have been out in the world and tapping into their networks is much more efficient than building your own network and also, down the road, your classmates will be out in the world and you never know when those contacts will be important. (This networking point may be coming: I'm only at 5:33 as I write this).
Your observations about the obscurity of difficult material being related to an absence of the right building blocks is a huge truth bomb. The best teachers i ever had all led me to discover the path to the new knowledge by making and leveraging those connections.
"If you want to learn about music in the Boston area, there's really only one place to go: Berklee." As a music major at Tufts University, all I've got to say is: "ouch."
I got into NEC, but not Berklee and so chose to go to a liberal arts school that was positively ill equipped to handle an R&B singer with a gospel background ...ouch is right
@@RonSwansonIsMyGod the Tufts music program is classical-oriented and more like a traditional conservatory program, though it's a lot less rigid than the conservatories. When I was there, there were lots of opportunities to be involved in other styles of music besides classical, and with Tufts being a liberal arts university, it was very easy to take classes outside of the music program (I was able to double major in Spanish and music).
Thank you audible for sponsoring this. Some great lessons for would be creatives. Just do stuff. Things will happen. Good and Bad. Stick with it. If you are lucky, life will guide and/or force you to make choices. Figure out what you want because those moments come and go.
This is incredibly relatable and great advice beyond just music school. I’ve been playing and teaching privately for years (with a stint at a for-profit college) and now, in my mid-thirties, I’m finally going back for a degree in music education. Part of me complains I should have done this years ago, but life is indeed complicated and now is probably the best time for me. Thanks for the advice, encouragement, and all the great videos you share.
As a corollary to this excellent advice; choose your subjects carefully. During my undergrad studies in archaeology, I found that it doesn't matter how interesting the module is, if the teacher is poor or you don't get on with them, you'll struggle and lose some of the passion. I ended up mostly choosing modules based on who was teaching it and it meant that I learned cool things I didn't know I was interested in and the stuff I thought was interesting I could self-study given the university's resources. When you're in for 3+ years and the workload keeps piling up, it's very easy to lose what motivated you in the first place.
I took a class with a great prof at my community college. Her regular job was with the Near East Dept at Univ of Chicago. The class was about Josephus and the Wars of the Jews. I wanted to do a paper on one of the Herods I thought was interesting and I asked where to go for more. She said, "This is it, all we really know about him is from Josephus." I had reached the end of what there was to know about him. It was kind of sad.
My heart kind of dropped when I saw this video since I’m currently a senior in hs committing to a conservatory and I have goals that involve starting a solo performer career, but I’m glad I watched it, thank you for making your videos
Interesting. I had always assumed you were a classical musician slumming it to make some money by producing very interesting YT material in the more popular areas of music. The metal background came as a surprise to me. Keep up the great work.
Thanks for sharing, love the journey and your ethos. This is a video for everyone, not just music students. I've been a regular viewer for a couple of years now and you've given me a bunch of lightbulb moments, it's much appreciated. Thank you for all the hard work..
Thank you for making this video man, much love to you and your incredible content! You've been on a lot of twists and turns with Berklee and "The School That Shall Not Be Named", and it sounds like you landed exactly where you want to be. Incredible, thanks again!
Firstly, thank you for your lectures here on RUclips. As a musician, I like watching you explaining stuff that I don't know or partially know or didn't notice before. It enhances my perception of music theory. Secondly, as a vocalist and struggling with different scream techniques, like many of your viewers, would like to hear you scream, and if possible giving tips and small explanations on screaming. Thirdly, as a person who has been trying to figure out her path, thank you for the life lessons. I've graduated from grad school recently (not a musical degree) and I couldn't get what I want because of reasons outside of me. Like you, I wanted to be in academia, but now I'm realizing other stuff and trying to increase my options. It's hard to let go of your dream job, but I've been telling the same thing that you've underlined in the video, as academia in Turkey works somewhat similarly if you want to teach in a "prestigious" university. I'll remind myself to watch this video whenever I spiral. Tl;dr, we'd like to hear you scream, and academia sucks. Thank you so much for the quality content on RUclips!
VIDEO NOTES: Lesson 1: Do stuff. Lesson 2: Don't know how bad you are. Lesson 3: Find the right enviroment for you. Lesson 4: Most hard concepts aren't hard, but relies on previous knowledge. Lesson 5: Be realistic but not too realistic. Lesson 6: There's no time limit on learning. Lesson 7: Find a mentor. Lesson 8: If you're an expert in something, if you've ever succeded in something, don't be afraid to drop the ladder back down. Lesson 9: You can't always tell what's important. Lesson 10: Sometimes your plans are bad and it's okay if they don't work out.
Your videos are part of the reason I got into making music at 17. Now it’s been one year of learning to sing and play instruments, and I gotta say I love it.
Thank you so much for this video, 12Tone. I went to a liberal arts university to study Music Education, and while I absolutely learned so much during my five-year undergraduate program, there were many things that frustrated me because it wasn't what I was seeking in my education. Hearing your story felt really validating, and I appreciate it so much.
I don't know if you read all your comments but I am just so dang inspired by your channel and your story. As a fellow autistic singer out here in the world trying to put some shit together, thank you for making all the excellent videos you've made
The idea of learning has always been one of my passions. There is nothing I like more than picking up a new technique except for sharing knowledge with an interested learner.
This is the best video of yours I've seen. I think the core of many (most? all?) of your lessons are that nobody knows anything. Every action is somebody's best guess as to what should be done. Sometimes, their guesses are better than yours, sometimes better than theirs, but you can't let the fact that you don't know the best thing to do next stop you from doing something.
I'm not remotely interested in having a job with music, but I still love your videos so I decided to give this one a shot. There is SO MUCH here that's applies exactly to how I felt through my physics and computer science degrees that I feel specifying music school might do this video a disservice. More people should hear this, thanks for this amazing educational video (and channel in general) and I hope it continues to be the best plan you did not consider!
I've admired your analysis for a while now and learned a brand new way to think about writing music from watching your videos. But... hearing you talk about wanting to do game design before you went into music made me love just a little bit more.
This is amazing man. I always wanted to do both music and pursue a graduate degree but I thought it would be impossible. Maybe while I get my PhD I can spend my summers jamming with bands. I’d also love to hear some of your rock/ metal covers
Stupid question perhaps. But since you wanted to become a music teacher once and are doing this amazing RUclips thing now: Did it ever cross your mind to create an online course if sorts? Would be interested, is all I'm saying 😅
I love seeing videos that give insight to subjects I don't know about. Channels like yours are incredible and make me feel sharper and are very enjoyable
“There's a couple of things they don't teach you in music school, one is how to cope with defeat, the other is how to handle a shotgun, I'm going to do both right now.”
I flunked out of a uni game design program, and recently, after a few years of getting g my life together, decided to go back to school for music. Your videos were a huge part in sparking an interest in music theory. Thank you.
Nicely put "lesson number four: most hard concepts aren't actually hard, they just rely on previous knowledge. when something's confusing, it's probably not because your incapable of understanding it. it's just that the person explaining it has made some incorrect assumptions about what you already know. especially in a field like theory, everything is built on top of something else. things that look like huge logical leaps are usually just a series of small steps. the art of teaching is figuring out which of those steps you need to make explicit, and the art of learning is asking the right questions to uncover the steps you missed."
Thank you for this explanation! I am currently deciding if I should get my B.A in composition even though I have my associates already. It is very difficult to comprehend that there are more opportunities than just school and a degree. You literally have to step outside of the box and climb up as far as possible when it comes to life!!! Coming from C.A , Berklee is said to be a great school and it is just shocking to realize that there isn't a school that brings all forms of music into one to help everyone learn. Please don't stop making these videos this will be one way I practice my theory for the music I want to create.
I have a great ear for music, but cannot read sheet music to save my life, and have always had issues learning theory, this channel has helped me SO MUCH! Thank you!
This was a really amazing video. It was incredibly well-written and full of insights into the college experience. More than anything, it was tactfully inspirational. Keep up the good work!
I just learn music for myself and never have had or will have plans to go to music school, but the life lessons in here are solid gold! I hope the viewership of this one goes through the roof.
Yeah, that's life alright, you never know where you're gonna go until you're there already, you can only try your best to do what you want(or at least what you think you want) and hope life doesn't avalanche you while you're climbing the mountain to your personal peak.
I'm going to treasure this video and also show it to my friend, it feels like one of those things that we might look on down the road wherever we end up and say "they were right and I'm glad I got those pointers"
Thanks for the encouragement. Life is full of twists and turns and we become successes by navigating those with grace not by being who we thought we'd be.
So much of this is resonating. I quit my job at a for profit music college in NY last year, and all the problems you're mentioning are there. Terrible pay/benefits, lots of the faculty/staff are recent graduates, and teachers were pressured not to fail students.
I'm late to the party, but one great lesson as well, especially in the artistic field, is to not have a large amount of projects/plans. You need to focus yourself, your time and skills to a selected amount of project that will help you get where you want to be, even if you're still opened to opportunities. The sweet number for me is 3. I have 3 main projects that I get focus myself on, without putting my health in danger and still feel fullfilled
Thanks for sharing your story! I've recently been trying to spend more time learning guitar and I'm trying to find a mentor for recording music as well since I have no idea how to do so. Hopefully I can learn more in an efficient way and grow as much as possible.
Boy is this video right on the MONEY. This is some hardcore appropriate very realistic advice. Young musicians, listen to this video carefully. It's spot on. It's also a very interesting story. And of course, 12tone is one of my fave channels of all time, so I may be biased. But wow is this good.
It's also inspired me to make a video of my college music degrees and the pros and cons. This is what great videos do - they inspire others. Thanks, 12tone!
Oh that's a good one eh. I too was a bit of a late bloomer, though I did sing and play the Wurlitzer as a child. I started playing bass in 1977 just as I graduated high school and got into my first band at the start of 1980. A few bands later and life doing its thing and all, I went to school too. More than anything, it put labels on the things I understood but didn't know what to call. The big takeaways for me were ear training and arrangement. I don't think I had perfect pitch but I do now. While you think that's a gift, it's also irritating. The arranging has really come in handy as I grew as a musician and as I got more comfortable writing, it changed the way I saw music. More so with cover tunes. Everyone seems to be able to play a spotless (almost) rendition of any song, but I've always thought, so what, a CD is better. I got to thinking, why not take it somewhere. Remain true to the song, but interpret it in a way that shows another perspective that is interesting. I've done a lot of the things you advise, session work, live music, teaching, (I love teaching) and all of it has taught me stuff. You don't ever really stop learning. My philosophy has always been, find a way to teach someone something. Everyone is an outlier in something. It's in the teaching that the bridge can be built. Man, that sounds prophetic. I don't mean it to be so. Anyway, I am turning people your way through these videos to help explain various aspects of music. So here is a compliment that you probably don't get very often. You are the manure to my sonic garden. That might even be lyrical but I ain't touching it.
Sometimes career paths are just random dumb luck - I had some unassigned time in the office and found myself assigned to a life-changing project, along with a number of other trainees. Almost all of them hated the project but it struck a chord with me (metaphorically, not literally), and four years later I was asked to lead a ground-breaking project-within-the-project, which left me as a leader in the field, and 25 years later it pretty much defines my work and career path, and all because I had some unassigned time when I was a trainee 30 years ago.
Well, I can't disagree with anything you have said here. I have a same (though very different) story. Application, integrity with the magic ingredient of time will take anyone a long way in life.
This is the first episode that made me laugh. And it's clear that you are the kind of person who pays attention. "What's the lesson here?" is a great question to ask, and to teach other people to ask themselves.
Relevant beyond the world of music. I agree about the David Byrne book. Dare I suggest that there would be great value in a 12 tone music theory book? Illustrated of course!
If you didn't mention it I would NEVER know you were in the spectrum. It makes sense, many geniuses were in the spectrum too, and you are smart AF. Congrats on everything!
![Digital Circus Episode 4 [TRAILER]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/abZtsmMUbJo/mqdefault.jpg)
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Some additional thoughts/corrections:
1) I actually thought of, like, a bunch of other anecdotes while working on this, but I couldn't fit them all in, so if there's interest I may wind up doing a follow-up video. Let me know if you'd be into that.
2) That's it for now.
I’d be into it!
Me too. I'm presently in music school now and I'm seeing that what I thought was going to be the main part of the journey isn't exactly what I thought it'd be so your insights were really helpful
Yeah anecdotes are fun!
6 months not to bad. Been 5 years and I'm still under 800 subs. Lol
Can you please teach me to scream?
Lol.
"Most hard concepts aren't actually hard, they just rely on previous knowledge. When something's confusing, it's probably not because you're incapable of understanding it. It's just that the person explaining has made some incorrect assumptions about what you already know."
Mathematics in school explained in one quote
Mathematics in university in a nutshell lol.
literally something I realized about being a teacher without really any training.
“Succeeding at something means failing at it for so long you’ve run out of failures”
An expert is a person, who has chosen his own very narrow field and has made all possible errors in that field. Niels Bohr said once something like that ;)
Fail more the master has than the apprentice has tried - yoda
You realize we all want to hear you scream now.
"Looking back now, not becoming a teacher was the best thing to ever happen to me."
You DID become a teacher and with more students than you envisioned... Thanks for your lessons. 🙏
this is probably the most relevant possible video youtube could have recommended me
About to type the same thing
Same
Good life lessons in here for anyone. Thanks for sharing your story.
Woah. Didn't expect to see you here.
Lessons in this video:
1. Do Stuff! 1:06
2. When learning a new skill it really helps to NOT know how bad you are 1:54
3. Find the right environment for you 3:29
4. Most hard concepts aren't actually hard, they just rely on previous knowledge. When something's confusing, it's probably not because you're incapable of understanding it. It's just that the person explaining has made some incorrect assumptions about what you already know 4:21
5. Be realistic, but not TOO realistic. Plan for failure while preparing for success. 5:27
6./7. There is no time limit on learning/Find a mentor 8:13
8. Help others! 8:50
9. It's okay to do things that just have to get done even if you don't like it 9:48
10. You can't always tell what is actually important 10:23
11. Sometimes your plans are bad and it's ok if they don't work out aka Grass might be greener on the other side11:20
If music school was just the curriculum, it wouldn't be worth it. Being around other young musicians, being able to ask pros questions, and having deadlines to motivate you are all more valuable. My best advice for new music students is to be social and ask a lot of questions.
* cries in introvert *
I’m super introverted at my school but I recognize the value of making connections with other musicians, I should definitely put more effort into speaking up more
I agree, networking is like half the value of attending a music school
@@noel1626 I think there's more to it than networking, at least as I understand the term networking. To me networking just implies job and career opportunities, but there's more to it than that. Even if you cut ties with everyone you met in school after you leave, there's value in being around a lot of other musicians while learning.
@Marklar3 I probably should have said meeting fellow musicians instead of networking. To clarify, i was thinking of this definition
'Networking is the exchange of information and ideas among people with a common profession or special interest, usually in an informal social setting.'
You just have no idea how perfect timing this video is for me and my life like it's so weird. I literally just met with a piano Professor on campus and he told me to at least minor music. My minor is computer science but now I'm thinking I should have minored in music but I always felt that I shouldn't go to school for music because I've been told it was a waste and that I would be throwing money away and wouldn't get a job but I love music so much. Computer science is okay but it's one of those things that I just do because I know how to do it.
Thank you so much for doing what you do this channel has helped me in ways can't even describe and continues to help me.
If you want to mix the two, it's worth knowing that modern music production involves a lot of computer-based tools. There's an entire niche of the music industry dedicated to developing and selling software tools to music producers, but even the producers themselves benefit from having some programming skills. If that's a direction you'd like to go in, I'd suggest trying to fit in some courses on signal processing. It's also worth getting a free DAW and experimenting with it to make music. Most schools (even music schools) won't actually teach much about DAWs themselves, but the math courses are valuable to help understand what the tools are doing.
@@danbryant1027 You don't need a computer science degree to learn how to use a DAW (although it might feel like it), but having knowledge in both computer science and music might open up jobs for software development like VSTs.
I wish I'd realised that. I basically gave up music in my mid-20s and spent the next eight years studying computer science, specialising in AI (as it turned out, my postgrad supervisor was also someone who had basically given up on a music career). Now I'm in my late 30s and realising, no, actually, music is what I want to do after all, but it's frustrating to realise that when you're old. It's not like I think I'm "too old" - I'm sure if I were an absolute beginner now, it would be less of a problem. Instead, I'm definitely not as good as I used to be because my skills have atrophied through lack of use, but at the same time I do retain the curse of people who *are* skilled, which is a keen awareness of how much I suck. It's not a good combination.
I understand where you are. I studied music, but I later became a software engineer, which is what I do now. My opinion is this. It's easy to avoid practical questions in college, like how you're going to make living after you graduate. My parents never pushed any kind of practical thinking like that. I wish they would have. You could end up tens of thousands of dollars in debt without a job that will allow you to make loan payments and do other things, like save any money for a home or family. You owe it to yourself to consider those things. Also, you can continue to do music outside of your career (whatever it is). You can take piano lessons, take college-level music courses online, learn new instruments, compose your own music. Music school mostly teaches you history, theory, and how to play your instrument. You can continue to do those things without music school.
My guess is that most music school grads are employed as music teachers, professional musicians (a very small number, probably), something arts related (like fundraising for an arts organization), or something completely unrelated. Where do you see yourself in that lot?
@@OneWeirdAngel if you want to play music, do it. just do it. you don't have to be Miles Davis, Joni Mitchell, Throwing Muses, Jeff Beck, Ravi Shankar, Bjork, Mozart or even Amadeus. Malvina Reynolds started a successful songwriting career in her 60s.
"Being autistic I've never been great at tasks I didn't understand the point of" - SO relatable, and cool to hear that someone I look up to is on the spectrum like me :)
Yes! I have ADHD and knowing that if he can do it i can too was so comforting
Haha he said that and I was like "oh, that's why his videos always click for me!" lol
Just writing along for myself
1. Do stuff
2. It’s good not to know how bad you are
3. Find the right environment for you
4. "Hard" concepts just require previous knowledge
5. "Plan for failure while preparing for success"
6a There is no time limit on learning
6b Find a mentor
(6c "Always drop the ladder back down")
7. Some things just need to be done
8. You can’t always tell what’s important
9. Plans don’t always work out and that can be a good thing
Byrnes’s “How Music Works” helped to motivate a 59 year old music lover to take up the piano. I am now surrounded by pianos, keyboards and synths and writing my own music. Never ever stop learning and of course “keep on rockin”!
that's so awesome!!! go you
Great! Thanks for the inspiring comment!
I finished that a couple of months ago, and found similar inspiration to create my own music!
As an autistic musician myself, it is so nice to hear this, thank you
seconded!
Same
same
The art of teaching is figuring out what your students know, how they know it, and how what you're teaching fits into this.
The art of learning is drawing connections between what you already know and what is being presented to you, and continuously reassessing what you know in light of this new information.
I appreciate this video a lot, 12tone. I went to college with the grand expectations to be like Bach; I wanted to play organ and harpsichord, found an ensemble and choir, and hone my compositional skills. Of course, I was young and naive, and had no idea how the 'real world' worked at all. And nor did I get education which really helped me navigate the real world. I had thought that all I needed to succeed was a Bachelor's degree, and through my passion alone I'd 'make it big' as a composer. It turns out that Baroque music isn't as prominent as I had wanted it to be and this affected me a great deal. My professors, as helpful as they were and as much as I admired them, weren't sure what avenue I should take in life. It's still something I'm struggling with.
I appreciate everything you said in this video, though! thanks for sharing your story.
Ah yes, I’m an alumni of “that school” and was a student in some of Coreen’s classes that you shadowed. Good memories! My main regret was letting social stuff cloud my judgement and distracting me from like, trying out more genres as a vocal student there, or just generally just make more my time there networking and getting more of my money’s worth out of it...cause woweee the cost!
Alsooooo, yeah the for-profit bit - I originally went to “the school” for guitar but suffered a bad arm injury almost immediately that would’ve made completing the guitar school do permanent damage cause of the amount of practicing involved to graduate. I was gonna drop out, but the school wanted my money, so they let me transfer to voice despite my near total lack of prior singing experience. Sorry I sucked and you had to witness it, lmao
I'm a software developer, been one for years and a constant in my life always was that when I thought I had everything figured out, turns out I started learning stuff that threw my knowledge upside down.
Always keep learning, learning starts at birth and should stop on your deathbed
I'm a software developer as well. It's especially critical for us, I started out as a Flash developer. Had I not constantly been learning new stuff, I'd be 100% out of a job right now. Technology moves extremely quickly.
"Succeeding at something means failing at it long enough until you run out of failures" I love it! Of course, that requires that you learn from your failures, because if you keep making the same mistakes over and over, you'll never run out. Music school (any kind of school) is most valuable because you have people who can point out those failures and the lessons to be learned from them. I just had a social media discussion with someone who was waffling on whether to go to post-secondary education because they wanted to do something creative and figured talent and "who you know" are more important than what you know and this is kind of the point I was trying to get at. Kind of. Okay, maybe not, but related. Also, if "who you know" is important, a school is a fantastic way to starting knowing people; the instructors have been out in the world and tapping into their networks is much more efficient than building your own network and also, down the road, your classmates will be out in the world and you never know when those contacts will be important. (This networking point may be coming: I'm only at 5:33 as I write this).
Your observations about the obscurity of difficult material being related to an absence of the right building blocks is a huge truth bomb. The best teachers i ever had all led me to discover the path to the new knowledge by making and leveraging those connections.
"If you want to learn about music in the Boston area, there's really only one place to go: Berklee." As a music major at Tufts University, all I've got to say is: "ouch."
I got into NEC, but not Berklee and so chose to go to a liberal arts school that was positively ill equipped to handle an R&B singer with a gospel background ...ouch is right
@@RonSwansonIsMyGod he does, but he started teaching there after my time. My composition teachers were John McDonald and Paul Lehrman.
@@RonSwansonIsMyGod the Tufts music program is classical-oriented and more like a traditional conservatory program, though it's a lot less rigid than the conservatories. When I was there, there were lots of opportunities to be involved in other styles of music besides classical, and with Tufts being a liberal arts university, it was very easy to take classes outside of the music program (I was able to double major in Spanish and music).
Thank you audible for sponsoring this. Some great lessons for would be creatives. Just do stuff. Things will happen. Good and Bad. Stick with it. If you are lucky, life will guide and/or force you to make choices. Figure out what you want because those moments come and go.
3:10 "I don't like to give out the name of my alma mater"... I'm thinking MI Institutes' "Vocal Institute of Technology"
This is incredibly relatable and great advice beyond just music school. I’ve been playing and teaching privately for years (with a stint at a for-profit college) and now, in my mid-thirties, I’m finally going back for a degree in music education. Part of me complains I should have done this years ago, but life is indeed complicated and now is probably the best time for me. Thanks for the advice, encouragement, and all the great videos you share.
As a corollary to this excellent advice; choose your subjects carefully. During my undergrad studies in archaeology, I found that it doesn't matter how interesting the module is, if the teacher is poor or you don't get on with them, you'll struggle and lose some of the passion. I ended up mostly choosing modules based on who was teaching it and it meant that I learned cool things I didn't know I was interested in and the stuff I thought was interesting I could self-study given the university's resources.
When you're in for 3+ years and the workload keeps piling up, it's very easy to lose what motivated you in the first place.
I took a class with a great prof at my community college. Her regular job was with the Near East Dept at Univ of Chicago. The class was about Josephus and the Wars of the Jews. I wanted to do a paper on one of the Herods I thought was interesting and I asked where to go for more. She said, "This is it, all we really know about him is from Josephus." I had reached the end of what there was to know about him. It was kind of sad.
My heart kind of dropped when I saw this video since I’m currently a senior in hs committing to a conservatory and I have goals that involve starting a solo performer career, but I’m glad I watched it, thank you for making your videos
4:38-4:49 I feel this idea couldn't have been exposed better. Makes for a perfect quote.
For the record, Berklee is also a private for profit college, or at least it was when I was there in the nineties.
Your point about complicated theory being a matter of prerequisites and how it impacts the acts of teaching and learning is just. *chef's kiss*
Interesting. I had always assumed you were a classical musician slumming it to make some money by producing very interesting YT material in the more popular areas of music. The metal background came as a surprise to me. Keep up the great work.
I was absolutely unprepared to hear the comment about autism randomly in passing
Thanks for sharing, love the journey and your ethos. This is a video for everyone, not just music students.
I've been a regular viewer for a couple of years now and you've given me a bunch of lightbulb moments, it's much appreciated. Thank you for all the hard work..
Thank you for making this video man, much love to you and your incredible content! You've been on a lot of twists and turns with Berklee and "The School That Shall Not Be Named", and it sounds like you landed exactly where you want to be. Incredible, thanks again!
Firstly, thank you for your lectures here on RUclips. As a musician, I like watching you explaining stuff that I don't know or partially know or didn't notice before. It enhances my perception of music theory.
Secondly, as a vocalist and struggling with different scream techniques, like many of your viewers, would like to hear you scream, and if possible giving tips and small explanations on screaming.
Thirdly, as a person who has been trying to figure out her path, thank you for the life lessons. I've graduated from grad school recently (not a musical degree) and I couldn't get what I want because of reasons outside of me. Like you, I wanted to be in academia, but now I'm realizing other stuff and trying to increase my options. It's hard to let go of your dream job, but I've been telling the same thing that you've underlined in the video, as academia in Turkey works somewhat similarly if you want to teach in a "prestigious" university. I'll remind myself to watch this video whenever I spiral.
Tl;dr, we'd like to hear you scream, and academia sucks.
Thank you so much for the quality content on RUclips!
your channel and your videos are really inspiring, thank you for your work ❤️❤️
VIDEO NOTES:
Lesson 1: Do stuff.
Lesson 2: Don't know how bad you are.
Lesson 3: Find the right enviroment for you.
Lesson 4: Most hard concepts aren't hard, but relies on previous knowledge.
Lesson 5: Be realistic but not too realistic.
Lesson 6: There's no time limit on learning.
Lesson 7: Find a mentor.
Lesson 8: If you're an expert in something, if you've ever succeded in something, don't be afraid to drop the ladder back down.
Lesson 9: You can't always tell what's important.
Lesson 10: Sometimes your plans are bad and it's okay if they don't work out.
Your videos are part of the reason I got into making music at 17. Now it’s been one year of learning to sing and play instruments, and I gotta say I love it.
Thank you so much for this video, 12Tone. I went to a liberal arts university to study Music Education, and while I absolutely learned so much during my five-year undergraduate program, there were many things that frustrated me because it wasn't what I was seeking in my education. Hearing your story felt really validating, and I appreciate it so much.
"Life is complicated; and I don't know what I'm doing" - oof.
That jumped out at me too. Oof, but very relatable
I don't know if you read all your comments but I am just so dang inspired by your channel and your story. As a fellow autistic singer out here in the world trying to put some shit together, thank you for making all the excellent videos you've made
Wow! Great video! Lots of great life lessons and wisdom! Thanks! :)
The idea of learning has always been one of my passions. There is nothing I like more than picking up a new technique except for sharing knowledge with an interested learner.
"Life is complicated and I have no idea what I'm doing."
Truth.
Thanks a ton.This helped me a lot.
This is the best video of yours I've seen. I think the core of many (most? all?) of your lessons are that nobody knows anything. Every action is somebody's best guess as to what should be done. Sometimes, their guesses are better than yours, sometimes better than theirs, but you can't let the fact that you don't know the best thing to do next stop you from doing something.
This is great. I’ll be asking my students to give it a watch!
@5:30
This line really hit me. Genius.
I'm not remotely interested in having a job with music, but I still love your videos so I decided to give this one a shot. There is SO MUCH here that's applies exactly to how I felt through my physics and computer science degrees that I feel specifying music school might do this video a disservice. More people should hear this, thanks for this amazing educational video (and channel in general) and I hope it continues to be the best plan you did not consider!
I've admired your analysis for a while now and learned a brand new way to think about writing music from watching your videos. But... hearing you talk about wanting to do game design before you went into music made me love just a little bit more.
This is amazing man. I always wanted to do both music and pursue a graduate degree but I thought it would be impossible. Maybe while I get my PhD I can spend my summers jamming with bands. I’d also love to hear some of your rock/ metal covers
Stupid question perhaps. But since you wanted to become a music teacher once and are doing this amazing RUclips thing now: Did it ever cross your mind to create an online course if sorts? Would be interested, is all I'm saying 😅
That’s what the likes of Chris Lepe do
I love seeing videos that give insight to subjects I don't know about. Channels like yours are incredible and make me feel sharper and are very enjoyable
I am so glad your career path brought you here. My life is better because of 12tone.
“There's a couple of things they don't teach you in music school, one is how to cope with defeat, the other is how to handle a shotgun, I'm going to do both right now.”
Christ where's that from?!
@@theheathbar123 (the Simpson’s movie but slightly edited)
I flunked out of a uni game design program, and recently, after a few years of getting g my life together, decided to go back to school for music. Your videos were a huge part in sparking an interest in music theory. Thank you.
Nicely put
"lesson number four: most hard concepts aren't actually hard, they just rely on previous knowledge.
when something's confusing, it's probably not because your incapable of understanding it. it's
just that the person explaining it has made some incorrect assumptions about what you already know.
especially in a field like theory, everything is built on top of something else. things
that look like huge logical leaps are usually just a series of small steps.
the art of teaching is figuring out which of those steps you need to make explicit,
and the art of learning is asking the right questions to uncover the steps you missed."
Thank you for this explanation! I am currently deciding if I should get my B.A in composition even though I have my associates already. It is very difficult to comprehend that there are more opportunities than just school and a degree. You literally have to step outside of the box and climb up as far as possible when it comes to life!!! Coming from C.A , Berklee is said to be a great school and it is just shocking to realize that there isn't a school that brings all forms of music into one to help everyone learn. Please don't stop making these videos this will be one way I practice my theory for the music I want to create.
I have a great ear for music, but cannot read sheet music to save my life, and have always had issues learning theory, this channel has helped me SO MUCH! Thank you!
This was a really amazing video. It was incredibly well-written and full of insights into the college experience. More than anything, it was tactfully inspirational. Keep up the good work!
That was one of the most incredibly helpful and insightful clips... ever! Thankyou!
I just learn music for myself and never have had or will have plans to go to music school, but the life lessons in here are solid gold! I hope the viewership of this one goes through the roof.
Yeah, that's life alright, you never know where you're gonna go until you're there already, you can only try your best to do what you want(or at least what you think you want) and hope life doesn't avalanche you while you're climbing the mountain to your personal peak.
I'm going to treasure this video and also show it to my friend, it feels like one of those things that we might look on down the road wherever we end up and say "they were right and I'm glad I got those pointers"
Great content, brother!
Your Channel is soo good!!
Watching you from Brazil 🤘🤘🤘
Marvellous, as usual. Worth an immediate re-watch!
This video is gold! Exactly what I need.
broke: don't give up on your dreams!
woke: it's good to give up on your dreams if you find they're really not what you want to be doing
Thanks for the encouragement. Life is full of twists and turns and we become successes by navigating those with grace not by being who we thought we'd be.
wow this is exactly what I need, and it just encouraging me so much to keep work on my youtube channel and my music dream, thanks so much!
Well said. Thanks for all the great content!
I wish I could play this to my 1983 self but I don’t have a time machine and we did t have RUclips back then anyways
Great video - thanks for sharing your journey. Such valuable insight.
So much of this is resonating. I quit my job at a for profit music college in NY last year, and all the problems you're mentioning are there. Terrible pay/benefits, lots of the faculty/staff are recent graduates, and teachers were pressured not to fail students.
Thank you so much. I needed to hear this.
I'm late to the party, but one great lesson as well, especially in the artistic field, is to not have a large amount of projects/plans. You need to focus yourself, your time and skills to a selected amount of project that will help you get where you want to be, even if you're still opened to opportunities.
The sweet number for me is 3. I have 3 main projects that I get focus myself on, without putting my health in danger and still feel fullfilled
The two best things to come out of Metalocalypse, Dethklok and 12tone. Who knew?
Thanks for sharing your story! I've recently been trying to spend more time learning guitar and I'm trying to find a mentor for recording music as well since I have no idea how to do so. Hopefully I can learn more in an efficient way and grow as much as possible.
Boy is this video right on the MONEY. This is some hardcore appropriate very realistic advice. Young musicians, listen to this video carefully. It's spot on. It's also a very interesting story. And of course, 12tone is one of my fave channels of all time, so I may be biased. But wow is this good.
It's also inspired me to make a video of my college music degrees and the pros and cons. This is what great videos do - they inspire others. Thanks, 12tone!
Oh that's a good one eh. I too was a bit of a late bloomer, though I did sing and play the Wurlitzer as a child. I started playing bass in 1977 just as I graduated high school and got into my first band at the start of 1980. A few bands later and life doing its thing and all, I went to school too. More than anything, it put labels on the things I understood but didn't know what to call. The big takeaways for me were ear training and arrangement. I don't think I had perfect pitch but I do now. While you think that's a gift, it's also irritating. The arranging has really come in handy as I grew as a musician and as I got more comfortable writing, it changed the way I saw music. More so with cover tunes. Everyone seems to be able to play a spotless (almost) rendition of any song, but I've always thought, so what, a CD is better. I got to thinking, why not take it somewhere. Remain true to the song, but interpret it in a way that shows another perspective that is interesting. I've done a lot of the things you advise, session work, live music, teaching, (I love teaching) and all of it has taught me stuff. You don't ever really stop learning. My philosophy has always been, find a way to teach someone something. Everyone is an outlier in something. It's in the teaching that the bridge can be built. Man, that sounds prophetic. I don't mean it to be so. Anyway, I am turning people your way through these videos to help explain various aspects of music.
So here is a compliment that you probably don't get very often. You are the manure to my sonic garden. That might even be lyrical but I ain't touching it.
10:11 It's All Star
Sometimes career paths are just random dumb luck - I had some unassigned time in the office and found myself assigned to a life-changing project, along with a number of other trainees. Almost all of them hated the project but it struck a chord with me (metaphorically, not literally), and four years later I was asked to lead a ground-breaking project-within-the-project, which left me as a leader in the field, and 25 years later it pretty much defines my work and career path, and all because I had some unassigned time when I was a trainee 30 years ago.
Well, I can't disagree with anything you have said here. I have a same (though very different) story. Application, integrity with the magic ingredient of time will take anyone a long way in life.
This is the first episode that made me laugh. And it's clear that you are the kind of person who pays attention. "What's the lesson here?" is a great question to ask, and to teach other people to ask themselves.
Thank you for sharing your story. And all the other stuff.
Some-BODY once told me.. ear training was important 10:10
I can’t un-hear it now, you monster
How did you spot that????
@@hairohukosu433 That's ear training/audiation paying off! But also, I know 12tone loves the memes, so I knew it had to be something
This was sweet. Thank you.
Relevant beyond the world of music.
I agree about the David Byrne book. Dare I suggest that there would be great value in a 12 tone music theory book? Illustrated of course!
wow amazing video, def will become one of your most viewed in your channel
Wonderful video - thank you.
Very good video! Thank you
Awesome. And I hadn't realized you were a singer first... (me too.)
good job man. now berklee student is learning from u!
"I love metal"
*draws pentagram*
That's a really impressive thumbnail!
Very inspirational
I just noticed hes left handed and he writes from right to left!!!! Has this always been the case? 😩😩😩
Thank you for this
If you didn't mention it I would NEVER know you were in the spectrum. It makes sense, many geniuses were in the spectrum too, and you are smart AF. Congrats on everything!
That realistic elephant!