learn the rules and THEN break them 問題是，你學到Rule了嗎？還是一直把瞎子摸象當成創新？

這裡有一篇很棒的文章：
為了怕原文以後被移除，所以我特別把它Copy過來

You know how they say there are no rules in recording? Well, that’s kind of true.

In college, one of my favorite classes was music theory. I took piano lessons as a kid. I learned guitar as a teenager, and I knew the basics of chord structure, sight-reading music, harmony, etc.

However, I never knew the deeper reasons behind all of these things. I didn’t know why I liked to go from a five chord to the sixth minor chord. I never knew why the five chord likes to resolve to the one chord, and so on.

One of the things we learned in that theory class was the “proper” way to write a choral arrangement. We studied the great composers like Bach and how he would take a single melody and develop a four-part choral arrangement around it. What was so interesting is that all of the choral arrangements of this particular period followed a certain, fairly strict, set of rules.

For example, you could never have what’s called parallel fifths, where two notes are a fifth apart and they move in the same direction. Another rule was that the leading tone, or the seventh note of a scale, always resolved upward. If you’re playing a song in C-major and you had a B-natural note, it could never go anywhere but up to the C.

Doing exercises for this class proved to be quite frustrating. Why? Because in my head, I wanted to do all of these really interesting harmonies, but the more I would branch out, I realized I was beginning to break a lot of rules.

So how does this apply to recording? I’ve said it before, there are no rules in recording; just do what sounds good.

Sometimes, though, it helps to learn what the standard is, so you can understand the process better. Once you understand the process, it becomes much easier to know when it makes sense to obey the rules…when it makes sense to deviate from them.

So the new “rule” for today is this: learn the rules and THEN break them.

Just like with the choral arrangements in my college theory class, I had to learn the strict rules of choral arrangement and learn why they existed before I could then break those rules into something new and creative and beautiful. With recording, you should know the different mic techniques that have been used over the past several decades to get a good drum sound. Once you know those, and have mastered those, then you can try other things.

You can try little deviations here and there and come up with your own rules. BUT, if you don’t listen to the experience of those who have gone before you, it’s very difficult to make any sort of progress without being constantly in a state of confusion.

So, what do you think? Do you follow the rules?

所謂的創新，應該是學到方法之後，再去突破既有方法的一個過程，但是有多少人直接跳過了學習方法這一關？
買了三萬五萬的麥克風，到網路上到處問怎麼錄出好聲音；下載一堆價值不菲的軟體效果器，卻不了解EQ與Compressor擺放順序的差異...
吉他彈的不錯，不代表鋼琴也可以，我想大家都知道這個道理，只是大家常常忽略的，是其實錄音也一樣；使用電腦創作音樂，那更是另外一件事情。拿台電腦來把Loop貼一貼，就稱為「作品」，如果你不尊重這個工作，我想這個工作也不會尊重你。

採購設備容易，難的是你花了多少時間跟金錢在學習怎麼使用設備？

用直覺混音，沒有人會說你不對，但混的好是運氣，因為隨性的混，品質不會穩定，沒有穩定的品質，離專業便有一段距離。去麵攤吃麵，每次都有不同滋味，你會覺得這老闆很有創意嗎？

用直覺去使用Logic Pro，也沒有人會說這樣不行，只是這樣跟用Pro Tools，跟用Cubase有什麼分別？你永遠不會知道Logic Pro到底特別在哪裡。

在不同的軟體上驗證相同的伎倆，請問這有什麼意義？

先把規則學好吧！或許很多人會跟你說，這一行沒什麼規則可循，但是打開亞美利堅共和國，或大日本共榮國的Amazon，相關的自修資料不可勝數。人可以生在島國，但眼界不能侷限在這裡。
如果你的目標是讓隔壁鄰居覺得你寫的歌很好聽，那其實不難，如果你的目標是讓音樂祭的台下聽眾歡呼，基本上你口齒不清他們也會High到不行；但如果你的目標，是希望以後的20年都能靠這個行業要口飯吃，那最好認真的看待這件事。

有天份、有創意，那是外行人的形容詞；這一行的人...我們習慣用的是「很努力」。