gate keepers

Producer, professional, beatmaker. Three loaded words. Let’s give them some context.

A producer makes something. It doesn’t matter if they sell it. It doesn’t even matter if anybody thinks it’s good, aside from the producer and their intended audience.

To make that happen, there’s a set of music, technical, organizational, creative skills required to get to the finish line. And to a producer, the finish line is the thing that defines that job. A professional gets paid.

That isn’t and shouldn’t be important to a lot of you. If you’re after a big dependable paycheck, making music is ostensibly one of the stupidest ways to try and achieve that goal. But to get paid, you need to be consistent.

You’ve got to be good enough on your worst day so that it’s still good enough. That takes practice and whether or not you ever make a cent, that’s a worthwhile aspiration. A beatmaker makes a beat.

It’s rhythm, it’s harmony, it’s DAW skills and a little engineering. And rather than obsess over whether or not they’re producers or professionals, let’s welcome anyone and everyone who aspires to put music on this earth and offer them the tools and the know-how to make it the best music it can be. Music needs more voices, not more gatekeepers.

Our mission is to welcome you and to share what we know. And if you or someone belongs in a Beat Kitchen class, share this post.