I recently listened to an interview with Brian Eno and feverishly wrote down practically every other thing he said. I recommend you give it a listen as it’s full of golden nuggets, but this was by far my favorite quote:
“Do as much as possible with as little as possible. I was never impressed by the kind of music that used complicated time signatures, amazingly brilliant playing and so on. It’s sort of impressive but for me there was not the same magic in that; you could see the trick being done… I’m always drawn to things that look like anybody could do them, where you think, I could have made that. But I fucking didn’t! Why didn’t I?”
Novices often fall into the trap of doing too much. I used to fill my arrangements with as many flourishes I could squeeze in, and I now see that this kind of flexing comes from a place of insecurity. Hit-Boy noticed the same phenomenon in the early days of his career. Once he learned to "leave space in the mix for the vocals," his beats became far more powerful.
In a world of unlimited possibilities, exercising restraint can be revolutionary. After all, there can be no climax without a tantalizing build. As artists, we often get attached to all the different parts in our arrangements, but exercising non attachment is one of the greatest practices for a music producer. Today, I am ruthless about removing everything that isn’t truly serving the song.
I think this same principle applies to life more generally (as all music production laws do in my humble opinion). If something in your life isn’t serving your highest purpose, remove it. Clarity and space are the prerequisites of the greatest art.
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