It’s funny, I’m a self taught guitarist, and learned from tabs and watching artists hands while they played and crappy Kazaa videos in the early 2000s.
So I didn’t learn from an in person guitar teacher.
But I was thinking, I could probably learn a lot from an in person synth teacher. I watch tons of tutorials and read a lot, but it just doesn’t help me very much.
I just got an intellijel cascadia because I want to potentially have a semi Modular I can grow with, and I just feel overwhelmed at times. It’d be awesome to have an hourly lesson with someone in person.
Any thoughts about this? It’s so common with piano and guitar and other instruments, anyone here ever take synth lessons in person?
I took about 2 months of guitar lessons in the early 90’s and after that I just taught myself everything else.
I could see it being beneficial to have someone address your questions without taking a deep sigh and rolling their eyes. I’m not that big on the in person learning aspect, but I think you’re on the right track. I’d agree, for some types of synthesis this would probably be worthwhile.
I’d say they would have to be pretty qualified and patient and vetted for me to want to pay them though.
This is maybe not the best or most direct way to go about it, but you’ve done a lot of business with perfect circuit from what I gather. If there’s a salesperson you trust, can you ask them if they know a person who is qualified and would be interested in doing some short term in person or zoom call type mentoring?
I think that if you get closer to people who are serious about the business of music, you’ll have an easier time getting a serious answer. Not that people online can’t point you in the right direction but there are sooo many people who want to take your money these days, I wouldn’t know who to trust even from a “I’ve seen them on youtube” standpoint, because skill with a tool is not the same as skilled at teaching the use of a tool.
What in particular about the Cascadia do you find overwhelming? I’m in Lisbon, and I don’t own one, but I have some modular experience, and I would be happy to consult with you for an hour or two over Zoom or something like that, no charge, if you think it would help. I am a teacher, but not a music teacher (though I’ve studied with several music teachers).
@shigginpit probably puts in more time than that each week giving detailed answers to questions, and there are many others who act similarly. It’s the Elektronauts spirit.
This person organises workshops. He is good at it. I followed two of those, and it helped me for many things.
Some events (maybe all, no idea) are available online via zoom.
Super generous! I’ll trade you for a free therapy session if you want, as that’s my profession!
But really, I think if there were a tutorial on YouTube that’d be one thing. It’s more like, what some of the jacks do and why they do it. Right now I’m just kind of blindly plugging in random things to see what happens, which is its own kind of fun for sure. It’d be nice to have a little more command over the sounds.
Elektronauts really is the best! Even if we don’t actually do this, the sincere offer is super cool and generous.
this is 90% the point of modular. If you understand the basics of the signal flow of a synth, modular is about upsetting those norms and finding new sounds outside those boundaries.
Genuinely helpful to hear that. But like, shouldn’t I have at least some idea of when a connection is likely to do something? Or occasionally know how and why something will happen beforehand?
I also love the surprise element too, there’s something to be said about a beginners mind. Some of my favorite stuff on guitar was when I knew nothing and was just flying blind.
I much prefer having some proficiency, but maybe I should embrace the middle ground and mystery…it’s not like I record or play live. It’s just for fun.
There are probably tutorials on YT but I don’t personally know one I could recommend, and anything effective is likely to be lengthy (like, several videos, not just one) and possibly cost money. Though so would a lesson.
Let’s try this. I wrote up an introduction to modular synthesis based on my own experience and a particularly useful module. It may not work for you because you said you’ve tried reading things, but it’ll give you an indication of my style. We can see where to go from there. One possibility is to find equivalents on Cascadia for the modules I talk about. I go through a few characteristic patches and these can be set up on Cascadia and deconstructed with a view to understanding how they work.
In Melbourne, Australia synth classes are definitely a thing. Sometimes they are just one offs, like an introduction to Eurorack, whilst other times are more like short courses. However, it would be uncommon to go to a music school, that teaches piano, violin, and guitar lessons, to do this.
