Listen Like a Producer: How to Learn From Your Musical Heroes Without Copying Them

Musical heroes aren't just figures to admire from afar—they're valuable teachers offering lessons that can transform your production skills. Diving into the art of learning from influences without copying them, this episode explores how studying your favorite artists' techniques can elevate your own creative process.

Drawing from jazz traditions where musicians have always learned by studying their predecessors' recordings, we break down why this approach works just as effectively in modern music production. You'll discover why it's virtually impossible to copy someone's sound exactly—between different equipment, plugins, and techniques, what you're really gaining is insight, not imitation. This realization frees you to learn without limitation.

Creating organized reference playlists emerges as a game-changing practice for serious producers. Rather than haphazardly consuming music, you'll learn how to categorize influences by genre, artist, or specific elements like melody or bass, focusing on one aspect at a time for deeper understanding. The episode also explores the power of cross-genre listening—how expanding beyond your comfort zone introduces fresh ideas that can make your productions stand out. Even industry giants like Timbaland continue building their mental libraries of influences throughout their careers, proving that homework matters regardless of your current level.

Ready to transform how you listen to and learn from music? Develop the multi-dimensional listening skills that separate casual listeners from professional producers. Check out my music under Tony King and follow my new YouTube channel and blog for more insights as we grow and learn together. Your musical heroes have left a map—it's time to follow it toward your unique sound.

Youtube Channel: https://youtube.com/@thetonikingexperience7645

Rare Keys Production- https://rarekeysproduction.com

Toni King link: http://www.linktr.ee/toni.king

Rare Keys Production Consultation services: https://mystore1545.samcart.com/products/music-production-consultation-services

The Toni King Experience

Chapters

• 0:00 Welcome and Introduction
• 0:38 Learning From Musical Heroes
• 2:53 Creating Reference Playlists
• 5:40 Cross-Genre Listening Benefits
• 8:33 Do Your Homework Like Timbaland
• 9:57 Tony's Music and Channel Updates

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:01

Hello and welcome back everyone to a brand new episode of Teach One Tuesday podcast. We're going to get into some more great things about our songs and references, but you know what it is. Before we do that, let's get into that theme music family. All right? All right, welcome back everyone to another great episode of teach one tuesday podcast. Man, we're going to get into it.

Speaker 1: 0:40

Um, I'm just excited about, uh, this subject about references and and having your musical heroes that you look up to, that you can learn from, and I think this is so important. You do not have to reinvent the wheel. You know and don't feel like, because you're listening to your heroes and you're taking some things from them, that you are copying them verbatim. You know this is a practice in the jazz world. I am a jazz musician as well. I do a lot. I'm a jazz musician as well as what I studied in school, and that is the name of the game. The name of the game is to learn from the jazz heroes that came before you, whether it's phrasing. If you're a keyboardist or guitarist, you know comping, you know. If you're a bassist, just how to walk, you know, you know and all those little things that end up being big things as you go on in your learning process, and the music production space is no different, and so I want you to be confident in the fact that you can listen to your heroes and to be able to glean from them and to be able to learn. Now let me say this to you there are so many factors you know as people are creating their sound. So I say this because I don't want you worrying about copying them exactly, because that's not really going to happen, because you know their instruments, what they're using. There are different eqs, there are different compressors that they're using there, there's uh other other plugins that they're using, um, uh on their uh in their sessions, and all that. So you don't have to worry about copying verbatim, because you're not going to there. You know there are people who were using a lot of digital stuff today. We don't know if they use a console. You know an actual console. There's so many things that are going on and so many uh factors that created their particular sound, right? So I just want to say that, so you can know that you're not going to copy verbatim. So feel free to listen and take from what they're doing. There are so many elements.

Speaker 1: 2:54

I I kind of give a, you know, a basic list, which is melody, counter melody, uh uh, harmony and bass. Right, it's on a a, on a simple. It's a simple list of of what's really going on there, um, but I want you to really dive in, create a list. Even I have several playlists. Maybe I should uh make this about you know, you creating a playlist for yourself. I have a playlist as far as jazz is concerned. I have a playlist, christmas music playlist. I love christmas music. Uh, going all the way back to frank sinatra. I have a music production playlist, um, I have I have gospel playlist.

Speaker 1: 3:38

I have different playlists, um, that I that I use for inspiration and there's so much that's going on in one song and absolutely one song it's only. You know there's there's so much going on, so we have so much music out here and you know the way they're mixing and matching today. You know they, for instance, in country music, um, they have some stuff that you would hear in pop music or r&b music. You know some tracks, some things that would some tracks in there, or some sounds or some percussion things in there that you would normally hear in r&B or pop you would hear now in country music. So everybody is mixing and matching. You know their sounds and and so many things that are going on, and so, as you are creating this list, these, these, uh, playlists of yours, you know, take one song, don't overwhelm yourself. I know we like to dive in and try to do so many things at one time, but you do not have to try to do everything all at once. Create a playlist and pick one song, pick one playlist, pick one song and pick an element that you want to focus on. You know, uh, that you want to try to emulate, and this goes along with the sounds that I we talked about in some previous episodes, about picking your sounds and spending time, really spending time with that and and picking things that you really like.

Speaker 1: 5:06

This goes hand in hand for me, because you'll hear a lot of sounds. I've heard sounds in music that I recognize. That's in logic. I use a lot. I use logic for my daw and, as you well know that there are a lot of sounds that come with logic, I use sounds from other things to other uh, uh, yeah, other um, sound banks that I have gotten, uh, sounds from, or sound libraries is what I'm searching for sound libraries. I got some stuff outside of that, of course, but I have recognized some sounds that there are right in logic, right, so there are sounds everywhere.

Speaker 1: 5:40

So, uh, knowing what sounds you have, exploring that also, and now having a playlist, having some playlists that you can go, uh, go to and listen and and picking an element and and picking how you want to listen and picking how you want to listen, right, picking how you want to listen. This is so important. I want you to understand this that engineers are listening different. Singers are listening differently. Instrumentalists are listening differently. Uh, going back to the engineering side, uh, mixers and, and people who mix and people who master are, yeah, there's some similarities, but there's some things that there's some different things listening for. Um, uh, you know, yeah, background singers are listening for certain things everybody's listening for, for different things.

Speaker 1: 6:26

But as a producer, as a producer at least, I would say we're we're listening in a lot of those ways, right, because we're putting this music together for someone or for yourself. So you want to have all this stuff in your ear. You know, and I personally think I've been blessed to like different genres of music and it shows up in my music. You know what I mean and so I've been blessed to play different styles, to like different styles, and so that's the other thing I want to encourage you with Don't be afraid to go across genres. Don't be, don't be afraid to, you know, to dive into country, dive into pop or dive into R&B or listen to some classical music, big band. Don't be afraid to jump through genres because there are there are elements and things that are really amazing and it really opens you up and you're exposed to a lot.

Speaker 1: 7:23

I think for some people, um, even on mainstream, mainstream, uh, media. I want to see media, but on on radio, you know, you hear some tracks, you hear some artists and their tracks are okay. I mean the, the, the engineers make sure it's popping. You know what I mean. So I get that it's cool, but you know you have some tracks that are really not that interesting. You know, I think the mixing and mastering engineers pull out some tricks to make things pop so that you know that thing is bumping in the car or whatever. That's cool.

Speaker 1: 8:02

But for me as a producer and as a songwriter and as an artist, I want things to be interesting in many different ways on on many different levels, um, whether that's vocally, uh, musically, the arrangement, uh, obviously, the um, the mixing and mastering. You want everything for me I'm saying for me personally I want everything to be popping and falling into place. So I really want to to encourage you to really dive in and do some homework, because it's not just going to fall on you, it's not just going to fall out of the sky. I need you to understand that the homework is important. It's very important.

Speaker 1: 8:35

I remember Timberland, on a mix with the masters, talking about how he just took time and he just listened. He just got so many records different, you know, uh, I'm sure at some point because he's older tapes, records, cds, I mean he got all kinds of stuff you know what I mean so that he can listen and see what these cats were doing. And that's the reason why he's such a monster producer, because he's he has. All this stuff is stored in his brain, and his brain everybody's brain is a computer, so he has all these influences, so when he goes to produce for someone, all this stuff comes out. Now, you know me, and that's why, even though he's not the only one in the room as well, I want to say that he's not the only one in the room, but I, but I want you to know he's done his homework and he's still doing his homework, and he's, and, and his engineers are some of his great friends.

Speaker 1: 9:23

All right, um, so he knows how the process works. All right, and so, uh, again, do your homework. Um, um, create those playlists for yourself so you can just go straight to it. You don't have to wonder. You can do it by artists, you can do it by engineer, you can do it by style. However you want to do it. This is stuff that I am doing. I'm not telling you anything. I'm not telling you to do anything that I'm not doing myself. All right, so that you can have those references and you can continue to expand yourself. All right, I want to thank you so much for checking this out, man, before we go.

Speaker 1: 9:57

Do Tony King Experience. All right, where I am doing covers of my favorite songs. You can hear my production style. You can hear my rough mixes on there. Also, if you want to hear my music, go and look up Tony King. Tony with an I, authentically Me. Kingdom Radio is there and Greater Love is there. All my music is there. So go and check it out.

Speaker 1: 10:21

I want everyone to know that there's going to be some changes to my podcast. I'm going to be putting, or starting, a channel on YouTube. I'm still going to be putting the episodes on here. I'm still going to be recording this and I'm still going to be putting them on Buzzsprout and other platforms, but I'm going to be on YouTube, have an actual youtube channel for the podcast. So that's exciting. Uh, do me a favor as well go and check out my blog, sonic kingship art blog, giving even more value, more information, man, so we can grow and learn together. And and I'm just excited about all that is happening I hope everyone is learning and growing and I'm learning and growing along with you. All, right, I wanna thank you so much for checking this out. I hope you're having a wonderful day. If you're not having a wonderful day, you can change that by your mindset. Thanks so much, tony King out. Thank you.