Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Alek Hand. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.
Alek, so good to have you with us today. We’ve got so much planned, so let’s jump right into it. We live in such a diverse world, and in many ways the world is getting better and more understanding but it’s far from perfect. There are so many times where folks find themselves in rooms or situations where they are the only ones that look like them – that might mean being the only woman of color in the room or the only person who grew up in a certain environment etc. Can you talk to us about how you’ve managed to thrive even in situations where you were the only one in the room?
I think that figuring this question out for myself was absolutely pivotal for working in the entertainment business. I am often the only one in the room that has anything in common with myself at all, and I used to feel like a weirdo when I would try to interject with my opinions, get my ideas done, or generally just take up some space. I would fall flat when the eyebrows raised and the first naysayer piped up. What I failed to understand that friction is a requirement in collaboration: no one is a creative genius all on their own, people whittle each others ideas down into something precise and beautiful. The ideas we dream up on our own are just raw materiel to be refined. I slowly realized that being the only one on site with my skills and opinions was becoming the main reason to hire me! I realized that I could (MUST) cause the friction, I could take an idea and run with it, I could KEEP TALKING because the raised eyebrows weren’t shutting me down, they were just processing my info. Weirdos are required in the studio, on set, backstage, or wherever creativity is happening. Go weirdos !
Appreciate the insights and wisdom. Before we dig deeper and ask you about the skills that matter and more, maybe you can tell our readers about yourself?
I help people make music! My day to day revolves around exactly what I described in the previous question: taking an idea, raising an eyebrow, and refining it into something that works. I get music in all states of preparedness, and I figure out what to do next. Recording, editing, arranging, overdubbing, mixing. It’s hard to pinpoint the favorite/most important part of this job because each step in the process is like a mini-career, with it’s own set of unique tools, conventions, habits and instincts to build. Each step is also equally essential to the final result, no one can be done poorly. I think that my favorite “step” in the process is a simple email or wetransfer when sending the finished file to the artist. Proving to them that there CAN be a finished file, that this song they spent years writing and another producing can actually be DONE and revealed to the masses for their love and judgement. I try to get on the phone or in person with them if I can for the first listen, it’s always an emotional moment.
There is so much advice out there about all the different skills and qualities folks need to develop in order to succeed in today’s highly competitive environment and often it can feel overwhelming. So, if we had to break it down to just the three that matter most, which three skills or qualities would you focus on?
Skill 1: Listen to music like its water and you’re dying of thirst. If this is hard for you to do, don’t do this job! It should be a natural compulsion for you to listen to a new song 30 times the first day, 100 times the first week, for you to rewind and try to figure out what that little sound was in the background just then, and for you to go back and listen to previously studied music like you’re walking through a childhood home. There should be at least a few songs in your life that you could literally create in a DAW from memory with every note, lyric, tone, effect, fade, click and pop in its place. This is the most important skill, and even without the other two this will carry you somewhere in the music industry. You have to be obsessed and comfortable with the finest details of great music, because you will be in charge of those details.
Skill 2: Imagine a sound in your minds ear. This is essential to doing the “producer” and “mix engineer” parts of this job. Being able to “pre-hear” a sound and then trying to create it with the tools available. This is the 2nd half of inspiration. The first half is twisting knobs around until something sounds cool, but a lot of musicians and amateur producers will continue to do this for every process and at a certain point it becomes stressful and messy trying to mesh all those sounds together. It’s better to know your goal and chase after it
Skill 3: EQ. Go on youtube and learn how to use eq, you don’t know how, and its hurting their ears
Before we go, maybe you can tell us a bit about your parents and what you feel was the most impactful thing they did for you?
This definitely ties back to the previous question and Skill #1. They gave me the gift of listening to music. We didn’t watch a lot of tv when i was a kid, didn’t have any video game consoles or cell phones, but we had a hi-fi speaker system and a thousand CDs. When iPods came out for the first time we had those too, right away. They also let me spend the time, or maybe I was just sneaky about it. I had to listen to music for unreasonable amounts of time, and when I say ” had to” I mean I was pathologically obsessed with each cool song I came across and would be listening to it on repeat for hours and days. They also had instruments at home, paid for piano and guitar lessons, and eventually had a music room with a computer where I practiced recording as a teenager. I give them a ton of the credit for my career because I really do feel I was raised to do this.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.fiascosounds.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/fiascosounds/
- SoundCloud: www.soundcloud.com/fiascosounds
Image Credits
Nicole Montgomery
