What's your doing/learning ratio?

[futuremoves]

Having played around casually with Live for many years I realised that to make any significant progress I need to do a lot more formal learning. For example, reading the manual, working through tutorial videos, ear training, deconstructing tunes I like, etc, etc. all of those things are exercises, rather than simply enjoying making music. I don't always enjoy these tasks, but they help me progress.

My question is, how much of your "music time" do you spend doing formal learning and how much do you just let rip and enjoy yourself?

[Timbeaux]

70% fun 30% homework

okay making task is often fun, too.

[stevemac]

60/40 split [doing vs. messing about / learning]

The reality is that most progression will probably come from spending 95% of your time trying things out, so we should all aim to spend as much time doing this.

[ian_halsall]

90% experimentation

10% writing

[stoersignal]

when i recognize that i could not get into the creative flow i start to learn, make templates and stuff like that.
everybody knows hours/days/weeks/months where it just doesn`t flow.
2 years ago i had a time where i did no music for almost a year, but i used this whole time for learning, optimizing my setup.......
half year ago a very creative phase startet and since then there was no time for learning at all
for me it was the most important thing that i have learned. to quickly figure out if its working at the moment or not.
since i have learned that i produce ten times more and have learned as much as never before.
the most important thing: do something! everyday! producing, jamming, learning, whatever
but do it every day

[futuremoves]

when i recognize that i could not get into the creative flow i start to learn, make templates and stuff like that.
everybody knows hours/days/weeks/months where it just doesn`t flow.
2 years ago i had a time where i did no music for almost a year, but i used this whole time for learning, optimizing my setup.......
half year ago a very creative phase startet and since then there was no time for learning at all
for me it was the most important thing that i have learned. to quickly figure out if its working at the moment or not.
since i have learned that i produce ten times more and have learned as much as never before.
the most important thing: do something! everyday! producing, jamming, learning, whatever
but do it every day

I think "do it every day" is a really good tip. Even if I just use my ear training app (Quiztones, if you're interested), I like to do something to feel I am progressing. Sometimes I will just play around. The thing I love about music production as a hobby (and for me it definitely is a hobby), is that it's so much about learning. I think you have to have a love of learning to be into music production.

[ian_halsall]

making music is like science or maths

[Erik Mitchell]

the most important thing: do something! everyday! producing, jamming, learning, whatever
but do it every day

Great advice.

I personally will create a track start to finish. After that I will take a "break" which usually entails watching some tutorials, organizing my sound library, etc.

Not sure what that split comes to percentage wise... LOL