Why Giving and Receiving Feedback Is Important

The primary action on GoodHood is uploading works in progress (WIPs) and sharing feedback or ‘reviewing’ tracks. 

Giving and receiving feedback is a part of life. It occurs in the community, the workplace, friendships and intimate relationships. We receive it when we ask for it, and even when we don’t.

It feels intuitive to want to receive feedback in private from people that we trust with our feelings (or our music).

It also makes me wonder what connections might be possible if we are brave enough to broaden the scope.

So How Can Artists Best Support Each Other?

Is like, share, pre-save and follow all we can do for eachother?

We think there’s more than metrics.

At Shoku Beat Sessions events, an observation that we have made (share or not) is that we’re all better off (in some way) for the event taking place. People may leave a little more inspired or confident than they did at the beginning of the day. They might also leave with a feeling of belongingness to the community. Each person who presents music is lifted up and their creations dignified. 

GoodHood is a Community of Practice

A community of practice (CoP) is a group of people who “share a concern or a passion for something they do and learn how to do it better as they interact regularly”.

When someone takes the time to give you some detailed feedback, we all benefit.

By laying the feedback bare for all to read we are sharing our understanding within our community. Everyone stands to benefit from the feedback you are giving. In that way it ceases to be transactional and becomes bi-directional. 

GoodHood asks this question: Could we progress this work in an online environment?

Online… you know, that place where it seems like everyone is screaming into the void and nobody is listening.

That said..online offers some advantages too:

• Can build a database of web-links to resources
• People who can’t attend beat sessions can take part
• It can run 24hrs a day
• You can participate in events that run over weeks or months (e.g., Beat Challenges)
• You can have your own marketplace offering products and services

So could we be drawn deeper into our passion for music making through dialogue focused on improvement? 

Could we draw on the collective knowledge to lift eachother up, and further build the knowledge base and expertise of members?

I’ve come across some interesting research about feedback from the education literature: 

by performing both the role of assessor and being assessed themselves, students’ learning can potentially benefit more than if they are just assessed.

The Elephant in the Room

Rick Rubin says the audience comes last. What YOU think is important, and he’s got a damn good point. The sentiment here, I believe, is to empower you to make what you want, not what you think the audience wants. 

But it raises a few questions.

Why should we put our music out to our peers to give and receive feedback on?

Why is this important?

You might be wondering this?

I certainly am. It’s a valid question and central to the concept of GoodHood. 

A cynical person might say: 

at best it’s just someone blowing smoke and at worst someone could steal your idea…

A ‘realist’ might say:

Well if your peers don’t enjoy your music how can you expect the general public to ‘run it up’ on spotify?

Fair point, you say?

After all your peers understand your struggles as a producer perhaps more than others. 

Now we are warming up. 

But hang on..

Why would I want feedback from someone who hasn’t ‘made it’ as a producer themselves? 

There’s some interesting findings in education research:  

Peer assessments tend to be highly correlated with teacher assessments of the same students. 

It makes sense. By being on both sides (giving and receiving) you develop your ability to step inside and outside of your ‘bubble’. Building empathy and training your ear at the same time, clarifying your knowledge. 

More broadly, you are developing a life skill by participating in this. It’s bigger than music. But if you think you will have a career in music without learning to give and receive feedback then you are also mistaken. 

So by reviewing other people’s tracks, you just might become a better producer yourself. 

Questions of Hope

Could we emphasise the sharing of knowledge in a place where the broader beat making community could take part? 

Furthermore, could artists innovate with this platform?

Could the community find ways to make it work that we have not yet imagined?

There’s a whole culture around watching videos of producers in the studio. Dying to ‘go inside’ the creation process. We seem to want to absorb the feedback that our heroes give to each other, don’t we? 

All in the hope that we might learn more about what it’s like to be in the room with greatness.

That greatness is inside all of us.