We recently connected with Justin Douville and have shared our conversation below.

Justin, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. Learning the craft is often a unique journey from every creative – we’d love to hear about your journey and if knowing what you know now, you would have done anything differently to speed up the learning process.

I approach any new artistic skill by learning the technical to enable the creative.

When it comes to learning electronic music production I tend to dive into manuals. Any new DAW, synth or tactile skill (like theory on piano) is something I approach through reading and taking notes as if it were for a class or something haha. When I put in that work on the front end, I find that growth comes a lot quicker as I tie learned concepts to outcomes. I’ve commonly run into concepts I don’t understand during the learning phase but just make note and keep going, knowing that I can shed more light on things in the experimentation phase where I apply that information.

The most essential skill for me is understanding the lowest level information i can handle, so my creative brain can take over and combine differing concepts in their purest form. Building Ableton instrument racks is an example of taking a slew of techniques and combining them as a way to create unique tools for expression in the writing process.

Obstacles to learning have mainly been lack of time, lack of discipline or distractions. I’m always curious to see how I can develop my craft and there’s always new things to be learned. I’ve come to look at learning something as the number one way to defeat “writer’s block” and encourage flow states.

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

My name is Justin Douville I’ve been producing electronic music for about 6 years, before that I had a bit of experience in guitar and lyricism (predominantly improvised). I got into the industry through managing artists, then quickly realized my passion for music and teaching outweighed my desire to manage/book artists.

The BackLeft brand right now represents escapism in its positive and negative aspects. Whether it’s the imagery (a combination of organic forms and surrealism to create dreamlike landscapes), or the act of actually creating, the project is meant to speak to an escape from discomfort or pain that the real world can instill. I tend have strong reactions to events in the world around me, music and art give me a way to transmute that discomfort into something else. The ultimate goal is to connect listeners to themselves and inspire the pursuit of expression.

Now I offer the following services: teaching in both group and 1:1 settings, mastering, playing shows, and commissioned pieces for professional projects.

I am most proud of my presence in the educational space. My goal in life is to help enable others towards their creative pursuits. Music and art in general have brought me a great sense of identity and happiness, I think everyone should experience the beauty creating art can bring to their life.

Are there any books, videos, essays or other resources that have significantly impacted your management and entrepreneurial thinking and philosophy?

Yes! Flow by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi (shoutout Restraint for showing me this one) and The Art of Learning by Josh Waitzkin are two great books about the creative process.

Flow is a deep dive into what enables the creative process and how to achieve flow states, arguably the most satisfying experience life has to offer. I highly recommend this one to anybody who is looking to romanticize the creative process and develop a deeper passion for their craft.

The Art of Learning opened up a whole world of new perspectives for me when it comes to thinking about really any skill in life by looking through the lens of another learned skill. Written by a world champion in both chess and Tai-Chi, this book taught me to look for lessons in everything I do so that I can apply them to different pursuits. If you’re looking to find inspiration for art in everything you do and vice versa, this one is well worth checking out.

Learning and unlearning are both critical parts of growth – can you share a story of a time when you had to unlearn a lesson?

Something I still have to unlearn constantly is adopting any hard rules of thumb. Some examples in music are “low cut everything that isn’t your sub bass”, or “always sidechain from kick and snare”. If these specific examples don’t really make sense, the sentiment is essentially that when we think we know something.. we don’t. Trying to learn things as fundamentals then build on them is natural in the pursuit of progression, but the beautiful things happen in uncharted territory.

“Learn the rules to break the rules” is saying that kind of sums this up well. Sometimes I go out of my way to break the rules and often come out of it with a new technique that will bring a dimension to the work that I wouldn’t have found otherwise, along with a better understanding of how some concept operates in practice.

Another thing worth unlearning is the idea that I know what opportunities yield the best results. asking questions, saying yes and exploring new opportunities to expand is always something I am trying to do a lot more of.

Quick shoutout to all my great friends! (you should check them out): Phunk Bias, Shea Buttah, Skinny Limbs, Manfish, Senan, Kuhlin, Slomato, Restraint, Hullaballoo, Keota, Smoke AM, Bread Winner, Osis, Kizer, Sqonk, Chez, Omnist, Duffrey, Cumulus Frisbee, Mezmer, 5meomartian, Zip Visuals, and Seity

Contact Info:

• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/backleftmusic
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Backleftmusic
• Twitter: https://x.com/backleftmusic
• Soundcloud: https://m.soundcloud.com/backleftmusic

Image Credits

Ethan Klement (https://www.instagram.com/ethan_klement_)

sqrl.x
https://www.instagram.com/sqrl.x

Kyle Brim
https://www.instagram.com/kylebrim