The artist and the critic within us

Have you ever found yourself wondering why no one likes your art or reads your blog? It’s a question I used to think about a lot when I was younger and it wasn’t until a few years ago that I flipped the question around — why don’t I like the art of other people?

The answer to that question is obvious. We’re not obligated to like anything and we actively despise being told what music to like or who to fall in love with. It’s for that same reason that we can’t demand that people love our work just because we made it. Heck, the mere suggestion of that sounds appallingly totalitarian.

It’s hard to become cognisant of the fact that there’s a difference in the way that we see ourselves and the way that others see us. Obviously the same goes both ways; the way that we see other people is not how they see themselves.

When it comes to artistic pursuits we’re both critics and creators; the important thing is to recognise that and to let those two aspects of ourselves understand one another. Putting yourself in the shoes of the reader when you’re reading back on your blog posts will probably reveal all kinds of mistakes and problems.

You could argue that the opinions of others shouldn’t be taken into account and that’s a valid point. However, I’m not interested in defending a position further than it is useful — there’s nothing wrong with pursuing the acceptance of others as long as you don’t sacrifice your integrity along the way.

Anyway, that’s all for now.

 

You don’t have to feel uninspired

Note to self — feeling uninspired is something you can change.

Let’s roll back a bit. I had promised to visit a friend of mine last night so I decided to kill two birds with one stone and write today’s track at his place. My friend isn’t a musician but we were still able to work together primarily by me throwing suggestions his way and then listening to his feedback and paying attention to his reactions.

How did it turn out? Well, I had more fun writing today’s track than I’ve had in weeks and I think that the tongue-in-cheek nature of the songwriting process freed me up to try out lots of different things. When you’ve got someone to bounce ideas off of it’s a lot easier to find excitement in what you’re doing.

If you find yourself stuck in a rut then maybe it’s time for you to simply change things up a little bit. Go work in a different place, collaborate with new people or maybe just try working in a different way than usual. Set limitations and come up with challenges; do anything you can to find an angle that’ll help you get involved in what you’re doing.

Being annoyed with the way things are is just a sign that it’s time to pull the breaks and take a closer look at what’s cooking. Things rarely change on their own and if you want them to, then you’re going to have to make it happen.

Anyway, that’s all for now.

Journey into the unknown

The most daunting part about learning songwriting is the near-infinite amount of things to study. This aspect of art is scary from a student’s perspective because trying to master something limitless seems impossible but ultimately that’s just the nature of art. As students we have to detach from the feeling of dismay and remember that if it wasn’t for all the possibility we would never have been moved by great art in the first place.

Appreciating the vastness of artistic opportunity is wonderful on paper but it doesn’t really offer any direction for newbies such as myself. So how does one actually go about trying to learn something massive like songwriting? Well, how were cartographers able to map out the entire world before there were any maps — by uncovering the unknown, one place at a time.

The best part about writing a song a day is that the sheer amount of work I have to do gives me the opportunity to keep trying lots of new things. On days when I’m really tired I don’t even try to write a full song, instead I write a short sketch where I try out a new concept or technique.

I find that writing these sketches is an incredibly powerful practice method because it allows me to continually expand my musical vocabulary and knowledge base. Before this week I had never even touched a bit crusher or automated any effects on the master bus but thanks to the last two sketches I now have whole new colours on my palette to paint with.

If you find yourself daunted by the totality of what you’re trying to learn, then zoom in on one tiny thing and focus on that instead. Keep doing that repeatedly for a long enough amount of time and you’ll find that becoming a better artist is not that bad after all. Anyway, that’s all for now.

 

 

Dysfunctional perfectionism is holding you back

Perfectionism becomes a problem when it prevents you from doing things and if there’s one thing I’ve learned from writing a song a day for two months, it’s that you don’t need to write the best track of your songwriting career every single day. The mere act of sitting down and writing music on a daily basis holds its own value — it keeps you in the game.

Skipping practice is something you don’t ever want to get good at. Showing up is one of the most important preconditions to any development. You can’t get better if you don’t show up to practice, there’s just no way. You’re bound to have a few bad days because your thoughts are all over the place and that’s fine. If you just keep showing up you’ll be forced to come up with a solution; it’s in your own interest.

Obviously if you’re in a coma or some other critical state you’re going to have to skip a day or two. What I’m trying to say is that you shouldn’t allow petty reasons like dysfunctional perfectionism or mild annoyance derail your progress. Your threshold for skipping a day has to be at a decent level or else you’ll never get to where you want to be.

And that brings us to a case in point, the track I wrote for today sounds pretty damn awful.  However I’m glad that I took the time to sit down and write it and heck, I even tried using some 7th chords for the first time. The fact that this song turned out bad may be a short term defeat, but it’s a crucial stepping stone in attaining the long term goal.

Don’t skip practice. That’s all for now.

Get some rest and be at your best

I had a whole day of stuff planned in my schedule for yesterday and I woke up at five in the morning thinking that I’d be able to work for next ten hours nonstop; to say that I was delusional would be an understatement.

I was able to work for about three hours and that’s when the exhaustion hit me like a truck. I wasn’t able to concentrate and it felt like hours were whizzing by and I wasn’t getting anything done. In hindsight it’s plain to see that what I really needed to do was take a break.

Wasting time in any form is just plain old stupid. Instead of staring at a screen I could have taken an intentional two hour break and I probably would have had enough energy to keep working after that. Instead I kept pushing and accomplished nothing outside of that three hour window in the morning.

Treating your days as if they’re something you can blast your way through is delusional. It’s like trying to sprint at full speed to the top of a mountain and running out of steam before you’ve even made it to the foot of the mountain. If making it up to the top is what you actually want to accomplish then it’s time to re-evaluate your strategy.

Keep an eye on yourself while you’re working and try to spot moments when your well-intentioned efforts are simply being wasted. Take a break, get some rest and then hop back on that horse. That’s all for now.

 

Run as far as you can, then as far as you must

I feel like throughout my youth people told me and my peers that we could achieve great things. That message never sat well with me until later on in my life I began to notice that I was only spending a tiny fraction of my time productively. That’s when I became curious — if I stopped being a lazy schmuck what could I actually achieve?

When you chart unknown territory you are discovering your potential in a very literal sense. The process isn’t pain-free; being in the unknown is scary and there’s not always going to be a happy ending. It’s important to meet your limits because that’s where true humility and self-discovery is found, which brings me to a quote I once read from a book that I can’t remember the name of.

First you run as far you can, then as far as you must.

Yesterday was my first day at work and boy was I out of my comfort zone. Trying to figure out new technologies on the fly pushed me into the great unknown and although it’s extremely scary and uncomfortable, the opportunity is something of which I’m incredibly grateful.

This songwriting challenge is also very much an attempt to discover my potential as a songwriter. They even say that you’re not a real songwriter until you’ve got two hundred songs under your belt and after today’s track I only have a hundred and thirty-seven left to hit that magic number. In my case it’s obviously going to take a lot more practice than that but I’m not in a hurry.

Anyway, that’s all for now.

Fix the little things first

A dear friend of mine is currently in a tough place because he doesn’t know what he wants to do with his life. We spent a lot of time discussing his gripes with the current situation and by the end we both seemed to arrive at the same realisation—all the problems we’d been discussing were abstract and enormous in scope.

The conversation had started off by us talking about how difficult it is to overcome procrastination and to come up with a schedule that you can stick to. We circled back to this starting point and concluded that the right place to start was by fixing the problem with procrastination first.

When lots of tiny things are out of order we find ourselves trapped and surrounded by what can only be described as chaos. By fixing tiny things one at a time we’re able to tame this chaos into order which in turn makes it easier to keep tackling new issues as they appear on our radar.

This daily songwriting challenge is a perfect example of me trying to untangle the mess around me. The number of things I don’t know how to do feels almost infinite at times, but I have no doubt that I’m in a better place now than I was when I started.

Start with the little things. Take out the trash, send that email that you’ve been avoiding for the last few months or go get a haircut so that you don’t look like a hot mess. I guarantee that after you tackle a few things you’ll start to feel better and things will get back on track.

Anyway, that’s all for now. Today’s my first day of work at a new place and I’m feeling pretty antsy about it; wish me luck!

 

The link between theory and application

I’ve spent a lot of time brushing up on music theory and I’ve been trying to put it into practice but the results have been lacklustre. That’s because there is one crucial step in between theory and application that I was missing — examples.

The world is full of great art and we know this firsthand because we wouldn’t be trying to create anything had we not been moved by art in the first place. Once we dive into the craft and have our noses deep in the theory books, there’s a danger that we stop experiencing and paying attention to great art.

When a wise man points at the moon, the imbecile examines the finger.

Confucius

Since I’m trying to write good music it would seem logical to start by listening to some good music and trying to imitate it. I’ve always liked Lana Del Rey’s first release so I dropped one of her tracks from the album into Ableton Live and began to dissect it.

I started by mapping out the drums in the track and that lead to quite a shocking realisation. The beat stays pretty much the same throughout the track and it’s played entirely on a kick and snare. That made me scratch my head and I figured that there had to be more to it, so I listened closely.

Upon listening to the track again I noticed that there’s lots of sound design elements and samples that augment the drum beat. Now, I’ve never used samples or effects in any of my tracks but since I was in the imitation business I decided to try them out. The result was quite shocking; the beat actually came alive.

Perhaps there is a course out there on music production that teaches this but I’ve never come across one. Great art exists in the world even if there was no theory to explain its inner workings. By all means, study theory but let great art itself be your greatest teacher.

Anyway, that’s all for now.

Too proud for help, too scared to grow

I’ve never been good at asking for help or admitting that I need it. I think that a large part of it is driven by my fear of being a failure, of not being bright enough. Over the years I’ve come to realise that this kind of thinking is counter-productive—no one’s a master at birth and if we truly care about ourselves we have to be willing to accept help when it is necessary.

I was too young, too weak from the road.
Too proud for help, too scared to grow,
Out of my depth and out of control,
I was so lonely then, living in slow motion.

Patrick Wolf

Asking for help at the right time does not make you weak, in fact, quite often it makes you stronger. Writing today’s track involved a lot of help from outside sources and as a result I learned completely new things that I would not have been subjected to had I just kept struggling alone in the dark.

I started by trying out different chords from a book of ready-made progressions and I was able to find quite a few new ones that I absolutely love and probably wouldn’t have come up with on my own. Using such a book is something that I would have considered cheating back in the day, now I just view it as a little helper.

I’ve also been trying out a music collaboration service called Splice with a fellow forum member Bostjan Zupancic and I decided to pitch the track to him, asking if he’d want to lay down some bass. He agreed to do it and boy am I glad that he did, because his playing really brought the track to life. Writing bass lines is something that I really struggle with and hearing his playing gave me lots of ideas to try out in my own writing.

If you’re struggling on your own, feel stuck and unfulfilled then please try reaching out to other people. I know that they say that the internet has made people less social but never before has there been as much opportunity to reach out to people with similar interests and passions. Anyway, that’s all for now.

 

The beginner blues

As beginners we stand at the foot of a mountain staring up at the peak and what stands in between is a long and arduous climb. I suck at almost every area of songwriting and I constantly keep discovering new things that I don’t know how to do. If you’re in a similar position don’t let the frustration discourage you; at the beginning our progress is hard to see and there’s only one rule in the book — don’t quit.

Everybody I know who does interesting
creative work went through a phase
of years where they had really good taste
and they could tell what they were
making wasn’t as good as they wanted it to be.

Ira Glass

Truth be told our dissatisfaction with our current work is one of our core competencies as creative types. If we lacked the ability to tell that our work is bad when it actually is bad, we’d risk becoming one of those hopelessly misguided people on talent shows. Frustration is a sign that something isn’t working and we’d be fools to ignore it.

With today’s track I kept playing around with suspended chords and I have to say that I’m starting to appreciate the harmonic opportunities they have to offer. The verse chord progression is heavily based on the iii chord in a way that I suspend it momentarily and immediately release back into the minor chord; this creates an effect where it sounds like the chord is trapped and can’t break free.

Anyway, that’s all for now.