9 Things I’ve Learned from 3 Months of Daily Music Making
This post is from an experiment I did years ago that completely changed the path of my music making, lead to the release of 10x the music I was making previously AND the quality of what I was making improved dramatically. I hope what I have learned from daily music making motivated you to try to do this yourself. Even if you are only able to do 15 minutes a day,. It all adds up!
To be fair & honest, there were 3 occasions when I found myself away from home and unable to produce. But aside from that, I’ve stayed committed to this practice. To be honest, it feels much longer. There are songs I’ve completed that I’ve already completely forgotten about until I go back through my work. I see that as a very good thing, as it means I’ve accomplished a lot. If you want to follow my daily progress or get involved yourself, join my free Facebook thread.
As always, I want to share with you what I’ve learned so far on this journey.
1. You Don’t Have to Feel Creative to Be Creative
In the past, I always thought inspiration was the precursor to great work. Now I can say with some confidence that this is only partly true. I’ve done some of my best work on days when I thought I had nothing to give creatively. Knowing that I had to get my hour in, I went in with the attitude of “Okay, let’s just get this over with,” and several hours later, I came out of the session with a smile on my face. I’ve learned that we are creative beings, so we can’t not be creative, even if we don’t feel it. It’s like those days when you don’t feel hungry, but once someone offers you a bite, you realize you’ve got a bigger appetite than you thought.
It turns out that inspiration is a process. It comes when we take a leap of faith. The best way to do inspiring work is to just keep doing work.
2. Don’t Marry Your Work
When you make music regularly, you’ll almost certainly have one or two songs that stand out above the rest. No matter what you make in the future, people will continue to rave about your old tunes. Don’t get down about this. Your job isn’t to make people like everything you do; your job is to keep making music that you like. If you stop to try to figure out what you did in the past, you run the risk of stopping your creative flow completely (though it doesn’t hurt to reference past successes). Just let whatever comes to you happen. Make it the best you can, then move on to the next. Don’t spend too much time celebrating what you’ve done in the past. Keep moving into the future, and you’ll find yourself with a serious body of work you can be proud of.
3. Don’t Be Concerned About the Legal Stuff
I’ve found that legal nonsense is the biggest waste of time. Creativity can’t be governed by laws or rules. Use everything as your canvas and be shameless about it—movies, speeches, other songs, presets, sample CDs, something you overhear at a pub. It’s all fair game. If you feel inspired to borrow or repurpose something, that’s reason enough to go ahead with it. Of course, there will be some songs you can’t sell, but we don’t create strictly for money anyway. We simply express first and deal with what’s marketable later.
4. Stand on Your Own Shoulders
You’ve probably heard the quote, “Standing on the shoulders of giants.” I interpret this to mean that everything we’re able to do today is thanks to the genius that came before us. We didn’t have to invent all the creative tools we use today, and we certainly don’t need to reinvent the wheel to make great things happen. Success templates are already in place, giving you some of the greatest creative advantages in history.
When you make music every day, you’ll soon realize you can start standing on your own shoulders. As you create more music, you’ll figure out how to perfect that kick, create a great effects chain, or craft a groovy hi-hat rhythm. Congrats! You’ve just added another tool to your box that you can pull out anytime. Usually, you’ll tweak it to fit your current song, and often those tweaks will make the tool even better. By standing on your own shoulders, you create an upward spiral, and you’ll rarely have to start from scratch again. This has sped up my songwriting process enormously.
5. Find a Mentor, But Trust Yourself
If you’re smart, you’ll have someone you can share your music with who will give you honest feedback and good advice. This has helped me improve a lot, but I’ve also learned to trust my instincts, even if my work doesn’t get the positive feedback I expected. No matter who’s helping to guide you and offer advice, they are not you and simply can’t connect with everything you do. That’s okay. It’s fine to go ahead with something because you like it, even if your friends don’t. Just make sure not to let your ego get too involved. As long as you’re making music, a second or third opinion can be priceless to your progress, even if you don’t always follow their advice.
6. Off Days
In the last 3 months, I’ve had off days—days when I felt like I sucked. These periods typically last 2–3 days before you come out of them. If you’ve been on a wave of momentum and hit a slump, it can be debilitating and sink you into a deep depression if you’re not careful. The secret is to just keep moving forward. I tell myself that if after 5 days the song just isn’t happening, I’ll scrap it and start something new. So far, though, what seemed like a dud has always turned into something I’m proud of. The more you make music, the higher your standards become. This means that what you made 6 months ago probably won’t cut it for you today. You have off days because you’re getting better. You’re more sensitive to the subtleties that make music great. Sometimes the sound you’re going for is just out of reach with your current skillset, but you’ll get there. And when you do, you’ll have reached a whole new level with higher expectations for yourself. Don’t worry about off days. If you never had them, you probably haven’t pushed yourself hard enough.
7. Every Day Is a Success
You can’t worry too much about how awesome today’s session was. The success happened the moment you sat down to work for your hour, instead of creating some excuse not to. If you put in your hour, you win, and you become part of the productive elite in your field.
8. Ambient Sounds Can Make a Crappy Song Sound Better (and a Good Song Great)
When a song is too clean, it often sounds amateurish. This might be a stylistic choice, but in my experience, some random ambiance low in the background will make almost any song gel better. It can be an iPhone recording while you’re out on a walk or in a restaurant, or it can be some spoken-word piece you found on YouTube. You can’t really do this wrong. The unexpected sounds, sitting low in the mix, will subconsciously add interest to a song that might otherwise be monotonous or loopy. I like whatever I use to be mostly indecipherable, so I’ll often add reverb and delay to not only disguise the source but also make it more rhythmic. Mixing the predictable with the random creates a beautiful balance.
9. You Are a Natural Problem Solver
When you hit a creative roadblock or need to figure out how something is done, your brain is far more powerful than you give it credit for. Before diving into a tutorial, assess what tools you have available and figure out which ones have the greatest likelihood of getting the job done. If you pause and let your own creativity rise to the surface, you’ll be amazed at the innovative yet simple techniques you come up with. I’m not anti-tutorials, but I am anti-overthinking. If you constantly look for someone else to solve your problems, you’ll never build confidence in your own unique problem-solving skills.
I loved this creative journey I’ve taken, and I learned so much, so quickly. If there’s one thing I’ve learned, it’s that you’ll never know everything—and that’s okay. The things you don’t know make you just as unique as the things you do. Find your path and follow it—preferably daily.
Happy music making!
If you are benefiting from these posts, you will absolutely love my 2 bestselling books:
The Mental Game of Music Production
The Process for Electronic Music Producers
To level up your Ableton Production Skills: Ableton Courses & Instruments
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Happy music making!
Jason