15 Lessons I Learned That Help Make Me a Better Musician and Producer
5 min readSep 24, 2020
- No feeling lasts forever. The excitement of success eventually wears off, and then it’s time to get back to putting in the work that got you the success you achieved in the first place.
- “Making it” in music for me isn’t likely going to be one event. As amazing as it was releasing a song with Johnny Cosmic, it’s just a piece of a bigger whole. My definition of making it will most likely come through a bunch of relatively smaller successes like this that build upon each other.
- My anxiety about releasing new songs went up once I had a bigger success under my belt. I became way more self-conscious of what I was posting, writing, and producing, because I didn’t want to release anything that could potentially take away from the momentum I’d gained. My answer to this is that I’m into making music for the long haul — there will very likely be songs, posts, and other things I create that don’t do as well as others. I must accept this, and always do my best to create songs that make people feel powerful emotions, and posts that provide awesome value for people, and using these as my north star, I will continue creating — I can’t let fear of failure be a hindrance to what I might otherwise create. At the same time, part of this anxiety is just the growth that came with holding myself to higher standards, which is a good thing.
- It’s important to stay humble, but don’t let it get in the way of your confidence. I often speak in a deprecating manner because I want to make sure that I don’t let any successes get me over-confident. But it’s important not to push that self deprecation too far — I know and feel in myself that I do have the ability to write and produce songs that are really good, and that evoke powerful emotions in my listeners. I should acknowledge and accept this talent that I’ve found and developed, and be grateful for it, while also realizing that it’s important and healthy to regularly be humbled, and show humility. I come to the conclusion that it’s right to search for a good balance between these forces.
- No creative time spent is wasted. Even if you spend an entire night hitting road blocks and failures in something you’re trying to work on, those road blocks and failures are actually just part of the path to success. Everything you do is a learning opportunity, and everything you create, whether good or bad, is part of your journey to creating something better.
- Always record or write down ideas when inspiration strikes. I was recently struggling with getting a good idea for a song, and I decided to listen to some voice memos I’d made over the years, and found a wealth of great ideas in there.
- Even if inspiration isn’t striking at a given moment, make sure you regularly sit down and work on your craft. The one way you’re 100% sure to fail is not putting time into what you’re looking to accomplish. Whether I’m feeling particularly inspired or not, I sit down every day and work on producing and writing music. In a sense, the “uninspired” nights are the most important ones, because it’s possible I’d never find the super inspired nights without those ones.
- Hold yourself to high standards. I might go through 100 different arrangements of lyrics, melodies, rhythms, instruments, harmonies, and ideas on a given song before I find ones that make me FEEL the emotions I want to feel. Don’t stop just because something sounds good or well-recorded; stop when the song gives you the FEEL you want.
- Bringing listeners and fans REAL value seems to largely depend on doing activities that aren’t really “scalable”. Call a few people up each day and thank them for listening, as well as just seeing how they’re doing and what’s new in their lives; write someone who shared a post of yours a nice note; buy them a birthday present; have a heartfelt conversation with them; send them a card.
- Know your limits, and learn when to be easy on yourself. If you’re into what you’re doing for the long haul, it doesn’t make sense to throw your entire life out of balance for a year only to burn out and lose your motivation and momentum. For me, working a full-time job, and maintaining good relationships with people I love are important in addition to my musical pursuits, so balance usually means working on music 2–3 hours per day. I try not to get down on myself when I have a day or weekend that just doesn’t work out.
- Attempting to have balance in life doesn’t mean that you always keep a good balance. Some weeks I’ll make great musical progress but my personal relationships will suffer; other weeks my personal relationships will flourish and I won’t get enough done musically. Balance seems to be a moving target, and I just do my best to try and check in and keep a comfortable balance of the things that are important to me.
- Write your 3–5 most important goals down and look at them often. Read them to yourself at least a few times each day. This keeps them in your mind, and helps you remember why you’re doing what you’re doing.
- Read books, watch movies, listen to music, live life — stay inspired! I can’t tell you how many cool ideas I’ve gotten from watching music documentaries, or reading books, or listening to great songs. There’s a wealth of good ideas out there — go out and find what inspires you, and then learn to use that inspiration in your own creations.
- Accomplishing goals and achieving success doesn’t lead to long-term happiness. These experiences are fun and rewarding, but as with anything else, the feelings of pride, excitement, and happiness eventually fade away. I feel it’s good and healthy to aim and work toward achieving things, but don’t expect to find happiness once you do — happiness should be its own goal, and isn’t dependent on how many successes or goals you achieve.
- The most talented people I meet are usually lifelong learners. They’re not people who climbed some mountain and decided that they knew everything — they view their journey as one, long hike up a mountain that has no end. There’s always something new to learn, always knowledge to be gained, and it’s impossible for anyone to ever know everything. Let this humble you, and inspire you to know that even the best always have room to get better.
