Turning music into a chore is how I became a musician (2022)
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Turning music into a chore is how I became a musician (2022)
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Re: Turning music into a chore is how I became a musician (2022)
#2A lot of my hobbyist musician friends were way more prolific during covid. The extra time seemed to have unlocked their ability to be way more creative to de-stress. I myself had a burst of activity recording music and improving my guitar technique for a couple of years.Sadly it dipped again post covid. However, more recently I'm trying to find a middle ground with AI cutting corners with the boring repeatable stuff of audio engineering and shifting focus to the creative and the technique. Feels like things have turned the corner here and I can get a pretty professional mix out quick without sacrificing my creativity. I love that middle ground where AI is truly helping me accelerate my output as a hired gun that mixes my sound while the calluses and note selections/ arrangement are all mine.
Re: Turning music into a chore is how I became a musician (2022)
#3This lines up with my own experience with writing and (more recently) blogging.
You get over the fear of writing by doing a LOT of it, until you get to a point where writing a story or blog post stops feeling "special" and becomes just another thing you do. Each individual piece of writing stops feeling like an important work of art that you must get right at any cost, and becomes more like doing the dishes or taking out the garbage.
You can then separate the act of creating from the act of curating and editing. I regularly cut thousands of words from my writing before I share in public. I regularly throw away (well, archive) fully written drafts because I don't like them. A few years ago, this would've been unimaginable. Today, it feels like part of the process.
At some point, you gain confidence that you'll always have another story, another blog post, another poem inside you. If the current thing sucks, you just write another thing, and another, and another, until something clicks. It's freeing.
IME when creative work starts feeling like "just a job" is EXACTLY when it also becomes most fulfilling and satisfying.
Re: Turning music into a chore is how I became a musician (2022)
#4This lines up with my own experience with writing and (more recently) blogging. You get over the fear of writing by doing a LOT of it, until you get to a point where writing a story or blog post stops feeling "special" and becomes just another thing you do. Each individual piece of writing stops feeling like an important work of art that you must get right at any cost, and becomes more like doing the dishes or taking…
The meaning of this is dismayingly slippery. You're presumably being creative and enjoying it, for all this "just a job".
> Routines might be a better name, but I like how action-oriented and well defined "chore" sounds.
The article's use of "boring" is somewhat misleading too, I think. It's trendy to say that being bored is good, but really that's always about enjoying patience, not about experiencing drudgery and having a miserable time.
Re: Turning music into a chore is how I became a musician (2022)
#5This lines up with my own experience with writing and (more recently) blogging. You get over the fear of writing by doing a LOT of it, until you get to a point where writing a story or blog post stops feeling "special" and becomes just another thing you do. Each individual piece of writing stops feeling like an important work of art that you must get right at any cost, and becomes more like doing the dishes or taking…
I've heard this sentiment repeated and I believe it, but at least the purpose of my own blog is to communicate insights I've had. I almost make a point out of not blogging unless I feel that I have something truly interesting to share. It seems that flipping that around would come at a price.
Come think it, I feel that I have on the other side of this many times: I read a post or watch a video that opens up something in my brain and I get a sort of crush on the author. I read everything they write or watch all their videos. For some authors, I retain interest. But for others, where it seems like they produce regularly in order to maintain the frequency, I lose interest.
Re: Turning music into a chore is how I became a musician (2022)
#6A lot of my hobbyist musician friends were way more prolific during covid. The extra time seemed to have unlocked their ability to be way more creative to de-stress. I myself had a burst of activity recording music and improving my guitar technique for a couple of years.Sadly it dipped again post covid. However, more recently I'm trying to find a middle ground with AI cutting corners with the boring repeatable stuff…
can you say a bit more about how AI is helping you mix?
do you tell it "make the bass louder", or does it actually listen to the audio and goes "hmm, too much highs on the pad, let me turn them down a bit"
Re: Turning music into a chore is how I became a musician (2022)
#7This lines up with my own experience with writing and (more recently) blogging. You get over the fear of writing by doing a LOT of it, until you get to a point where writing a story or blog post stops feeling "special" and becomes just another thing you do. Each individual piece of writing stops feeling like an important work of art that you must get right at any cost, and becomes more like doing the dishes or taking…
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Re: Turning music into a chore is how I became a musician (2022)
#8[dead]
Re: Turning music into a chore is how I became a musician (2022)
#9I don't believe this is how great music usually comes about, not even Techno. It's missing the other essential piece. Being influenced by and completely immersed in a niche of other brilliant people. (The most extreme example of this would be the 90's Detroit-Berlin connection.)
Paired with an obsessive work ethic in the studio.
If it's only obsession in the studio, things come out dry, uninspired. If there's no surge of energy running through your bones when making the music, why would anyone else feel anything? Mixing and the music sounding "professional" is completely secondary. Even detrimental a lot of the time, to be honest.
Applies to many other things than music as well. I don't any great technology comes out and about without that loop, either.
Re: Turning music into a chore is how I became a musician (2022)
#10This lines up with my own experience with writing and (more recently) blogging. You get over the fear of writing by doing a LOT of it, until you get to a point where writing a story or blog post stops feeling "special" and becomes just another thing you do. Each individual piece of writing stops feeling like an important work of art that you must get right at any cost, and becomes more like doing the dishes or taking…
I've heard this sentiment repeated and I believe it, but at least the purpose of my own blog is to communicate insights I've had. I almost make a point out of not blogging unless I feel that I have something truly interesting to share. It seems that flipping that around would come at a price. Come think it, I feel that I have on the other side of this many times: I read a post or watch a video that opens up something…
> I've heard this sentiment repeated and I believe it, but at least the purpose of my own blog is to communicate insights I've had. I almost make a point out of not blogging unless I feel that I have something truly interesting to share. It seems that flipping that around would come at a price.
That's where the editing and curation step comes in, at least for me. I write a lot more than I publish. If my writing:publishing ratio ever became 1:1, I'll stop publishing things that are interesting and insightful (well, interesting and insightful to me personally; other people might judge my writing differently).
Sometimes what works for me is to write something and let it sit in my drafts for a few days. Then if I read it back and still find it worth sharing, I polish it and hit the publish button. If not, it goes into a folder called "Retired" in my Obsidian.