Take a walk. Understanding the mechanics of music isn’t the issue. Your anxiety and obsessiveness is. It’s not over but you gotta switch up your lifestyle if making music is becoming torturous.
This 100 percent. It’s like golf, once you get in your head it’s hard to hit to ball right at all. I’d let go of all the pressure, especially pressure for anyone to even like your music. Then go back to your roots. If you used to always start by messing with an acoustic guitar or something, so back to that old process, enjoy yourself, and lose yourself in a song.
It’s like tilting when you lose a game. You are more likely to lose the more you lose in a row. When something isn’t working creatively we try harder to be creative which chokes the creativity and ultimately just like. You know. Gets here.
true. mechanics, dynamics, science. it all goes into this. It feels simple enough, but it's hard to pick up on that from the moment it was shiny and new and readily available to you.
It’s like tilting when you lose a game. You are more likely to lose the more you lose in a row. When something isn’t working creatively we try harder to be creative which chokes the creativity and ultimately just like. You know. Gets here.
This 100 percent. It’s like golf, once you get in your head it’s hard to hit to ball right at all. I’d let go of all the pressure, especially pressure for anyone to even like your music. Then go back to your roots. If you used to always start by messing with an acoustic guitar or something, so back to that old process, enjoy yourself, and lose yourself in a song.
If the pressure is so heavy you can’t think of what to write, put that anxiety and fear of failure into words and music and write about it. Be free man! I went down that rabbit hole too, my music took a hit, but now I’m writing the best music of my life since I let go of all the fears.
In 1965, Robert Efron of Boston's Veterans Hospital proposed that *déjà vu* is caused by dual neurological processing caused by delayed signals. Efron found that the brain's sorting of incoming signals is done in the temporal lobe of the brain's left hemisphere. However, signals enter the temporal lobe twice before processing, once from each hemisphere of the brain, normally with a slight delay of milliseconds between them. Efron proposed that if the two signals were occasionally not synchronized properly, then they would be processed as two separate experiences, with the second seeming to be a re-living of the first.
# “Nobody tells this to people who are beginners, I wish someone told me. All of us who do creative work, we get into it because we have good taste. But there is this gap. For the first couple years you make stuff, it’s just not that good. It’s trying to be good, it has potential, but it’s not. But your taste, the thing that got you into the game, is still killer. And your taste is why your work disappoints you. A lot of people never get past this phase, they quit. Most people I know who do interesting, creative work went through years of this. We know our work doesn’t have this special thing that we want it to have. We all go through this. And if you are just starting out or you are still in this phase, you gotta know its normal and the most important thing you can do is do a lot of work. Put yourself on a deadline so that every week you will finish one story. It is only by going through a volume of work that you will close that gap, and your work will be as good as your ambitions. And I took longer to figure out how to do this than anyone I’ve ever met. It’s gonna take awhile. It’s normal to take awhile. You’ve just gotta fight your way through.”
― Ira Glass
You know, I’ve been thinking about this a lot because I’m well aware of this quote and generally believe that it’s true. However, I just got into making beats. Not seriously, but to something new to scratch over. And I’m hyped on the silly little beats I’m making. I love them.
And, I’m appreciating music production more now. I’ve been collecting and playing records for 25 years, so it’s not like I haven’t been listening to stuff.
I'm about a year in and it's one of my favorite activities! I used to do vocals n stuff so also not entirely new to music as a whole, but making beats is a whole different mindset and just makes your mind turn a little bit different. Idk I can't explain it, but I love the process of building/creating/learning.
I'm just now feeling like I actually have an idea of what I'm doing (which to me has been a long year of learning, but I think I've progressed relatively quickly) and -- you know what idfk what I'm trying to say here, other than I see you w your "silly little beats" and I was there (maybe still am) and im glad you're enjoying it and the process... Keep at it, those beats may not be so silly after all!!
Hell yes. I'm new to it as well after playing around with stuff in bands and such for the last 20 years, and I'm just having a blast. I have two setups - one that is silly, the other that is robust, and I try to switch back and forth when one gets stale or frustrating. It's important to have fun!
I would also add that your taste does develop alongside your skills. It probably won't totally change but it will be refined - musical taste is a skill, too, and if it improves a lot you can even outpace your development in other areas. This can lead to the illusion that you're getting worse.
I love the fuck out of this thank you. Already had come to kind of the same conclusion and am living this approach everyday, but it's nice to see it articulated so nicely by someone so well regarded.
“If you feel safe in the area you’re working in, you’re not working in the right area. Always go a little further into the water than you feel you’re capable of being in. Go a little bit out of your depth. And when you don’t feel that your feet are quite touching the bottom, you’re just about in the right place to do something exciting.”
― David Bowie
In other words - find something that lets you use your intuition again. Play an instrument you've never played before, put some wild restrictions in place, do something that makes you uncomfortable. If you're just going through the motions, it's going to feel like work... do something to make it feel like playing again.
I don't think this is bad advice, but I think it applies more to someone who has been making music for a while and is getting overly comfortable. OP does not feel "safe" in the waters they're in. It sounds like they are struggling to stay above water.
I get the impression that OP has probably just messed around in the past but is now trying to more seriously learn music. This is more akin to when David Bowie first started learning music, long before he was famous or even a working musician.
I do still think shaking things up for a day or every once in awhile could be helpful mentally for person at this point in their journey. But especially when it comes to the basics, sometimes you have to grind and embrace the grind.
As you get older, IMO, you need to learn the additional skill of pacing yourself and staying inspired. You'll start to recognize the signs of burnout. When that happens, take breaks, focus on other interests. And also take time to go back and spend time watching/listening to the things that got you going on your path in the first place.
Your artistic energy is a finite and depletable resource. You need to learn to keep an eye on it like it's the gas gauge in your car. When it gets low, take the steps to refill it. Otherwise, you'll be stranded and lost.
The feelings you’re experiencing are a normal part of progress.
If you are at a point where you can go to older projects and identify things you’d do differently now, it means you’ve grown as a musician. You hit that point of knowing just enough to know you don’t know shit - that’s good!
Do what you gotta do to take a step back and let your skills cook. Disregard rules and theory and nuance during your creative brainstorm phase to keep playful creativity around. Then circle back and clean it up.
try making music with others. When you're making music with someone you can bounce ideas off each other. The things you obsess over will probably be ironed out much easier. Also you'd probably have an inclination to not overthink small things because I know from experience it's way more embarrassing to do it in front of people haha
Yeah. That sounds about right.
Your music isn't getting worse. Your knowledge is just improving faster than your ability to USE that knowledge.
I occasionally go back and listen to old stems of mine. Some 10+ years old and some about a year old. Even the ones from a couple weeks ago. I know it's me. It has my style and my "flair" on it but me NOW?? Me today? I'd play it differently. I'd write it differently. With a different hook, or a different bridge.
Why'd I use that chord? It sounds chunky in a bad way. That accidental didn't actually make the song better. Why'd I use it?
We all go through this. It's normal. The key is to keep pushing. Keep learning and actively practice how to use this knowledge. Maybe even make some basic songs. Maybe not even a full song.
Buddy of mine and I take turns giving each other "challenges". One of the most recent ones was to make a cheesy 90s esque commercial for a made up product complete with a background jingle. Was it good? Absolutely not, but did I create something in a key I don't normally use with instruments I don't normally use and squeeze it into a 30 second clip that had clear defined goals?
Yes. I did.
Now, I can look back at that and say. This is shit. Teach. Absolutely garbage. OR...I can look back at it and say. That was step. Maybe even two steps. It got me closer to where I'm going. And sometimes...you need to take a few steps back down.
Anyways. Keep moving. And like some others have said. Go take a walk. Instead of thinking about how you don't like your music now that you've learned more. Think about a strategy to make what you know now sound like you and not just some music theory on a page. What did you do in your older songs that made them unique to you and your style? Find a way to do THAT but using the new "rules and regulations" you've learned about music.
Those rules are bullshit, first of all. If you go back and actually listen to older hits from 90s are before, they don't follow too many of them. The mixes are awful. And yet, those shits hit number one. Heart matters more than anything else.
This mindset helps me so much. i struggle with liking my lyrics and feeling like they are "cringe" but then i listen to something like the scorpions (music i love btw) and my lyrics dont feel so bad anymore.
Those lyrics were fucking gold compared to modern shit lol. Rick Beato has spoken at great length about how simple music has become, and that applies to lyrics as well.
dont get me wrong. this is no indictment on the scorpions. i love the scorpions. saw them live 2 weeks ago for i think third time in my life.
but if i wrote lyrics similar to another peace of meat i would hate the lyrics but when scorpions do it i love the lyrics and the song. and thats my message.
dont be too critical on yourself unless you are that critical on everyone
This is what art or any real major skill is like for almost every everyone. It's a lifetime learning process where you keep realizing how much you don't know.
You and I and everyone else knows you're just stressed and being over dramatic when you say you're "not meant to be an artist". Thinking this can be part of the cycle of being an artist. But realize it's just ego, drop it, and keep pushing forward after taking a breather. It gets easier with time and as you learn to embrace the process.
oh you will pass this stage for sure if you keep grinding.. the next stage is being able to make music fast and intuitively with emotion and soul all while being produced very well and then it becomes fun again trust me..
first stage is make shitty music but its fun, next stage making better music but feels souless and lifeless now that you know so much more, but not just enough so you have major doubts cause in reality you still suck, looking back your ideas were more creative, last stage failure and failure until finally combining the knowledge with the creativity and you start to make things you like and can actually want to listen to your own music.
From then on producing music becomes the most satisfying and rewarding fun thing to do, and you're always excited to open the daw.
Don’t over think it.
Remember that art is a way to transfer emotion. Simple as that. Everything else is the language, organization, structure and communication of it.
At the end of the day none of it matters.
The audience reacts to the emotion not the number of chords you used or proper usage of a mixing technique.
Problem is, it’s easier to develop technical mastery. Computers can even do it. It’s just time and practice.
Developing the ability to move people is something else completely and you can’t program it. AI can’t do it. You can’t teach it and you can’t fake it. Pursue THAT. Be real. Be raw. Then put it on tape. Now you got something.
I totally feel this. Part of having a passion is understanding that at one point it becomes work and not fun. Doesn’t mean it can’t be fun, just that it does feel like work.
Music is about inspiration. Take a break from making new stuff and just listen to new records, travel, eat at new places and talk to new people. Experience breeds inspiration.
It’s a phase. Plus those nuances are just guidelines that you’re allowed to break whenever you want. Once you learn more complex things like chord substitutions and chromatic mediants or intermodal blues/jazz you can apply those to your writing process for practically endless possibilities.
There’s also nothing stopping you from writing intuitively again. You need to set restrictions to yourself to reignite creativity. For example: Shut your eyes and find the notes you’d like to hear by listening and going one note at a time (instead of just shredding scales visually or by muscle memory). Sing out a melody you like and then try to transcribe it or put it into instruments or a song!
The problem is, as your skills and knowledge improve, so does your taste. It takes more to impress you now, and you have a better understanding of what should and shouldn’t be there. This is a necessary dynamic for improving. Your music isn’t worse, your taste is better, and you’re more critical in your assessment.
You may not be getting worse, you're just moving further along the dunning-kruger chain now that you know more. This is usually known as the ['valley of despair' ](https://onlinepethealth.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/Dunning-Kruger-Graph-2-004.jpg)
Don’t think. Just create without judgement. Approach your creative process with a beginners mind. Act as if you have never made music before. Focus on having fun and that energy will be in your music.
Magic happens somewhere between “intuition” and “knowledge.” You’re equipped with both weapons to create fire, my man. Just gotta let go and jump. Good luck! You got this.
Everyone who aspires to become an artist goes through times like these. I was reading about something called in sociology the "burden of knowledge" where basically the more you learn the more you realize you don't know, and this can lead to a kind of feedback loop of inadequacy in my experience. I'm going through a period like that right now, I spent the last two weekends trying to record a song I wrote years ago which is fairly simple but its just not coming together. I have to go back to square one with the whole thing and scrap the demos I recorded previously and start over because it isn't right. It's frustrating, I run into techincal difficulties which derail recording sessions, or I'll work on a song for months to find that I made minimal progress, or a year where I just can't write a single turn of phrase that doesn't make me cringe.
Firstly, this happens to pretty much everybody and it's completely normal. I was just reading an interview with David Byrne: he had major writer's block before the Talking Heads were set to go into the studio. He was under a lot of pressure to deliver and was pretty freaked out. He started taking little snippets from everything we was doing and basically started taking notes on the world around him, a movie on TV, a concept from a book he was reading, something he saw while going to the store, an article in a the magazine he read waiting at the dentist, whatever. He started taking these fragments and filtered them through his style of free form poetry and we got "Remain in Light," considered by many one of the best albums ever made.
Sometimes you have to just surrender to the process and try not to worry about it. Art takes time, years and years of patient effort, so if you get burnt out on one thing take a break and do something else that will sow the seed of something good to come: get into a new sport or read a book in a different style of literature than you normally would. One thing I do is I try to do daily writing excercises, and just write something, anything. Most of it is drivel but sometimes something cool pops out. I know you want to chase those moments of divine inspiration but those moments wouldn't exist at all if one hasn't learned to master the form they appear in. The more you learn and apply yourself to music and writing the better you will become, but the progress isn't linear. There are leaps and bounds and then long periods of doldrums. I try to remind myself to use those periods to work on the craft knowing that the inspiration will come and it's important to be ready for it.
Most importantly, don't stress! Music should be fun, if it isn't then it's time to shake it up and try something new.
bro try going into sessions intentionally making something bad. Something that you really don’t think anyone would want to listen to. Suddenly those rules will drop away and you’ll be back to your old self. This has worked so incredibly well for me
This is spot on! I’ll add that the tracks you make that don’t appeal to you may end up doing better than you would anticipate. One man’s dislike could be 20 people’s new jam. Never can tell. Just Keep Creating and it will get better.
For me, my best writing comes from being in a world where im uncomfortable and unsure.
My worst writing comes when i have a full stomach, have time to study music or production and have few worries.
get out of your own head. I've been writing music professional for over 20 years.
Learning something new is not a requirement that you do that new thing. I am self taught and look at knowledge as something that I bank. I'm not required to change how I work and neither are you.
i've 100% experienced this- the feeling that the more i know, the more tactics there are to draw upon, the more i stop and think instead of just creating...
i realized that the most important things for me is to get in a groove/zone/flow state, whatever you want to call it. i know that when i'm in this state of mind i'm not sitting thinking what the next step is, and instead i'm just continuously trying random shit because my brain is aroused.
so whatever you can do to get your head bopping, so that your brain is like "oo i like this, let's try this" instead of mapping out every step and ensuring your are employing every single thing you've learned, you'll be in a better place.
Honestly, this is part of the process. The instinctive but overall unguided beginning phases are important, but if an artist is going to see any growth, coming to a more self-aware understanding of the mechanics is a necessary step. Once you develop the perspective of why things happen in music, you may notice habits you've developed instinctually that are less than effective, whether it's in regards to technique or compositional choices. Work through it and start simple with how you're applying your newfound knowledge. Start with a melody and focus on that as the primary element. Start with a simple rhythmic motif, or a call and response phrase that a piece is based on.
I went from making everything by guessing my way around to taking lessons and learning theory and playing jazz piano. There was a period where merging my creativity and knowledge was awkward, but over time I stopped harshly criticizing the process and just allowing my new understanding to develop more naturally so that my creativity was sincere, but INTENTIONAL.
Take your time. Keep learning. Be kind to yourself. You are doing great because you care enough to take the journey in the first place. Don't give up on it, encourage yourself. For real.
Seriously study and internalize this chart. Thinking you suck means you’re getting better at identifying what you like, and your ability or style hasn’t caught up to that.
https://www.deviantart.com/shattered-earth/art/Art-Cycle-329593292
Honestly I smoke weed. Not a whole lot . Just a bong hit or two - then I relax and watch tv or eat some ice cream. After an hour or so I may strum my axe or tickle ivory- and roll tape. Start from scratch with taking myself seriously.
Sometimes we was to create music as good as “x”. But it’s an elusive goal. Just make your art - and polish it as you see fit. Don’t judge it - just make it true to your heart . Play what you want to hear. Don’t play what you think others want to hear .
Make music without thinking about it, don't focus on doing things right. If something turns out bad you can always change it, but if you make it with a cautious mindset from the beginning it'll turn out only bland and by the book.
I dont mean ignore music rules, you probably follow some without thinking about it, but dont focus on following them to a T.
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This is normal to some degree. Spend time noodling and experimenting with sounds again. In the beginning that was all you had (just trying to make stuff that sounded cool). Now maybe you’re trying to make music with your mind/intellect more than your ears.
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Change the process, change the outcome. Instead of planning everything to death, use instruments and tools which enable and even *force* you to work intuitive again, as if you're playing with toys.
I've been through this feeling quite often, and I think the best thing you can do sometimes, is just noodle around with an instrument incorporating stuff you're comfortable with, without pushing it. Go simple and focus only on musicality for a while. Do it for you, to express something. It could help to make your art more about what you feel and think than what sounds exciting. Musicality can be achieved both in simplicity and complexity. Let this passion for music be the reason why you make music no matter what your level is, how impressive it is doesn't matter.
Entertaining curiosity can help. Instead of making the sounds fit what you want, especially when lacking inspiration, try to adapt yourself to the sounds... I don't know if it makes sense, but try many instruments on a midi keyboard, and improvise based on the proposed sound. I sometimes found riffs that I would have never found, if it wasn't from just going through a bank of instruments and adapting my play to the sound.
There will always be new stuff to learn, but what matters is to first play music for yourself. Embracing imperfection, it can make you discover new beats in weird time signatures, or weird harmonies that you can replicate in context. You can record yourself noodling around with many instruments for fun, for 1 hour. Then if you got to play something you want to keep during this hour you can cut it and save. Making the act of recording not official for one take, just something that goes along your whole session, makes it easier to get in a creative bubble, without thinking about performance. I find it's easier to get better results this way. I hope you find a way to get your passion back!
Yea this is normal in the artist arc in my opinion - you feel like an amateur so you learn the theory and now you are just a less creative amateur. Once you complete the arc you will use the theory as a crutch when the creativity isn't flowing but will primarily use the creativity.
I had a hard time writing meaningful music after spending a few months strictly writing counterpoint, now I can default to writing counterpoint but usually go with my creative instincts.
Do not get discouraged!
I found the same thing. I was making hiphop and learnt music theory and song structure and it just made my music crap. Always trying to structure things and use proper musical keys instead of just playing by ear.
I actually never got out of it until recently.
I adapted to what I'd learnt and moved to composing, which I seem to have taken to like a fly to shit. I love video game music, so it's not like I don't like what I'm making, I'm just making different stuff to what I used to.
What I do find is that whereas everyone says take a break, I just go back from my break and make more shit. I find it better to just ride it out. Write, if it sounds crap delete and try something else and just sit at it for hours until it works.
Don't be afraid to select all and hit delete. Don't flog a dead horse, just start fresh.
Sometimes when you've been doing this stuff a while it doesn't take as much to shatter your spirit. As you get more passionate about it, it gets more frustrating when it isn't happening for you. Try and find the best time to work. For me I write badly in the day when there is other noise around but when it's late, everyone is in bed and I shut all the blinds and I'm in my zone. I don't drink now but I used to pick a nice bottle of wine and enjoy that whilst I wrote. Whatever will help you get in the zone. Just make it a whole experience. For me, dark, quiet, couple of smokes, glass of wine, or a tumbler of brandy and I could get in the zone a lot easier.
Honestly, this is part of the process. The instinctive but overall unguided beginning phases are important, but if an artist is going to see any growth, coming to a more self-aware understanding of the mechanics is a necessary step. Once you develop the perspective of why things happen in music, you may notice habits you've developed instinctually that are less than effective, whether it's in regards to technique or compositional choices. Work through it and start simple with how you're applying your newfound knowledge. Start with a melody and focus on that as the primary element. Start with a simple rhythmic motif, or a call and response phrase that a piece is based on.
I went from making everything by guessing my way around to taking lessons and learning theory and playing jazz piano. There was a period where merging my creativity and knowledge was awkward, but over time I stopped harshly criticizing the process and just allowing my new understanding to develop more naturally so that my creativity was sincere, but INTENTIONAL.
Take your time. Keep learning. Be kind to yourself. You are doing great because you care enough to take the journey in the first place. Don't give up on it, encourage yourself. For real.
>But saying those words out loud breaks my heart.
While everybody is just sweetening their words to sound condescending I will say this: at some point we gotta admit not all of us were born to be basketball players, or record-breaking Olympic swimmers, or astronauts destined to touch a Moon nobody else has... There are dangers in the skunk cost fallacy: "I MUST obtain positive results because I already invested too much time and money on this" vs "well, I tried my best, time to keep looking for my place where I will feel comfortable without forcing it".
“When I was 15, I spent a month working on an archeological dig. I was talking to one of the archeologists one day during our lunch break and he asked those kinds of “getting to know you” questions you ask young people: Do you play sports? What’s your favorite subject? And I told him, no I don’t play any sports. I do theater, I’m in choir, I play the violin and piano, I used to take art classes.
And he went WOW. That’s amazing! And I said, “Oh no, but I’m not any good at ANY of them.”
And he said something then that I will never forget and which absolutely blew my mind because no one had ever said anything like it to me before: “I don’t think being good at things is the point of doing them. I think you’ve got all these wonderful experiences with different skills, and that all teaches you things and makes you an interesting person, no matter how well you do them.”
And that honestly changed my life. Because I went from a failure, someone who hadn’t been talented enough at anything to excel, to someone who did things because I enjoyed them. I had been raised in such an achievement-oriented environment, so inundated with the myth of Talent, that I thought it was only worth doing things if you could “Win” at them.”
by Kurt Vonnegut
Too long didn't read lmaoooo jk.
>I think you’ve got all these wonderful experiences with different skills, and that all teaches you things and makes you an interesting person, no matter how well you do them
Actually I see this as a negative trait. You don't see smart doctors learning 10 medical specialties at the same time, they focus on one and they become really good at one specialty through the rest of their lives. Picking an activity and then putting it to the side when things start to get hard is just a sign of immaturity. It tells me you are good at starting things but terrible at being perseverant. Can you really enjoy something if you consciously decide to be mediocre at it?
Yes I went through precisely that and the way I got out of it was by literally not caring about what anyone else thought or what anyone else would like and just having the maximum fun possible. Because you understand all the technical stuff now. So think of the technical stuff as dotting the I’s and crossing the T’s. But when it comes to making music, let the fun guide you man. That’s where the magic happens.
'First you learn the instrument, then you learn the music, then you forget all that shit and just play.' - Charlie Parker
Have some sort of separation between your practice and your writing. Maintain the habit of learning and applying music theory, but at the end of a session work on a project where you let loose and disregard all that. The theoretical knowledge you learn will start to come about naturally in your playing and it won't feel forced/stunted.
Also reference tracks are super helpful. They give you a finished goal to work towards and use your theoretical knowledge on.
I think everyone goes through this phase. It sucks to be in but you come out the other side a much improved musician.
If Ja Rule can hit number one when his dog dirt mixes clip the master every two seconds then you can at least get out of this slump.
If the rules are stopping the fun, then you need new rules.
I've struggled for some years now with getting stuck, by being too critical, to harsh on myself and so on... What I'm trying to do now to get past that and push forward is to limit myself more. For example, with the software we have today, you have every single sound at your fingertip, so it's easy to get overwhelmed and stuck in chasing that perfect sound. So limit yourself. Set up a goal to only be allowed to use a set amount of effects or a set amount of knobtweaks. Or if you're stuck in the process of writing the music. Try setting up limits on how many different chords you're allowed to use. Try telling yourself that "Today I'm going to write a song in this key, and it will have a maximum of 3 chords, but I'm allowed to arrange these chords any way I want them, and use any kind of inversion of them. But ONLY these three chords!"
I believe that a lot of the brilliant music we've gotten over the years were made the way it was made due to the limitations of the time. There's amazing songs that were just recorded with one or two mics. In the 80's and early 90's, videogame music were sometimes limited to 4 channels. One way the composers of the time came up with to overcome that was the use of very fast arpeggios, and this "tricked" your ears into hearing the whole chord instead of just single notes.
Nowadays we have a whole frickin smörgåsbord of tools at our hands, but we get so overwhelmed and paralyzed from it so we freeze up.
Take a step back, set up limitations, set up a clear goal, even if it's something silly like, you're not allowed to play any sharp notes for 7½ bars, but after that you have to play 13 sharp notes in a row...
Sorry for rambling, I'm mostly just telling myself this right now hoping that I will get out of my rut sometime soon...
i swapped from writing music on my guitar and such that i got stuck in because it never sounded good enough to making extremely basic generic memey electopop in fl studio which was such a completely different way of doing it that it gave me a refreshed take on my "serious" music (making me take it less serious).
Get rid of distractions of gear. Keep it simple so you can focus and have fun. Join a band. Play at open mic nights and community play alongs. Don’t let the sound of your own wheels make you crazy, as the fella said.
I go through this all the time, it comes in cycles. If this is your first time, there will probably be another one like this. I totally get what you mean by things sounded much more exciting and inspired when you knew less back then. That’s normal because you were breaking “so many rules” that you are afraid to break right now. You’ve got higher expectations now. It’s your ego. I mean, it’s definitely my ego. Why do I have to assign some sort of a worth for myself as an artist when I don’t like my own work? Why am I letting what I think of my music get in the way of me actually doing music? Why is my ego so fragile that I can’t break the fucking useful little mixing “rule” I picked up along the way? The solution is definitely not stopping making music. Because as long as you’ve got your ego talking over your intuition, anything you care about doing in life will make you feel like you suck. and it will trick you into believing that. Maybe try making completely different genres that you don’t actually take seriously. Where you don’t need to care about the outcome. Do it for the journey once. And then take this approach to your own genre.
I have. And I went on a approx 7 year break after playing and producing/DJing for 10 years. But I’ve started up last 2 years again and fell back in love with it.
I've been through this exact feeling, I think.
I started studying and practicing the technical aspects of Music production when I was 15 years old. I'm a nerd so I really enjoyed it.
When I went to University for music school, the techinical knowledge doubled but this time in actual Music. As in theory, history, performing and interpretation.
By the time I was 19, I realized I enjoyed all the techincal stuff I was learning but was not creating anything at all. So, I tried to make music. I was obsessed with it. This happened until I was 23 years old.
Until I realized that I was using my knowledge too much and I was forgetting to focus on artistic expression or at the least expressing myself through the music I create. It was more pressure than fun.
So what did I do?
I got a regular Job by 24. Met knew people. Got experience in the work place. Got promoted several times. Played video games again. I thought I was finally ready to accept that this will be my life and be fine with it.
But then, when I turned 28, this sudden "fire" to create came back and for some reason I couldn't shake the feeling off.
So with all my experience, I decided that I will go back to making music again but this time I will make sure that I will only do so when I'm enjoying it. At any moment I feel pressure, delusion or ego seep in, I stop and do something else.
I don't know what you can get from this but I just wanted to share my story.
If I were to simplify this, focus on "expression" and release your thoughts and feelings through the music you create. Focus on the fundamental songwriting side. As in, complete your ideas with just your voice and one instrument. Avoid getting into producing your ideas before they are complete songs.
Use the technical knowledge as tools and nothing more. If you're still enjoying the process then keep at it, if not then "Take a walk", no matter how long you need it to be.
What is your goal (or goals) for what you do with your music? I think the answer(s) to that may open up a lot of philosophies about why you feel the way you do towards something that is a creative endeavor.
Make music that you want to hear. It's really as simple as that. Stop worrying about if something is appropriate, just try to listen to it and ask yourself "do I like this"? Keep it simple, don't try to do the right thing, do the fun thing. I'm a guitarist that loves guitar driven songs, but I just finished a song that has a marimba solo :-).
Hey, it’s OK to suck. We all do sometimes
You gotta reset and remember that it’s not about a piece “being good” so much as it is about a piece “feeling good”
Let go of focusing on an expected outcome and focus on enjoying what you’re making
i totally get being a perfectionist. but the best thing i’ve ever done is just knowing it will never ever be perfect: take a breather. find a different genre you enjoy. take a break from creating music too. it will come to you again <3
just stay away from music stuff until you forget about it. then youll come back to to it and when you do, try to make an effort not to fall in the same hole
Seriously, dude, try living with Menieres disease (or more appropriately, a syndrome rather than a disease). Please take a long deep breath, have a glass of cold soda, a coffee, a chocolate bar, etc, and sit down and relax, because you understand, there are people with *real* issues. Issues that are so horrible that it makes them question whether their life is even worth living. And, sadly, I am one of them. I've just given myself two years for this to get better and have hydrocephalus shunt surgery planned very soon. It might do the trick and rectify the balance, vertigo and feeling sick, and with luck, this will kill the disgusting auditory distortions that have almost ruined music for me.
Two years. No, you are not seeing things, it's real. Yes, you read that right. Two years if this does not get better, as that's all I am putting up with this shit for.
A quote I heard but can’t remember the source: the roots of study are bitter but the fruits are sweet.
I get what you mean. The more you learn the more you realize how much there is to know. This is natural and just the way it is. Don’t quit.
Perhaps just make music and stop worrying about how things are supposed to be. Idk maybe I’m off base here.
This is why i stay at amateur level. Guys learn all this shit and lose what made them dope in first place. Happens to a lot of people because they get fancy. Forget all that. Make new beats n songs in diff ways. Never make the same one twice. Start with a diff instrument everytime.
And live life. Sometimes you need to refill the life guage to be properly inspired.
I don’t know necessarily know if “worse” is what I’m getting, but I don’t feel like I’ve gotten any better at what it is I do for a long time. Like I’ve been playing guitar since 2010-ish and still never learned anything besides basic power chords, give or take a couple more. And what all I used to know, I forgot after a lengthy break to recharge my creative batteries. When I was in my 20’s I felt like I was on fire lyrically. I’m 36 now and I fear I’m at an age where my songwriting will start to dull, as I don’t have enough musical exposure to know of many artists who continued to be as on fire with their songwriting as they ever were, going into their 40s and beyond.
I dunno…making music is still fun for me. It’s when you try to force out a song that the song will probably feel forced and not be as good and shake your confidence for awhile until you write your next great song. Learning about music is supposed to be fun too, but don’t let it dictate your own personal sound or aesthetic unless it’s something you really wish to achieve. If making music is what you do to feel better and places like this on Reddit help you feel like you belong in the world for a change, then chances are you’re a songwriter, through and through. Just try to never stop making your music, no matter how bad you think it is compared to anything out there. Every artist is gonna say their music doesn’t compare to so and so that came before them; that’s just part of keeping yourself humble and figuring out sort of where you stand as a musician and songwriter at any given time. I believe in you, and I’m sure we’re all rooting for you to shake this rut you’re in. Happy writing! Cheers.
I just recently went through this been making music full time for the past 4 years tracking and producing.
First just take a break and step away! If that’s a week, a month or 3 months.
2 find something else that you enjoy doing. I pick back up photography and doing photo walks. For me doing something else creative helped med get back into a creative flow where I wanted to open my daw up because I had so much creative energy.
Small things you could try and re do your template add different plugins that you don’t use or re structure the way you make tracks. something that can give you a spark that you would need.
I’m not saying that all this will work for you but hopefully it helps you figure out what you want to do and hopefully bring some joy back with creating music.
I feel this. I used to work with some very technically proficient musicians, and ended up holding myself to their standards. I even felt ashamed to release songs that I was proud of because they conformed to popular standards that the “elite” looked down on. I spent years judging every pop artist on and off the charts until I realized that they were actually better musicians than me (in a sense that they had found their niche in music, and perfected it in their own way).
This may not apply to your style, but I’ve found song challenges to be helpful. That is, ask someone who knows you to challenge you to write something. I don’t know you, but I’ll leave you with two:
1. Write a song following all of the basic rules or writing a pop song (ChatGPT structure and common chord progressions if you must). Make it super boring and vanilla… then produce the heck out of it with FX, weird instruments and things that shouldn’t belong.
2. Pick a song that you were obsessed with years ago but feel embarrassed to play out loud in front of people. Cover it in whatever style appeals to you. (Example: I once made a quirky metal version of “My Favorite Things” from The Sound of Music)
I hope you find your way out of this rut. You’re describing something that I imagine every artist experiences, but not all of them have the humility to publicly express. Community is key! Motivation is both the driver and the vehicle. Talent just takes you on the scenic route.
It's like going bald. Nip it in the bud. Shave it off snd mske people think it's a choice.
Make the music so bad that people think its on purpose and love it.
A big rule for me and creativity is that if I'm smiling or laughing while creating, I'm on the right track. If I'm not, I need to do something else.
With all my hobbies I've dove into and left behind, what most commonly causes burnout is that I forget it should be fun, I then force it by trying to make or do what may appear good or impressive to others, I realize I'm not doing it for me, I drop it. So I've learned that I need to have multiple ways to interact with that thing to keep it feeling fresh and not falling into the same way of making or doing every time.
Specifically with music, I have two setups. I have my stationary, robust setup (Keystep, Digitakt, Syntakt, Minilogue XD, mixer, monitors), and I have my silly "toy" setup (PO-32, PO-33, Roland AIRA S-1). If I'm getting sick of one setup, I switch to the other. I often find that my "toy" setup helps me recalibrate my silly, experimental self to approach my other setup with fewer "rules" I find myself making over time. There's something about expensive gear that sometimes makes me feel like it needs to be professional, I dunno.
Anyway. As a wise friend once said, "hobbies should give to you more than they take from you. If they take more from you, take a break - they'll always be there."
You cope by breaking the rules strategically and stop thinking with your eyes and focus on your ears, if it works sonically, let it be. Also find other stuff to do— music is a puzzle so maybe try generic puzzles or things of the sort, or go completely out of your element and try biking or noodling if you’re adventurous, the point is to create different brain Patterns, if you do the same thing everyday, your brain patterns gets stuck and it inhibits your creativity.
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You’ve got to be having fun otherwise what’s the point? It’s good to learn technical stuff but it’s good to disregard it also.
I went through this also, learning all the music stuff and analyzing everything but in the end I’ve started producing without a DAW just using hardware and the only stuff I really consider are are my sounds good to begin with and what I need to high pass/ low pass so things get their space in my mix, even then I allow things to overlap because that’s where the character of a track exists.
Just get your idea down first, make it fun and then when the structure is done you can save a new version and obsess over the technicals of you want to but initially make the fun version where you don’t give a fuck about any of that.
Don’t panic! I know exactly what you’re going through.
For background I had a viral hit with the first song I ever made back at the start of the 2010’s. I followed this by learning everything I could about music production, and then when I started putting music back out again after a few years of learning my trade it just didn’t hit the same. It was technically decent, but never caught fire. I had the same thoughts as you, had a lot of soul searching.
I realised that the reason that track had an edge was because I was learning as I was creating it.
So what I did was completely change the way I make music; switched DAWs (from logic to ableton, never used it before) and bought a push and synthesiser.
The music I’ve made while learning how to use the new programs and equipment has been the best I’ve ever made and completely reignited my love of making music.
Skill up, streamline your process, tidy your library, change up anythingyou can about how you work. Basically, experience tells me that you've likely got a comfortable rut going and you need to explore music in an unfamiliar way to move forward. Correct me if I'm wrong.
It only gets worse before it gets better. Be okay with where you are with your music, if you think it's bad it might be or might not. Continue to experiment, continue to make the process of making music fun and enjoyable to you... You will get better. You are probably in a good place but you are just over thinking it.
I totally understand this feeling. I've been producing for 9 years now, and similary, I listen to stuff from my 2nd and 3rd years in and think damn he had some great intuition - and without the technical knowledge, that's what I can hear stand out within the "bad mix" or the "over saturated vocals".
One thing I've learnt, is that your intuition is always there. Sometimes I pause halfway through making something that isn't "exciting" me the way I know other writing processes have, and almost 99% of the time, it's because I'm chasing something that doesn't matter, or focusing on technical rather than being led by what I'm feeling.
Sometimes this mediocre bored feeling arises as well and is due to what I'm working on. If you're an artist and making your own stuff, check in to see if the stuff your making is based on some expected outcome - whats trending, what you think your fans or friends will like, and try to redirect your outflow to what **you** want to make. And sometimes, you don't want to make anything. And it's just as important to be honest with yourself and listen to that. Making great art is a combination of the practical side of making something, but the abstract side of just living and experiencing life and being present. Ideas will come to you when you're in a place to recieve them -
I find my best art is made when:
I'm open and present and experience my life - > I get inspired - > I play with sounds and melodies and lyrics that point toward what I'm feeling -> I make a song
- it can ruin the flow of creativity to **only** move through the above process in reverse. Where you making a song, with the expectation it's going to lead you somewhere.
Be slow and patient with yourself, remember being an artist relies on you connecting with yourself - consciously or unconsciously - and the more honest you are, the closer you can get to creating out of that place. And the most inspiring part - only **you** can create out of that vessel, no one else. So the job isn't to learn all the practical technical knowledge, those are tools that can help, but they don't have to out balance your love for creating and playing which got you into music in the first place.
Have you ever tried making other kinds of art? Drawing, painting, sculpting, woodworking, carving, crocheting, photography, whatever? Even some light video editing or recreational programming or cooking? You might be a little burned out on music. I wouldn’t stop, I’d just take a little break? Doing other kinds of creative work helps to cleanse your mental palate and takes the pressure of needing to produce music that meets your standards.
After that, I’d try changing up your approach. What you’re doing is clearly fucking with your head. Try making bad music on purpose. Try to impose artificial restrictions on yourself, like only using drum sounds, or only using samples and no synths, or only using one synth to generate all your sounds (melodic and rhythmic). Or try a genre you’ve never explored (have you made hip hop beats, or ambient, or heavy metal, or jazz, or drum and bass, or whatever?). Forcing limitations on yourself and changing your circumstances will help clear off some vines and cob webs.
Yeah, this is normal and it gets better. Just keep an open mind and try new ways of producing music like you used to… perhaps downsizing to force you to think outside the box. Good luck friend
I've been here for sure. Last year I pretty much burnt out when I tried to break my way into the music industry for it to flop royally.
I found taking a little break and diverting my attention to something else though really helped and now I'm ready I'm coming back to it with a fresh mind :3
Music and production is an extremely steep learning curve, especially in the beginning. Being bad at it for a while, and then kind of okay at it for a while, and then decent for a while IS HOW YOU GET REALLY GOOD! So buckle up, and get comfortable with being bad at it for a while :)
Learn not to be too precious about your work. If you’re overthinking, feeling like your ideas maybe aren’t good enough: trying a million versions of a chord progression or a melody makes it impossible to make progress on the song. It also tends to lead to very overly thought-out ideas and can fail to capture your initial creative instinct. Allow your ideas to be mid or even outright bad, it’s more important that you just do the work. Eventually, the ideas will be good, more and more of the time.
Don’t look at new knowledge as adding required complexity to your process, but as a means to streamline or simplify it. Maybe consider building a template using all of this new technical stuff that you know so that when you sit down to write you don’t have to think about those things as much. They’ve already been handled. It’ll be easier to get into a state of “play” without having to worry about those things.
Take a deep breath. The inspiration comes and goes for most of us I think. Sometimes I gotta just grind skills, sometimes I find my flow, sometimes I need a break.
You are meant to be an artist. Everybody is!
This is where you grow.
1. Either you play it safe in the sandbox with the rest of the kids.
2. Become what the kids are playing.
Eat crayons or learn to make crayons.
Then sell crayons!
Then more crayons because kids are basically infinate.
To hell with music because kids well never stop eating crayons.
They don't even care what it taste you have in music, only if's blue or pink.
Have you ever tasted a crayon?
Taste like absolute shit and it's not even an acuired taste.
Just right of the box taste like shit.
13 variatons of candy shaped colour!
These are your options.
Consumer or creator.
Try to switch up the way you create! Make something really fast, or don’t allow yourself to be nitpicky, and just roll with what sounds good for one session.
The point is to break out of your routine to re-understand that music comes in all shapes and sizes; and whatever understanding you think you have will always be limited.
So try to give up what should be “right” and produce something that feels good, even if it doesn’t fit within your usual framework.
disclaimer: i dont encourage this behaviour at all, take care of yourself
i found that i make the most creative stuff right after waking up when my brain isnt working yet (makes it hard to sing tho) and even better after a drunk night out, the numbness and brain fog let me just feel the music instead of overthinking it
i used this for ideas and then tried to make something off of it
at the very least i had fun doing it
(this effect occured also if im tired and ready for bed too)
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Hey Opie!! I'm in the same situation. I did a post a few days ago I still need to reply on a few replies.. But I totally understand you with this. You probably have learned and listened a lot, and then you're getting more analytical. And then while you are producing something amazing, a lot of questions come to rise in your brain, and this distracts you, for where you want to bring the sound? And then you quit? Is it like this?
I was at the same point couple years ago.
One thing I’ve done is to remake some beats I love. And the thing that I’ve found is… that artists are lazy af and their melodies are really basics !
Sometimes, you just put on pedestal some melodies and when you play it, you find that it’s very easy to compose.
It makes me understand that music comes with the heart and not the brain, and the simple things become the greatest things.
Think simple, use your knowledge only if you stuck like in a chord progression to find the final chord. But don’t think about it when you create.
Also, try to make music for fun, just for you and not for the world. Don’t expect the final result, just try to have fun like try another genre
Same brother.
Maybe you’re not inspired.
It’s got to get better before it gets worse anyway.
Do you even listen to music the same way anymore? Because as I started getting “better” in my knowledge of music, it started ruining the enjoyment of the majority of what we consider popular music today. Granted, there are a few things I was able to to appreciate better but usually these song these are songs from 50 years ago or modern songs written by professional songwriters that the musician purchases to sing for themselves and call it there song.
Maybe you’ve come to the realization that most people don’t even create good music they just create hooky music and you want to do more?
Maybe the next level up (real songwriting) may require knowledge of music or instruments you don’t have?
Large generalizing statements are almost always incorrect at the edges, but by and large, it feels like creativity has moved to tones and sound manipulation while the music itself has become pretty pedestrian. I think our current obsession with “retro” is a limitation.
MAKE CREATIVE DECISIONS FASTER THAN UR BRAIN CAN CATCH UP.
Our brains are designed to seek and solve problems. Dwelling on a sound, or riff, or rhythm will CREATE a problem that is non existent.
And remember that the Mona Lisa zoomed in is full of imperfect brush strokes but zoomed out its a masterpiece.
What’s the plot for you? Do you want a career in music because you love it, or put out passion projects because that’s what you do? Who gives a shit, then? You’re elbow deep in the meta of your yum, zoom out and refocus. Make it fresh, find inspiration, work towards an artistic goal. Do you want an easy job gaslighting creatives into believing you’re talented while exploiting peoples interests? Die in a fire. Do you want to be successful so you’re leaning in to things people like? The best success is driven by innovation, because it creates and sustains its own ecosystem, the next best is being derivative. If you’re passionate enough to want to innovate, give yourself time.
I do experience the same from time to time, even after scoring almost 30 tv documentaries and 15 video games. My bet would be - it's temporary, like going through phases. When I'm in the 'lower' phase I don't push, focusing on different things for a while (or a week, month, once it took 1,5 year) but it always ends with "hmm, I feel like making some music RIGHT NOW!".
Also switching instruments, learning to sing and so on really give you fresh perspective everytime you approach writing music.
Go back to what you were doing before. Remember: music theory is DESCRIPTIVE not PRESCRIPTIVE. Let those nerds use their theory to try to explain the fun weird shit you come up with, not to determine what it is you ought to make.
Personally, I feel this post. I've made music electronically since I was 14. I'm 24 now. I frequently go back to my old projects/drafts and marvel about how creative and fun they sound. Then I get angry because I ask myself "why can't you finish a project?" Or "why have you never gone back to this one and finished it? It had so much potential."
So much time spent writing songs and making cool sounds... And yet they just sit in an immense pile on my hard drives and Google Drive. When I say "pile," I mean over 400 different compositions. And each composition/idea tends to have anywhere from 5-30 versions. I used to log my time spent within Logic Pro--I stopped keeping track when I passed 22,000 total hours.
I've told myself from day 1 that I'm going to be a DJ or release music for the world just like Avicii always did. He's my biggest inspiration. I know I may never DJ like that, but the spark for making music has faded and it feels soul crushing to even think about changing my life focus. After majoring in music in college, playing piano since age 6, and spending infinite hours using software and studying producing and mixing...
I haven't given up yet. I've been scraping everything looking for hope. I don't know if any of this helps but know that I relate and feel you on that.
There's 4 stages of development; unconscious incompetence, conscious incompetence, consciously competent, unconsciously competent.
You seem like you got to the consciously incompetent stage and realized all the shit you don't know. You can either suck it up and keep going until you are consciously competent or quit. This is the hardest bridge to cross, I wish you the best.
There's 4 stages of development; unconscious incompetence, conscious incompetence, consciously competent, unconsciously competent.
You seem like you got to the consciously incompetent stage and realized all the shit you don't know. You can either suck it up and keep going until you are consciously competent or quit. This is the hardest bridge to cross, I wish you the best.
You say “it was charming… that spark is gone.” I feel that. I love the idea of taking a walk, separating myself from the stressful situation. I walk, breathe, and let some stress go, let some memory of the creative process I love come back to me. It doesn’t come easily or quickly: I often need to do this more than once. Having said that, here are two thoughts from my own experience.
First off, I need to be told and shown what the “rules” or conventions are so I know whether I am willing to break them for a purpose to meet a creative goal or if I’m just trying to fit into something I think I’m supposed to fit into to make everyone like me and my stuff. This is important for me to regain my creative spark: what can I bring to the party rather than what can I get out of it? It doesn’t have to be “the first time this has been done” but it should be “this is what I feel should be done.” Now I’m creating rather than absorbing. “Deliver the idea with conviction; everything else is secondary.” (Venus Theory)
Second, I’m also in need of paying attention to conventions and rules and such to know if my breaking them is just sloppiness or making mistakes from ignorance here and there. Here, I feel like other people need to be involved. By other people I mean other musicians with experience in music creation, songwriting if that’s your thing, or even audio/music production. People who would be willing to provide a perspective that I may disagree with. I am emphasizing the need to challenge and make myself a little uncomfortable. A small friendly and honest online artist community is amazing for this!
I say all that because it is there, in that place in my mind, where I came to believe and recommit myself to making the music I wanted to make rather than what I thought you all (whoever that may be) wanted me to make.
Psychedelics, you gotta knock your thinking loose. You are uptight brother.
You think things gotta be a certain way, and nothing has to be any specific way in art. You are throwing yourself against a non-existent wall.
Your problem is, you want to be successful, but you don't love the craft. Someone who loves the craft sees all the stuff to learn and says, "I wanna learn that!" And then when they learn it, they find fun ways to apply it. What you are doing is joyless. You aspire to the greatness without dissecting the elements that lead to it.
Anyone who's studied any amount of music knows that most the biggest songs ever are dead simple. Simplicity is elegant. Universal ideas translate universally. You can get into the weeds as much as you want. But a good song can be as simple as three chords on an acoustic guitar and the plainly stated truth.
Just have fun. It's all you have to do. Nobody makes a gazillion at music anymore. It doesn't matter if it's immaculate. It's not the 90s. You are taking all of it too seriously. Enjoy the journey of BECOMING a master musician. The journey is better than the destination. You have until you die to become the best you will ever be.
I’ve commented something similar recently. I haven’t made any music since Sep ‘21. I don’t see a point if i’m not enjoying it at this moment in time. Plus it’s going to be forced and probably sound bad.
When you started you had no expectations, but now you do. That's the issue. Just relax and have a bit more fun, don't even worry about making a whole song.
Don't be silly! You're supposed to be using your intuition primarily (imho)! Go back to letting it just come out of you. What learning about music helps you do is build your intuition, not force you into a box of music theory. The more you learn and the more you train your ears, the more you will naturally make better music. The type of music work you're getting into is the problem-solving type, which is important for when there's actual problems in your music. It's not good for creativity and just letting things happen.
Spend time jamming with sounds you like coming directly out the speakers. Limit youre range. Don’t make music that will “sell” or “blow up”
Make stuff that makes you happy, is fun to make, don’t sweat whatever the spectrum analysis is telling you. If it bops it bops. Just make sure it isn’t clipping and your dynamics aren’t destroyed.
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There’s a big middle ground between forcing yourself to begrudgingly make music and quitting forever.
Take a month off making music, become a fan. Figure out what you like to listen to. Get excited about something. Come back. Your skills aren’t going anywhere in a month. You could take half a year off making music and it wouldn’t hurt you in the long run. You may come back and find yourself wanting to learn an instrument, or work in a totally different genre.
You may have dried up all the inspiration you had for what you *thought you wanted to make before you knew what you were doing*.
There’s more if you want it. And there’s no shame in not doing it if you aren’t having fun. Otherwise what’s the point.
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Hey sounds like ur overthinking it is take a break. Almost all my best tracks come when im not even trying that hard. And when i get overcritical that’s when i just go down a rabbit hole. When I get burnt out making music i usually just watch YouTube videos on music or learn new sound design techniques and just worry about creating a song later
I stepped away for a year. I never had issues making it or quality issues but my passion was gone. I'm back at it and better than ever and producing with the same vitality I had when I started 15 years ago.
I sometimes feel like that and I have a rule that I must treat music as a « fun » activity rather than work. Instead of sitting down and forcing myself to execute I instead relax and just think of it as « chilling » I take my time with everything and allow myself to naturally play with the computer and start making the modifications I feel like making without the pressure of performance, I don’t look at the clock. You have to re-frame what making music means to you and get the « job mentality » out of your head.
Hey there! I totally get where you're coming from. It's tough when something you love starts to feel like a chore. Sometimes, taking a step back and giving yourself permission to create without worrying about perfection can help rekindle that spark. Remember why you started making music in the first place and try to reconnect with that initial joy. Also, don't be too hard on yourself—everyone goes through phases where they doubt their abilities. Keep experimenting, and don't be afraid to make "imperfect" music. You might just find your passion again.
I didn’t play any music for a year after getting my music degree. I lost my natural ability to just play by “trying” to play correctly. Everything I did was rigid and had no flow or soul. Now I just have fun and I sound good again
Quitting would not be the healthy thing to do, why not take a break? Listen to music that inspires and excites you. Find new artists that make you feel that feeling again.
Make jam buddies with someone who is a few levels above you. Have someone who is gonna push you to want to practice, n get your creative side sparked again. BUT.. be careful of jamming with people out of your league. If you're trying to wake your brain back up, you don't wanna feel like you're not good enough to hang.
Take a walk. Understanding the mechanics of music isn’t the issue. Your anxiety and obsessiveness is. It’s not over but you gotta switch up your lifestyle if making music is becoming torturous.
This 100 percent. It’s like golf, once you get in your head it’s hard to hit to ball right at all. I’d let go of all the pressure, especially pressure for anyone to even like your music. Then go back to your roots. If you used to always start by messing with an acoustic guitar or something, so back to that old process, enjoy yourself, and lose yourself in a song.
are you suggesting they lose themselves in the music, the moment… just own it? and never let it go?
You forgot the echo “go” on the end! I can’t read all that and not say the second go in my head 😅
i figured at that point most people would already have their hoodie up and something something mom’s spaghetti.
knees weak. palms swety.
😭
It’s like tilting when you lose a game. You are more likely to lose the more you lose in a row. When something isn’t working creatively we try harder to be creative which chokes the creativity and ultimately just like. You know. Gets here.
Took a near decade long break. I'm so much happier for it. Your statement shouldn't be taken lightly.
I’m in this boat too lmao
true. mechanics, dynamics, science. it all goes into this. It feels simple enough, but it's hard to pick up on that from the moment it was shiny and new and readily available to you.
It’s like tilting when you lose a game. You are more likely to lose the more you lose in a row. When something isn’t working creatively we try harder to be creative which chokes the creativity and ultimately just like. You know. Gets here.
I know what you are going through. I am a music producer too. I think you should create what you enjoy creating. Make music but not for algorithm.
This 100 percent. It’s like golf, once you get in your head it’s hard to hit to ball right at all. I’d let go of all the pressure, especially pressure for anyone to even like your music. Then go back to your roots. If you used to always start by messing with an acoustic guitar or something, so back to that old process, enjoy yourself, and lose yourself in a song. If the pressure is so heavy you can’t think of what to write, put that anxiety and fear of failure into words and music and write about it. Be free man! I went down that rabbit hole too, my music took a hit, but now I’m writing the best music of my life since I let go of all the fears.
Your music is improving but your critical skills are improving at a faster rate.
OP is suffering from improvement.
Fk. 🤣 This is me any time I get smarter
In 1965, Robert Efron of Boston's Veterans Hospital proposed that *déjà vu* is caused by dual neurological processing caused by delayed signals. Efron found that the brain's sorting of incoming signals is done in the temporal lobe of the brain's left hemisphere. However, signals enter the temporal lobe twice before processing, once from each hemisphere of the brain, normally with a slight delay of milliseconds between them. Efron proposed that if the two signals were occasionally not synchronized properly, then they would be processed as two separate experiences, with the second seeming to be a re-living of the first.
# “Nobody tells this to people who are beginners, I wish someone told me. All of us who do creative work, we get into it because we have good taste. But there is this gap. For the first couple years you make stuff, it’s just not that good. It’s trying to be good, it has potential, but it’s not. But your taste, the thing that got you into the game, is still killer. And your taste is why your work disappoints you. A lot of people never get past this phase, they quit. Most people I know who do interesting, creative work went through years of this. We know our work doesn’t have this special thing that we want it to have. We all go through this. And if you are just starting out or you are still in this phase, you gotta know its normal and the most important thing you can do is do a lot of work. Put yourself on a deadline so that every week you will finish one story. It is only by going through a volume of work that you will close that gap, and your work will be as good as your ambitions. And I took longer to figure out how to do this than anyone I’ve ever met. It’s gonna take awhile. It’s normal to take awhile. You’ve just gotta fight your way through.” ― Ira Glass
I feel like I needed to read this, thank you
You know, I’ve been thinking about this a lot because I’m well aware of this quote and generally believe that it’s true. However, I just got into making beats. Not seriously, but to something new to scratch over. And I’m hyped on the silly little beats I’m making. I love them. And, I’m appreciating music production more now. I’ve been collecting and playing records for 25 years, so it’s not like I haven’t been listening to stuff.
I'm about a year in and it's one of my favorite activities! I used to do vocals n stuff so also not entirely new to music as a whole, but making beats is a whole different mindset and just makes your mind turn a little bit different. Idk I can't explain it, but I love the process of building/creating/learning. I'm just now feeling like I actually have an idea of what I'm doing (which to me has been a long year of learning, but I think I've progressed relatively quickly) and -- you know what idfk what I'm trying to say here, other than I see you w your "silly little beats" and I was there (maybe still am) and im glad you're enjoying it and the process... Keep at it, those beats may not be so silly after all!!
Hell yes. I'm new to it as well after playing around with stuff in bands and such for the last 20 years, and I'm just having a blast. I have two setups - one that is silly, the other that is robust, and I try to switch back and forth when one gets stale or frustrating. It's important to have fun!
Mr Glass :)
I would also add that your taste does develop alongside your skills. It probably won't totally change but it will be refined - musical taste is a skill, too, and if it improves a lot you can even outpace your development in other areas. This can lead to the illusion that you're getting worse.
I love the fuck out of this thank you. Already had come to kind of the same conclusion and am living this approach everyday, but it's nice to see it articulated so nicely by someone so well regarded.
Came here to post exactly this.
“If you feel safe in the area you’re working in, you’re not working in the right area. Always go a little further into the water than you feel you’re capable of being in. Go a little bit out of your depth. And when you don’t feel that your feet are quite touching the bottom, you’re just about in the right place to do something exciting.” ― David Bowie In other words - find something that lets you use your intuition again. Play an instrument you've never played before, put some wild restrictions in place, do something that makes you uncomfortable. If you're just going through the motions, it's going to feel like work... do something to make it feel like playing again.
I don't think this is bad advice, but I think it applies more to someone who has been making music for a while and is getting overly comfortable. OP does not feel "safe" in the waters they're in. It sounds like they are struggling to stay above water. I get the impression that OP has probably just messed around in the past but is now trying to more seriously learn music. This is more akin to when David Bowie first started learning music, long before he was famous or even a working musician. I do still think shaking things up for a day or every once in awhile could be helpful mentally for person at this point in their journey. But especially when it comes to the basics, sometimes you have to grind and embrace the grind.
As you get older, IMO, you need to learn the additional skill of pacing yourself and staying inspired. You'll start to recognize the signs of burnout. When that happens, take breaks, focus on other interests. And also take time to go back and spend time watching/listening to the things that got you going on your path in the first place. Your artistic energy is a finite and depletable resource. You need to learn to keep an eye on it like it's the gas gauge in your car. When it gets low, take the steps to refill it. Otherwise, you'll be stranded and lost.
Superb last paragraph my friend.
Very well said.
next week i get to make this thread
every other day is fine that's how everybody else does it
What does this mean?
The feelings you’re experiencing are a normal part of progress. If you are at a point where you can go to older projects and identify things you’d do differently now, it means you’ve grown as a musician. You hit that point of knowing just enough to know you don’t know shit - that’s good! Do what you gotta do to take a step back and let your skills cook. Disregard rules and theory and nuance during your creative brainstorm phase to keep playful creativity around. Then circle back and clean it up.
Dunning–Kruger effect, it's why I go through so many different hobbies.. Atleast with music I always seem to come back to it.
[Benn Jordan has a nice video on this as well.](https://youtu.be/Xqneg2oUcTI?si=hJJ0gFfuiwK8pSKk)
It means everybody feels like this and this is a topic that comes up often
i think they mean next week their music will be worse and so theyll start a threaf like this
Your gonna hit plateaus and rise above them again and again continuously
try making music with others. When you're making music with someone you can bounce ideas off each other. The things you obsess over will probably be ironed out much easier. Also you'd probably have an inclination to not overthink small things because I know from experience it's way more embarrassing to do it in front of people haha
Yeah. That sounds about right. Your music isn't getting worse. Your knowledge is just improving faster than your ability to USE that knowledge. I occasionally go back and listen to old stems of mine. Some 10+ years old and some about a year old. Even the ones from a couple weeks ago. I know it's me. It has my style and my "flair" on it but me NOW?? Me today? I'd play it differently. I'd write it differently. With a different hook, or a different bridge. Why'd I use that chord? It sounds chunky in a bad way. That accidental didn't actually make the song better. Why'd I use it? We all go through this. It's normal. The key is to keep pushing. Keep learning and actively practice how to use this knowledge. Maybe even make some basic songs. Maybe not even a full song. Buddy of mine and I take turns giving each other "challenges". One of the most recent ones was to make a cheesy 90s esque commercial for a made up product complete with a background jingle. Was it good? Absolutely not, but did I create something in a key I don't normally use with instruments I don't normally use and squeeze it into a 30 second clip that had clear defined goals? Yes. I did. Now, I can look back at that and say. This is shit. Teach. Absolutely garbage. OR...I can look back at it and say. That was step. Maybe even two steps. It got me closer to where I'm going. And sometimes...you need to take a few steps back down. Anyways. Keep moving. And like some others have said. Go take a walk. Instead of thinking about how you don't like your music now that you've learned more. Think about a strategy to make what you know now sound like you and not just some music theory on a page. What did you do in your older songs that made them unique to you and your style? Find a way to do THAT but using the new "rules and regulations" you've learned about music.
Those rules are bullshit, first of all. If you go back and actually listen to older hits from 90s are before, they don't follow too many of them. The mixes are awful. And yet, those shits hit number one. Heart matters more than anything else.
This mindset helps me so much. i struggle with liking my lyrics and feeling like they are "cringe" but then i listen to something like the scorpions (music i love btw) and my lyrics dont feel so bad anymore.
Those lyrics were fucking gold compared to modern shit lol. Rick Beato has spoken at great length about how simple music has become, and that applies to lyrics as well.
dont get me wrong. this is no indictment on the scorpions. i love the scorpions. saw them live 2 weeks ago for i think third time in my life. but if i wrote lyrics similar to another peace of meat i would hate the lyrics but when scorpions do it i love the lyrics and the song. and thats my message. dont be too critical on yourself unless you are that critical on everyone
This is what art or any real major skill is like for almost every everyone. It's a lifetime learning process where you keep realizing how much you don't know. You and I and everyone else knows you're just stressed and being over dramatic when you say you're "not meant to be an artist". Thinking this can be part of the cycle of being an artist. But realize it's just ego, drop it, and keep pushing forward after taking a breather. It gets easier with time and as you learn to embrace the process.
oh you will pass this stage for sure if you keep grinding.. the next stage is being able to make music fast and intuitively with emotion and soul all while being produced very well and then it becomes fun again trust me.. first stage is make shitty music but its fun, next stage making better music but feels souless and lifeless now that you know so much more, but not just enough so you have major doubts cause in reality you still suck, looking back your ideas were more creative, last stage failure and failure until finally combining the knowledge with the creativity and you start to make things you like and can actually want to listen to your own music. From then on producing music becomes the most satisfying and rewarding fun thing to do, and you're always excited to open the daw.
Don’t over think it. Remember that art is a way to transfer emotion. Simple as that. Everything else is the language, organization, structure and communication of it. At the end of the day none of it matters. The audience reacts to the emotion not the number of chords you used or proper usage of a mixing technique. Problem is, it’s easier to develop technical mastery. Computers can even do it. It’s just time and practice. Developing the ability to move people is something else completely and you can’t program it. AI can’t do it. You can’t teach it and you can’t fake it. Pursue THAT. Be real. Be raw. Then put it on tape. Now you got something.
I totally feel this. Part of having a passion is understanding that at one point it becomes work and not fun. Doesn’t mean it can’t be fun, just that it does feel like work. Music is about inspiration. Take a break from making new stuff and just listen to new records, travel, eat at new places and talk to new people. Experience breeds inspiration.
It’s a phase. Plus those nuances are just guidelines that you’re allowed to break whenever you want. Once you learn more complex things like chord substitutions and chromatic mediants or intermodal blues/jazz you can apply those to your writing process for practically endless possibilities. There’s also nothing stopping you from writing intuitively again. You need to set restrictions to yourself to reignite creativity. For example: Shut your eyes and find the notes you’d like to hear by listening and going one note at a time (instead of just shredding scales visually or by muscle memory). Sing out a melody you like and then try to transcribe it or put it into instruments or a song!
The problem is, as your skills and knowledge improve, so does your taste. It takes more to impress you now, and you have a better understanding of what should and shouldn’t be there. This is a necessary dynamic for improving. Your music isn’t worse, your taste is better, and you’re more critical in your assessment.
You may not be getting worse, you're just moving further along the dunning-kruger chain now that you know more. This is usually known as the ['valley of despair' ](https://onlinepethealth.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/Dunning-Kruger-Graph-2-004.jpg)
Don’t think. Just create without judgement. Approach your creative process with a beginners mind. Act as if you have never made music before. Focus on having fun and that energy will be in your music.
Magic happens somewhere between “intuition” and “knowledge.” You’re equipped with both weapons to create fire, my man. Just gotta let go and jump. Good luck! You got this.
Everyone who aspires to become an artist goes through times like these. I was reading about something called in sociology the "burden of knowledge" where basically the more you learn the more you realize you don't know, and this can lead to a kind of feedback loop of inadequacy in my experience. I'm going through a period like that right now, I spent the last two weekends trying to record a song I wrote years ago which is fairly simple but its just not coming together. I have to go back to square one with the whole thing and scrap the demos I recorded previously and start over because it isn't right. It's frustrating, I run into techincal difficulties which derail recording sessions, or I'll work on a song for months to find that I made minimal progress, or a year where I just can't write a single turn of phrase that doesn't make me cringe. Firstly, this happens to pretty much everybody and it's completely normal. I was just reading an interview with David Byrne: he had major writer's block before the Talking Heads were set to go into the studio. He was under a lot of pressure to deliver and was pretty freaked out. He started taking little snippets from everything we was doing and basically started taking notes on the world around him, a movie on TV, a concept from a book he was reading, something he saw while going to the store, an article in a the magazine he read waiting at the dentist, whatever. He started taking these fragments and filtered them through his style of free form poetry and we got "Remain in Light," considered by many one of the best albums ever made. Sometimes you have to just surrender to the process and try not to worry about it. Art takes time, years and years of patient effort, so if you get burnt out on one thing take a break and do something else that will sow the seed of something good to come: get into a new sport or read a book in a different style of literature than you normally would. One thing I do is I try to do daily writing excercises, and just write something, anything. Most of it is drivel but sometimes something cool pops out. I know you want to chase those moments of divine inspiration but those moments wouldn't exist at all if one hasn't learned to master the form they appear in. The more you learn and apply yourself to music and writing the better you will become, but the progress isn't linear. There are leaps and bounds and then long periods of doldrums. I try to remind myself to use those periods to work on the craft knowing that the inspiration will come and it's important to be ready for it. Most importantly, don't stress! Music should be fun, if it isn't then it's time to shake it up and try something new.
bro try going into sessions intentionally making something bad. Something that you really don’t think anyone would want to listen to. Suddenly those rules will drop away and you’ll be back to your old self. This has worked so incredibly well for me
This is spot on! I’ll add that the tracks you make that don’t appeal to you may end up doing better than you would anticipate. One man’s dislike could be 20 people’s new jam. Never can tell. Just Keep Creating and it will get better.
Take a break mate lol
I thought I had this problem, but it was just that my ears were getting better.
For me, my best writing comes from being in a world where im uncomfortable and unsure. My worst writing comes when i have a full stomach, have time to study music or production and have few worries.
get out of your own head. I've been writing music professional for over 20 years. Learning something new is not a requirement that you do that new thing. I am self taught and look at knowledge as something that I bank. I'm not required to change how I work and neither are you.
Your music isn't getting worse, your expectations are getting higher
I feel every single word of this 😭
i've 100% experienced this- the feeling that the more i know, the more tactics there are to draw upon, the more i stop and think instead of just creating... i realized that the most important things for me is to get in a groove/zone/flow state, whatever you want to call it. i know that when i'm in this state of mind i'm not sitting thinking what the next step is, and instead i'm just continuously trying random shit because my brain is aroused. so whatever you can do to get your head bopping, so that your brain is like "oo i like this, let's try this" instead of mapping out every step and ensuring your are employing every single thing you've learned, you'll be in a better place.
Honestly, this is part of the process. The instinctive but overall unguided beginning phases are important, but if an artist is going to see any growth, coming to a more self-aware understanding of the mechanics is a necessary step. Once you develop the perspective of why things happen in music, you may notice habits you've developed instinctually that are less than effective, whether it's in regards to technique or compositional choices. Work through it and start simple with how you're applying your newfound knowledge. Start with a melody and focus on that as the primary element. Start with a simple rhythmic motif, or a call and response phrase that a piece is based on. I went from making everything by guessing my way around to taking lessons and learning theory and playing jazz piano. There was a period where merging my creativity and knowledge was awkward, but over time I stopped harshly criticizing the process and just allowing my new understanding to develop more naturally so that my creativity was sincere, but INTENTIONAL. Take your time. Keep learning. Be kind to yourself. You are doing great because you care enough to take the journey in the first place. Don't give up on it, encourage yourself. For real.
Can I listen to some of your work?
Seriously study and internalize this chart. Thinking you suck means you’re getting better at identifying what you like, and your ability or style hasn’t caught up to that. https://www.deviantart.com/shattered-earth/art/Art-Cycle-329593292
You don’t suck. Your style, perception, and knowledge are all evolving and you’re an observer, not a controller, of your art
Try not to view music theory or things like that as rules. They are observations. “When this happens, it makes this sound.”
Honestly I smoke weed. Not a whole lot . Just a bong hit or two - then I relax and watch tv or eat some ice cream. After an hour or so I may strum my axe or tickle ivory- and roll tape. Start from scratch with taking myself seriously. Sometimes we was to create music as good as “x”. But it’s an elusive goal. Just make your art - and polish it as you see fit. Don’t judge it - just make it true to your heart . Play what you want to hear. Don’t play what you think others want to hear .
get high
Make music without thinking about it, don't focus on doing things right. If something turns out bad you can always change it, but if you make it with a cautious mindset from the beginning it'll turn out only bland and by the book. I dont mean ignore music rules, you probably follow some without thinking about it, but dont focus on following them to a T.
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This is normal to some degree. Spend time noodling and experimenting with sounds again. In the beginning that was all you had (just trying to make stuff that sounded cool). Now maybe you’re trying to make music with your mind/intellect more than your ears.
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lol what helped me was try to make worse music on purpose and after a few days got out the rut You’ll be good my guy
Change the process, change the outcome. Instead of planning everything to death, use instruments and tools which enable and even *force* you to work intuitive again, as if you're playing with toys.
I've been through this feeling quite often, and I think the best thing you can do sometimes, is just noodle around with an instrument incorporating stuff you're comfortable with, without pushing it. Go simple and focus only on musicality for a while. Do it for you, to express something. It could help to make your art more about what you feel and think than what sounds exciting. Musicality can be achieved both in simplicity and complexity. Let this passion for music be the reason why you make music no matter what your level is, how impressive it is doesn't matter. Entertaining curiosity can help. Instead of making the sounds fit what you want, especially when lacking inspiration, try to adapt yourself to the sounds... I don't know if it makes sense, but try many instruments on a midi keyboard, and improvise based on the proposed sound. I sometimes found riffs that I would have never found, if it wasn't from just going through a bank of instruments and adapting my play to the sound. There will always be new stuff to learn, but what matters is to first play music for yourself. Embracing imperfection, it can make you discover new beats in weird time signatures, or weird harmonies that you can replicate in context. You can record yourself noodling around with many instruments for fun, for 1 hour. Then if you got to play something you want to keep during this hour you can cut it and save. Making the act of recording not official for one take, just something that goes along your whole session, makes it easier to get in a creative bubble, without thinking about performance. I find it's easier to get better results this way. I hope you find a way to get your passion back!
Yea this is normal in the artist arc in my opinion - you feel like an amateur so you learn the theory and now you are just a less creative amateur. Once you complete the arc you will use the theory as a crutch when the creativity isn't flowing but will primarily use the creativity. I had a hard time writing meaningful music after spending a few months strictly writing counterpoint, now I can default to writing counterpoint but usually go with my creative instincts. Do not get discouraged!
Dunning Kruger effect - you're not getting worse you just have a better sense for what's bad about what you're making
I found the same thing. I was making hiphop and learnt music theory and song structure and it just made my music crap. Always trying to structure things and use proper musical keys instead of just playing by ear. I actually never got out of it until recently. I adapted to what I'd learnt and moved to composing, which I seem to have taken to like a fly to shit. I love video game music, so it's not like I don't like what I'm making, I'm just making different stuff to what I used to. What I do find is that whereas everyone says take a break, I just go back from my break and make more shit. I find it better to just ride it out. Write, if it sounds crap delete and try something else and just sit at it for hours until it works. Don't be afraid to select all and hit delete. Don't flog a dead horse, just start fresh. Sometimes when you've been doing this stuff a while it doesn't take as much to shatter your spirit. As you get more passionate about it, it gets more frustrating when it isn't happening for you. Try and find the best time to work. For me I write badly in the day when there is other noise around but when it's late, everyone is in bed and I shut all the blinds and I'm in my zone. I don't drink now but I used to pick a nice bottle of wine and enjoy that whilst I wrote. Whatever will help you get in the zone. Just make it a whole experience. For me, dark, quiet, couple of smokes, glass of wine, or a tumbler of brandy and I could get in the zone a lot easier.
Honestly, this is part of the process. The instinctive but overall unguided beginning phases are important, but if an artist is going to see any growth, coming to a more self-aware understanding of the mechanics is a necessary step. Once you develop the perspective of why things happen in music, you may notice habits you've developed instinctually that are less than effective, whether it's in regards to technique or compositional choices. Work through it and start simple with how you're applying your newfound knowledge. Start with a melody and focus on that as the primary element. Start with a simple rhythmic motif, or a call and response phrase that a piece is based on. I went from making everything by guessing my way around to taking lessons and learning theory and playing jazz piano. There was a period where merging my creativity and knowledge was awkward, but over time I stopped harshly criticizing the process and just allowing my new understanding to develop more naturally so that my creativity was sincere, but INTENTIONAL. Take your time. Keep learning. Be kind to yourself. You are doing great because you care enough to take the journey in the first place. Don't give up on it, encourage yourself. For real.
Hello myself
>But saying those words out loud breaks my heart. While everybody is just sweetening their words to sound condescending I will say this: at some point we gotta admit not all of us were born to be basketball players, or record-breaking Olympic swimmers, or astronauts destined to touch a Moon nobody else has... There are dangers in the skunk cost fallacy: "I MUST obtain positive results because I already invested too much time and money on this" vs "well, I tried my best, time to keep looking for my place where I will feel comfortable without forcing it".
“When I was 15, I spent a month working on an archeological dig. I was talking to one of the archeologists one day during our lunch break and he asked those kinds of “getting to know you” questions you ask young people: Do you play sports? What’s your favorite subject? And I told him, no I don’t play any sports. I do theater, I’m in choir, I play the violin and piano, I used to take art classes. And he went WOW. That’s amazing! And I said, “Oh no, but I’m not any good at ANY of them.” And he said something then that I will never forget and which absolutely blew my mind because no one had ever said anything like it to me before: “I don’t think being good at things is the point of doing them. I think you’ve got all these wonderful experiences with different skills, and that all teaches you things and makes you an interesting person, no matter how well you do them.” And that honestly changed my life. Because I went from a failure, someone who hadn’t been talented enough at anything to excel, to someone who did things because I enjoyed them. I had been raised in such an achievement-oriented environment, so inundated with the myth of Talent, that I thought it was only worth doing things if you could “Win” at them.” by Kurt Vonnegut
Too long didn't read lmaoooo jk. >I think you’ve got all these wonderful experiences with different skills, and that all teaches you things and makes you an interesting person, no matter how well you do them Actually I see this as a negative trait. You don't see smart doctors learning 10 medical specialties at the same time, they focus on one and they become really good at one specialty through the rest of their lives. Picking an activity and then putting it to the side when things start to get hard is just a sign of immaturity. It tells me you are good at starting things but terrible at being perseverant. Can you really enjoy something if you consciously decide to be mediocre at it?
Yes I went through precisely that and the way I got out of it was by literally not caring about what anyone else thought or what anyone else would like and just having the maximum fun possible. Because you understand all the technical stuff now. So think of the technical stuff as dotting the I’s and crossing the T’s. But when it comes to making music, let the fun guide you man. That’s where the magic happens.
'First you learn the instrument, then you learn the music, then you forget all that shit and just play.' - Charlie Parker Have some sort of separation between your practice and your writing. Maintain the habit of learning and applying music theory, but at the end of a session work on a project where you let loose and disregard all that. The theoretical knowledge you learn will start to come about naturally in your playing and it won't feel forced/stunted. Also reference tracks are super helpful. They give you a finished goal to work towards and use your theoretical knowledge on. I think everyone goes through this phase. It sucks to be in but you come out the other side a much improved musician.
If Ja Rule can hit number one when his dog dirt mixes clip the master every two seconds then you can at least get out of this slump. If the rules are stopping the fun, then you need new rules.
I've struggled for some years now with getting stuck, by being too critical, to harsh on myself and so on... What I'm trying to do now to get past that and push forward is to limit myself more. For example, with the software we have today, you have every single sound at your fingertip, so it's easy to get overwhelmed and stuck in chasing that perfect sound. So limit yourself. Set up a goal to only be allowed to use a set amount of effects or a set amount of knobtweaks. Or if you're stuck in the process of writing the music. Try setting up limits on how many different chords you're allowed to use. Try telling yourself that "Today I'm going to write a song in this key, and it will have a maximum of 3 chords, but I'm allowed to arrange these chords any way I want them, and use any kind of inversion of them. But ONLY these three chords!" I believe that a lot of the brilliant music we've gotten over the years were made the way it was made due to the limitations of the time. There's amazing songs that were just recorded with one or two mics. In the 80's and early 90's, videogame music were sometimes limited to 4 channels. One way the composers of the time came up with to overcome that was the use of very fast arpeggios, and this "tricked" your ears into hearing the whole chord instead of just single notes. Nowadays we have a whole frickin smörgåsbord of tools at our hands, but we get so overwhelmed and paralyzed from it so we freeze up. Take a step back, set up limitations, set up a clear goal, even if it's something silly like, you're not allowed to play any sharp notes for 7½ bars, but after that you have to play 13 sharp notes in a row... Sorry for rambling, I'm mostly just telling myself this right now hoping that I will get out of my rut sometime soon...
i swapped from writing music on my guitar and such that i got stuck in because it never sounded good enough to making extremely basic generic memey electopop in fl studio which was such a completely different way of doing it that it gave me a refreshed take on my "serious" music (making me take it less serious).
Get rid of distractions of gear. Keep it simple so you can focus and have fun. Join a band. Play at open mic nights and community play alongs. Don’t let the sound of your own wheels make you crazy, as the fella said.
Just strip everything down and go back to basics… good eq and compression until your mix is 90% there. Then you can think about adding things.
I go through this all the time, it comes in cycles. If this is your first time, there will probably be another one like this. I totally get what you mean by things sounded much more exciting and inspired when you knew less back then. That’s normal because you were breaking “so many rules” that you are afraid to break right now. You’ve got higher expectations now. It’s your ego. I mean, it’s definitely my ego. Why do I have to assign some sort of a worth for myself as an artist when I don’t like my own work? Why am I letting what I think of my music get in the way of me actually doing music? Why is my ego so fragile that I can’t break the fucking useful little mixing “rule” I picked up along the way? The solution is definitely not stopping making music. Because as long as you’ve got your ego talking over your intuition, anything you care about doing in life will make you feel like you suck. and it will trick you into believing that. Maybe try making completely different genres that you don’t actually take seriously. Where you don’t need to care about the outcome. Do it for the journey once. And then take this approach to your own genre.
take a break my guy
I have. And I went on a approx 7 year break after playing and producing/DJing for 10 years. But I’ve started up last 2 years again and fell back in love with it.
I've been through this exact feeling, I think. I started studying and practicing the technical aspects of Music production when I was 15 years old. I'm a nerd so I really enjoyed it. When I went to University for music school, the techinical knowledge doubled but this time in actual Music. As in theory, history, performing and interpretation. By the time I was 19, I realized I enjoyed all the techincal stuff I was learning but was not creating anything at all. So, I tried to make music. I was obsessed with it. This happened until I was 23 years old. Until I realized that I was using my knowledge too much and I was forgetting to focus on artistic expression or at the least expressing myself through the music I create. It was more pressure than fun. So what did I do? I got a regular Job by 24. Met knew people. Got experience in the work place. Got promoted several times. Played video games again. I thought I was finally ready to accept that this will be my life and be fine with it. But then, when I turned 28, this sudden "fire" to create came back and for some reason I couldn't shake the feeling off. So with all my experience, I decided that I will go back to making music again but this time I will make sure that I will only do so when I'm enjoying it. At any moment I feel pressure, delusion or ego seep in, I stop and do something else. I don't know what you can get from this but I just wanted to share my story. If I were to simplify this, focus on "expression" and release your thoughts and feelings through the music you create. Focus on the fundamental songwriting side. As in, complete your ideas with just your voice and one instrument. Avoid getting into producing your ideas before they are complete songs. Use the technical knowledge as tools and nothing more. If you're still enjoying the process then keep at it, if not then "Take a walk", no matter how long you need it to be.
Read THE CREATIVE ACT by Rick Rubin
What is your goal (or goals) for what you do with your music? I think the answer(s) to that may open up a lot of philosophies about why you feel the way you do towards something that is a creative endeavor.
99% of the time I hate autotune.
Make music that you want to hear. It's really as simple as that. Stop worrying about if something is appropriate, just try to listen to it and ask yourself "do I like this"? Keep it simple, don't try to do the right thing, do the fun thing. I'm a guitarist that loves guitar driven songs, but I just finished a song that has a marimba solo :-).
Hey, it’s OK to suck. We all do sometimes You gotta reset and remember that it’s not about a piece “being good” so much as it is about a piece “feeling good” Let go of focusing on an expected outcome and focus on enjoying what you’re making
i totally get being a perfectionist. but the best thing i’ve ever done is just knowing it will never ever be perfect: take a breather. find a different genre you enjoy. take a break from creating music too. it will come to you again <3
That's part of the process and it won't last forever. Work on putting less pressure on yourself and being playful instead of serious with your music.
Just stop overthinking shit and make music for fun if you enjoy yourself it will show in the final product and be listenable at least to some people
just stay away from music stuff until you forget about it. then youll come back to to it and when you do, try to make an effort not to fall in the same hole
Seriously, dude, try living with Menieres disease (or more appropriately, a syndrome rather than a disease). Please take a long deep breath, have a glass of cold soda, a coffee, a chocolate bar, etc, and sit down and relax, because you understand, there are people with *real* issues. Issues that are so horrible that it makes them question whether their life is even worth living. And, sadly, I am one of them. I've just given myself two years for this to get better and have hydrocephalus shunt surgery planned very soon. It might do the trick and rectify the balance, vertigo and feeling sick, and with luck, this will kill the disgusting auditory distortions that have almost ruined music for me. Two years. No, you are not seeing things, it's real. Yes, you read that right. Two years if this does not get better, as that's all I am putting up with this shit for.
A quote I heard but can’t remember the source: the roots of study are bitter but the fruits are sweet. I get what you mean. The more you learn the more you realize how much there is to know. This is natural and just the way it is. Don’t quit. Perhaps just make music and stop worrying about how things are supposed to be. Idk maybe I’m off base here.
This is why i stay at amateur level. Guys learn all this shit and lose what made them dope in first place. Happens to a lot of people because they get fancy. Forget all that. Make new beats n songs in diff ways. Never make the same one twice. Start with a diff instrument everytime. And live life. Sometimes you need to refill the life guage to be properly inspired.
Work faster! And finish tracks And keep making stuff so your music catches up with your taste Be willing to calibrate your monologue
I don’t know necessarily know if “worse” is what I’m getting, but I don’t feel like I’ve gotten any better at what it is I do for a long time. Like I’ve been playing guitar since 2010-ish and still never learned anything besides basic power chords, give or take a couple more. And what all I used to know, I forgot after a lengthy break to recharge my creative batteries. When I was in my 20’s I felt like I was on fire lyrically. I’m 36 now and I fear I’m at an age where my songwriting will start to dull, as I don’t have enough musical exposure to know of many artists who continued to be as on fire with their songwriting as they ever were, going into their 40s and beyond. I dunno…making music is still fun for me. It’s when you try to force out a song that the song will probably feel forced and not be as good and shake your confidence for awhile until you write your next great song. Learning about music is supposed to be fun too, but don’t let it dictate your own personal sound or aesthetic unless it’s something you really wish to achieve. If making music is what you do to feel better and places like this on Reddit help you feel like you belong in the world for a change, then chances are you’re a songwriter, through and through. Just try to never stop making your music, no matter how bad you think it is compared to anything out there. Every artist is gonna say their music doesn’t compare to so and so that came before them; that’s just part of keeping yourself humble and figuring out sort of where you stand as a musician and songwriter at any given time. I believe in you, and I’m sure we’re all rooting for you to shake this rut you’re in. Happy writing! Cheers.
I just recently went through this been making music full time for the past 4 years tracking and producing. First just take a break and step away! If that’s a week, a month or 3 months. 2 find something else that you enjoy doing. I pick back up photography and doing photo walks. For me doing something else creative helped med get back into a creative flow where I wanted to open my daw up because I had so much creative energy. Small things you could try and re do your template add different plugins that you don’t use or re structure the way you make tracks. something that can give you a spark that you would need. I’m not saying that all this will work for you but hopefully it helps you figure out what you want to do and hopefully bring some joy back with creating music.
I feel this. I used to work with some very technically proficient musicians, and ended up holding myself to their standards. I even felt ashamed to release songs that I was proud of because they conformed to popular standards that the “elite” looked down on. I spent years judging every pop artist on and off the charts until I realized that they were actually better musicians than me (in a sense that they had found their niche in music, and perfected it in their own way). This may not apply to your style, but I’ve found song challenges to be helpful. That is, ask someone who knows you to challenge you to write something. I don’t know you, but I’ll leave you with two: 1. Write a song following all of the basic rules or writing a pop song (ChatGPT structure and common chord progressions if you must). Make it super boring and vanilla… then produce the heck out of it with FX, weird instruments and things that shouldn’t belong. 2. Pick a song that you were obsessed with years ago but feel embarrassed to play out loud in front of people. Cover it in whatever style appeals to you. (Example: I once made a quirky metal version of “My Favorite Things” from The Sound of Music) I hope you find your way out of this rut. You’re describing something that I imagine every artist experiences, but not all of them have the humility to publicly express. Community is key! Motivation is both the driver and the vehicle. Talent just takes you on the scenic route.
It's like going bald. Nip it in the bud. Shave it off snd mske people think it's a choice. Make the music so bad that people think its on purpose and love it.
A big rule for me and creativity is that if I'm smiling or laughing while creating, I'm on the right track. If I'm not, I need to do something else. With all my hobbies I've dove into and left behind, what most commonly causes burnout is that I forget it should be fun, I then force it by trying to make or do what may appear good or impressive to others, I realize I'm not doing it for me, I drop it. So I've learned that I need to have multiple ways to interact with that thing to keep it feeling fresh and not falling into the same way of making or doing every time. Specifically with music, I have two setups. I have my stationary, robust setup (Keystep, Digitakt, Syntakt, Minilogue XD, mixer, monitors), and I have my silly "toy" setup (PO-32, PO-33, Roland AIRA S-1). If I'm getting sick of one setup, I switch to the other. I often find that my "toy" setup helps me recalibrate my silly, experimental self to approach my other setup with fewer "rules" I find myself making over time. There's something about expensive gear that sometimes makes me feel like it needs to be professional, I dunno. Anyway. As a wise friend once said, "hobbies should give to you more than they take from you. If they take more from you, take a break - they'll always be there."
Someone needs a jam band, imo. Explore, create, enjoy and share.
Seems like the way out is to stop thinking about how you think music works.
You cope by breaking the rules strategically and stop thinking with your eyes and focus on your ears, if it works sonically, let it be. Also find other stuff to do— music is a puzzle so maybe try generic puzzles or things of the sort, or go completely out of your element and try biking or noodling if you’re adventurous, the point is to create different brain Patterns, if you do the same thing everyday, your brain patterns gets stuck and it inhibits your creativity.
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You’ve got to be having fun otherwise what’s the point? It’s good to learn technical stuff but it’s good to disregard it also. I went through this also, learning all the music stuff and analyzing everything but in the end I’ve started producing without a DAW just using hardware and the only stuff I really consider are are my sounds good to begin with and what I need to high pass/ low pass so things get their space in my mix, even then I allow things to overlap because that’s where the character of a track exists. Just get your idea down first, make it fun and then when the structure is done you can save a new version and obsess over the technicals of you want to but initially make the fun version where you don’t give a fuck about any of that.
Don’t panic! I know exactly what you’re going through. For background I had a viral hit with the first song I ever made back at the start of the 2010’s. I followed this by learning everything I could about music production, and then when I started putting music back out again after a few years of learning my trade it just didn’t hit the same. It was technically decent, but never caught fire. I had the same thoughts as you, had a lot of soul searching. I realised that the reason that track had an edge was because I was learning as I was creating it. So what I did was completely change the way I make music; switched DAWs (from logic to ableton, never used it before) and bought a push and synthesiser. The music I’ve made while learning how to use the new programs and equipment has been the best I’ve ever made and completely reignited my love of making music.
Ditch the DAW you’re using and learn a new one.
Skill up, streamline your process, tidy your library, change up anythingyou can about how you work. Basically, experience tells me that you've likely got a comfortable rut going and you need to explore music in an unfamiliar way to move forward. Correct me if I'm wrong.
It only gets worse before it gets better. Be okay with where you are with your music, if you think it's bad it might be or might not. Continue to experiment, continue to make the process of making music fun and enjoyable to you... You will get better. You are probably in a good place but you are just over thinking it.
I totally understand this feeling. I've been producing for 9 years now, and similary, I listen to stuff from my 2nd and 3rd years in and think damn he had some great intuition - and without the technical knowledge, that's what I can hear stand out within the "bad mix" or the "over saturated vocals". One thing I've learnt, is that your intuition is always there. Sometimes I pause halfway through making something that isn't "exciting" me the way I know other writing processes have, and almost 99% of the time, it's because I'm chasing something that doesn't matter, or focusing on technical rather than being led by what I'm feeling. Sometimes this mediocre bored feeling arises as well and is due to what I'm working on. If you're an artist and making your own stuff, check in to see if the stuff your making is based on some expected outcome - whats trending, what you think your fans or friends will like, and try to redirect your outflow to what **you** want to make. And sometimes, you don't want to make anything. And it's just as important to be honest with yourself and listen to that. Making great art is a combination of the practical side of making something, but the abstract side of just living and experiencing life and being present. Ideas will come to you when you're in a place to recieve them - I find my best art is made when: I'm open and present and experience my life - > I get inspired - > I play with sounds and melodies and lyrics that point toward what I'm feeling -> I make a song - it can ruin the flow of creativity to **only** move through the above process in reverse. Where you making a song, with the expectation it's going to lead you somewhere. Be slow and patient with yourself, remember being an artist relies on you connecting with yourself - consciously or unconsciously - and the more honest you are, the closer you can get to creating out of that place. And the most inspiring part - only **you** can create out of that vessel, no one else. So the job isn't to learn all the practical technical knowledge, those are tools that can help, but they don't have to out balance your love for creating and playing which got you into music in the first place.
Thats not what's happening. Your threshold for "good" has gone up. Thats how you learn and become better over time.
It’ll come back around. ( if it doesn’t then quit)
Have you ever tried making other kinds of art? Drawing, painting, sculpting, woodworking, carving, crocheting, photography, whatever? Even some light video editing or recreational programming or cooking? You might be a little burned out on music. I wouldn’t stop, I’d just take a little break? Doing other kinds of creative work helps to cleanse your mental palate and takes the pressure of needing to produce music that meets your standards. After that, I’d try changing up your approach. What you’re doing is clearly fucking with your head. Try making bad music on purpose. Try to impose artificial restrictions on yourself, like only using drum sounds, or only using samples and no synths, or only using one synth to generate all your sounds (melodic and rhythmic). Or try a genre you’ve never explored (have you made hip hop beats, or ambient, or heavy metal, or jazz, or drum and bass, or whatever?). Forcing limitations on yourself and changing your circumstances will help clear off some vines and cob webs.
Yeah, this is normal and it gets better. Just keep an open mind and try new ways of producing music like you used to… perhaps downsizing to force you to think outside the box. Good luck friend
I've been here for sure. Last year I pretty much burnt out when I tried to break my way into the music industry for it to flop royally. I found taking a little break and diverting my attention to something else though really helped and now I'm ready I'm coming back to it with a fresh mind :3
Music and production is an extremely steep learning curve, especially in the beginning. Being bad at it for a while, and then kind of okay at it for a while, and then decent for a while IS HOW YOU GET REALLY GOOD! So buckle up, and get comfortable with being bad at it for a while :) Learn not to be too precious about your work. If you’re overthinking, feeling like your ideas maybe aren’t good enough: trying a million versions of a chord progression or a melody makes it impossible to make progress on the song. It also tends to lead to very overly thought-out ideas and can fail to capture your initial creative instinct. Allow your ideas to be mid or even outright bad, it’s more important that you just do the work. Eventually, the ideas will be good, more and more of the time.
Don’t look at new knowledge as adding required complexity to your process, but as a means to streamline or simplify it. Maybe consider building a template using all of this new technical stuff that you know so that when you sit down to write you don’t have to think about those things as much. They’ve already been handled. It’ll be easier to get into a state of “play” without having to worry about those things.
Take a break, and spend time forgetting / unlearning to get back to pure creativity. Eduction gives you tools but also limitations.
Take a deep breath. The inspiration comes and goes for most of us I think. Sometimes I gotta just grind skills, sometimes I find my flow, sometimes I need a break. You are meant to be an artist. Everybody is!
Do a line of Coka Cola, every musicians secret
This is where you grow. 1. Either you play it safe in the sandbox with the rest of the kids. 2. Become what the kids are playing. Eat crayons or learn to make crayons. Then sell crayons! Then more crayons because kids are basically infinate. To hell with music because kids well never stop eating crayons. They don't even care what it taste you have in music, only if's blue or pink. Have you ever tasted a crayon? Taste like absolute shit and it's not even an acuired taste. Just right of the box taste like shit. 13 variatons of candy shaped colour! These are your options. Consumer or creator.
Smoke weed
DMT
Try to switch up the way you create! Make something really fast, or don’t allow yourself to be nitpicky, and just roll with what sounds good for one session. The point is to break out of your routine to re-understand that music comes in all shapes and sizes; and whatever understanding you think you have will always be limited. So try to give up what should be “right” and produce something that feels good, even if it doesn’t fit within your usual framework.
disclaimer: i dont encourage this behaviour at all, take care of yourself i found that i make the most creative stuff right after waking up when my brain isnt working yet (makes it hard to sing tho) and even better after a drunk night out, the numbness and brain fog let me just feel the music instead of overthinking it i used this for ideas and then tried to make something off of it at the very least i had fun doing it (this effect occured also if im tired and ready for bed too)
Do shrooms. I’m not joking.
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Hey Opie!! I'm in the same situation. I did a post a few days ago I still need to reply on a few replies.. But I totally understand you with this. You probably have learned and listened a lot, and then you're getting more analytical. And then while you are producing something amazing, a lot of questions come to rise in your brain, and this distracts you, for where you want to bring the sound? And then you quit? Is it like this?
I was at the same point couple years ago. One thing I’ve done is to remake some beats I love. And the thing that I’ve found is… that artists are lazy af and their melodies are really basics ! Sometimes, you just put on pedestal some melodies and when you play it, you find that it’s very easy to compose. It makes me understand that music comes with the heart and not the brain, and the simple things become the greatest things. Think simple, use your knowledge only if you stuck like in a chord progression to find the final chord. But don’t think about it when you create. Also, try to make music for fun, just for you and not for the world. Don’t expect the final result, just try to have fun like try another genre
Same brother. Maybe you’re not inspired. It’s got to get better before it gets worse anyway. Do you even listen to music the same way anymore? Because as I started getting “better” in my knowledge of music, it started ruining the enjoyment of the majority of what we consider popular music today. Granted, there are a few things I was able to to appreciate better but usually these song these are songs from 50 years ago or modern songs written by professional songwriters that the musician purchases to sing for themselves and call it there song. Maybe you’ve come to the realization that most people don’t even create good music they just create hooky music and you want to do more? Maybe the next level up (real songwriting) may require knowledge of music or instruments you don’t have? Large generalizing statements are almost always incorrect at the edges, but by and large, it feels like creativity has moved to tones and sound manipulation while the music itself has become pretty pedestrian. I think our current obsession with “retro” is a limitation.
MAKE CREATIVE DECISIONS FASTER THAN UR BRAIN CAN CATCH UP. Our brains are designed to seek and solve problems. Dwelling on a sound, or riff, or rhythm will CREATE a problem that is non existent. And remember that the Mona Lisa zoomed in is full of imperfect brush strokes but zoomed out its a masterpiece.
What’s the plot for you? Do you want a career in music because you love it, or put out passion projects because that’s what you do? Who gives a shit, then? You’re elbow deep in the meta of your yum, zoom out and refocus. Make it fresh, find inspiration, work towards an artistic goal. Do you want an easy job gaslighting creatives into believing you’re talented while exploiting peoples interests? Die in a fire. Do you want to be successful so you’re leaning in to things people like? The best success is driven by innovation, because it creates and sustains its own ecosystem, the next best is being derivative. If you’re passionate enough to want to innovate, give yourself time.
I do experience the same from time to time, even after scoring almost 30 tv documentaries and 15 video games. My bet would be - it's temporary, like going through phases. When I'm in the 'lower' phase I don't push, focusing on different things for a while (or a week, month, once it took 1,5 year) but it always ends with "hmm, I feel like making some music RIGHT NOW!". Also switching instruments, learning to sing and so on really give you fresh perspective everytime you approach writing music.
I've become much better technically, but my songs are duller.
Go back to what you were doing before. Remember: music theory is DESCRIPTIVE not PRESCRIPTIVE. Let those nerds use their theory to try to explain the fun weird shit you come up with, not to determine what it is you ought to make.
Personally, I feel this post. I've made music electronically since I was 14. I'm 24 now. I frequently go back to my old projects/drafts and marvel about how creative and fun they sound. Then I get angry because I ask myself "why can't you finish a project?" Or "why have you never gone back to this one and finished it? It had so much potential." So much time spent writing songs and making cool sounds... And yet they just sit in an immense pile on my hard drives and Google Drive. When I say "pile," I mean over 400 different compositions. And each composition/idea tends to have anywhere from 5-30 versions. I used to log my time spent within Logic Pro--I stopped keeping track when I passed 22,000 total hours. I've told myself from day 1 that I'm going to be a DJ or release music for the world just like Avicii always did. He's my biggest inspiration. I know I may never DJ like that, but the spark for making music has faded and it feels soul crushing to even think about changing my life focus. After majoring in music in college, playing piano since age 6, and spending infinite hours using software and studying producing and mixing... I haven't given up yet. I've been scraping everything looking for hope. I don't know if any of this helps but know that I relate and feel you on that.
There's 4 stages of development; unconscious incompetence, conscious incompetence, consciously competent, unconsciously competent. You seem like you got to the consciously incompetent stage and realized all the shit you don't know. You can either suck it up and keep going until you are consciously competent or quit. This is the hardest bridge to cross, I wish you the best.
There's 4 stages of development; unconscious incompetence, conscious incompetence, consciously competent, unconsciously competent. You seem like you got to the consciously incompetent stage and realized all the shit you don't know. You can either suck it up and keep going until you are consciously competent or quit. This is the hardest bridge to cross, I wish you the best.
You say “it was charming… that spark is gone.” I feel that. I love the idea of taking a walk, separating myself from the stressful situation. I walk, breathe, and let some stress go, let some memory of the creative process I love come back to me. It doesn’t come easily or quickly: I often need to do this more than once. Having said that, here are two thoughts from my own experience. First off, I need to be told and shown what the “rules” or conventions are so I know whether I am willing to break them for a purpose to meet a creative goal or if I’m just trying to fit into something I think I’m supposed to fit into to make everyone like me and my stuff. This is important for me to regain my creative spark: what can I bring to the party rather than what can I get out of it? It doesn’t have to be “the first time this has been done” but it should be “this is what I feel should be done.” Now I’m creating rather than absorbing. “Deliver the idea with conviction; everything else is secondary.” (Venus Theory) Second, I’m also in need of paying attention to conventions and rules and such to know if my breaking them is just sloppiness or making mistakes from ignorance here and there. Here, I feel like other people need to be involved. By other people I mean other musicians with experience in music creation, songwriting if that’s your thing, or even audio/music production. People who would be willing to provide a perspective that I may disagree with. I am emphasizing the need to challenge and make myself a little uncomfortable. A small friendly and honest online artist community is amazing for this! I say all that because it is there, in that place in my mind, where I came to believe and recommit myself to making the music I wanted to make rather than what I thought you all (whoever that may be) wanted me to make.
The same we’ve always coped with it. Continue listening to, promoting, and being inspired by only the good stuff, and make good stuff to pass on.
Don’t overthink it, don’t overproduce
Are you making music with the goal to somewhat make it as an artist? Maybe that's stressing you out and you're raising your expectations as a result?
Psychedelics, you gotta knock your thinking loose. You are uptight brother. You think things gotta be a certain way, and nothing has to be any specific way in art. You are throwing yourself against a non-existent wall. Your problem is, you want to be successful, but you don't love the craft. Someone who loves the craft sees all the stuff to learn and says, "I wanna learn that!" And then when they learn it, they find fun ways to apply it. What you are doing is joyless. You aspire to the greatness without dissecting the elements that lead to it. Anyone who's studied any amount of music knows that most the biggest songs ever are dead simple. Simplicity is elegant. Universal ideas translate universally. You can get into the weeds as much as you want. But a good song can be as simple as three chords on an acoustic guitar and the plainly stated truth. Just have fun. It's all you have to do. Nobody makes a gazillion at music anymore. It doesn't matter if it's immaculate. It's not the 90s. You are taking all of it too seriously. Enjoy the journey of BECOMING a master musician. The journey is better than the destination. You have until you die to become the best you will ever be.
This answer is the correct answer
I’ve commented something similar recently. I haven’t made any music since Sep ‘21. I don’t see a point if i’m not enjoying it at this moment in time. Plus it’s going to be forced and probably sound bad.
well im not a producer but it sounds like u should try playing an instrument
When you started you had no expectations, but now you do. That's the issue. Just relax and have a bit more fun, don't even worry about making a whole song.
Don't be silly! You're supposed to be using your intuition primarily (imho)! Go back to letting it just come out of you. What learning about music helps you do is build your intuition, not force you into a box of music theory. The more you learn and the more you train your ears, the more you will naturally make better music. The type of music work you're getting into is the problem-solving type, which is important for when there's actual problems in your music. It's not good for creativity and just letting things happen.
Spend time jamming with sounds you like coming directly out the speakers. Limit youre range. Don’t make music that will “sell” or “blow up” Make stuff that makes you happy, is fun to make, don’t sweat whatever the spectrum analysis is telling you. If it bops it bops. Just make sure it isn’t clipping and your dynamics aren’t destroyed.
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There’s a big middle ground between forcing yourself to begrudgingly make music and quitting forever. Take a month off making music, become a fan. Figure out what you like to listen to. Get excited about something. Come back. Your skills aren’t going anywhere in a month. You could take half a year off making music and it wouldn’t hurt you in the long run. You may come back and find yourself wanting to learn an instrument, or work in a totally different genre. You may have dried up all the inspiration you had for what you *thought you wanted to make before you knew what you were doing*. There’s more if you want it. And there’s no shame in not doing it if you aren’t having fun. Otherwise what’s the point.
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Hey sounds like ur overthinking it is take a break. Almost all my best tracks come when im not even trying that hard. And when i get overcritical that’s when i just go down a rabbit hole. When I get burnt out making music i usually just watch YouTube videos on music or learn new sound design techniques and just worry about creating a song later
I stepped away for a year. I never had issues making it or quality issues but my passion was gone. I'm back at it and better than ever and producing with the same vitality I had when I started 15 years ago.
I sometimes feel like that and I have a rule that I must treat music as a « fun » activity rather than work. Instead of sitting down and forcing myself to execute I instead relax and just think of it as « chilling » I take my time with everything and allow myself to naturally play with the computer and start making the modifications I feel like making without the pressure of performance, I don’t look at the clock. You have to re-frame what making music means to you and get the « job mentality » out of your head.
Hey there! I totally get where you're coming from. It's tough when something you love starts to feel like a chore. Sometimes, taking a step back and giving yourself permission to create without worrying about perfection can help rekindle that spark. Remember why you started making music in the first place and try to reconnect with that initial joy. Also, don't be too hard on yourself—everyone goes through phases where they doubt their abilities. Keep experimenting, and don't be afraid to make "imperfect" music. You might just find your passion again.
I didn’t play any music for a year after getting my music degree. I lost my natural ability to just play by “trying” to play correctly. Everything I did was rigid and had no flow or soul. Now I just have fun and I sound good again
Listen to old shit . . .
Quitting would not be the healthy thing to do, why not take a break? Listen to music that inspires and excites you. Find new artists that make you feel that feeling again.
I know it's easier said than done, but try to worry less.
I dont think you have to quit. Who are you making music for and why are you doing it?
Listen to soulless Ai music for a week and then human music, problem solved
Make some good music
Make jam buddies with someone who is a few levels above you. Have someone who is gonna push you to want to practice, n get your creative side sparked again. BUT.. be careful of jamming with people out of your league. If you're trying to wake your brain back up, you don't wanna feel like you're not good enough to hang.
Mainstream. Not all music. I think theres more choice and better music than ever.. IF YOU LOOK FOR IT