Today, I’m finishing my first song built from scratch. It’s been surprisingly fun to do so – I dunno, I expected it to be.. harder? Surely any time now someone will laugh at my childish attempt at music, and point out no less than three hundred things I’ve missed.
We shall see.
Regardless, it’s SO MUCH FUN learning new ways to mess around with sound. I’m like a kid building with Lego blocks, and I keep finding new ones strewn around the floor (which is the standard place to store Lego, I believe).
Excitement aside, I remain wary of my progress. I got farther than this before in an entrepreneurial endeavour before burning out – and I almost got sued too, but that’s another story.
To help make sure that doesn’t happen again, thought I’d write about the self-sabotaging habits I’ve spotted so far.
The temptation to rush. Easily the most pervasive, especially as I get close to the finished product. Some hidden clock runs on every adjustment, and when it runs out, the coo coo bird screams “time’s up! Let’s go letsgoletsgoletsgo…” It’s not helpful.
In particular, EQing and compression are elusive skills for me. It’s an effort not to just make a few lazy changes and walk away so I don’t have to spend time actually figuring out what the hell I’m doing.
The temptation to over-layer. I like music with many moving parts, but in practice, it’s hard to avoid clogging a mix. Creating sonic space is a bit like throwing out nostalgic possessions. It sucks… But it’s necessary.
The temptation to over-analyze decisions. Something I need balance on is when to know when a song is “done”. There’s the “done” where I’ve just slapped a bunch of crap together, and the “done” where I spend a year obsessing over every tiny detail until I realize I’m actually just scared to release the damn thing.
I suppose finding the balance in between is something every artist has to feel for themselves.
The temptation to force an idea. Torturing a song to fit expectations is like trying to squeeze a 2×3 lego block into a 2×2 gap. If it doesn’t fit, I’ve got to set it aside, or at least find a saw that can cut through plastic.
The temptation to leave an idea alone. Harder to avoid than forcing ideas, because I’m already used to seeing it there. Scrapping a huge chunk of work is hard – scrapping a section I’ve grown attached to feels like death.
The temptation to spend time learning instead of applying. Do I even need to explain this one? The learning is sh*t fun, but it doesn’t actually improve me as an artist. The application of knowledge, which does, is often hard and frustrating. Such is life *shrug*.
Once the song is done, I’ll upload it here. Talk more soon.