I play a few different musical instruments, but certainly need help from other musicians get the sound I am looking for. For the album that I released earlier this year, I reached out to some of my favorite local musicians to add such parts as saxophone, fiddle, banjo, pedal steel, vocals, and double bass. I […]
Looking at Society In a previous post, I talked about several personal benefits that have come as a result of a full time focus on music and creativity. It is important to look at this with a wider lens and examine the role of art, music, culture and creativity in our society. Our economy is […]
This will be a continuation of a previous post on the source of inspiration and creative ideas. In this post I would like to further analyze the process that will take those initial ideas to a completed song. I have been doing a lot of writing since the release of my album in March. As […]
Is self-promotion the most difficult aspect of creative work? For me, it seems to be. Why is this? We can start with some general reasons that are not specific to creative endeavors. We never want to appear egotistical in any way, shape or form. We pride ourselves on being humble. We have a negative view […]
I will continue along in the process from my last post which covered distribution. The next topic to address is release and promotion. The point of these posts is not to provide instruction on how to do these things. There is plenty of that information already available which I am linking to. My goal with […]
I am using the term flattening here to describe music production as a more level playing field. I suppose I am borrowing that term from a terrible book written by Tom Friedman called The World Is Flat. I have also heard the term home recording renaissance to describe this. I find it fascinating. Overall I […]
Investment/Cost I have used the term mini-retirement several times in these posts to describe my situation. That is, leaving the 9 to 5 office job and focusing all attention on a creative endeavor. The term mini-retirement seems to have originated in Tim Ferriss’ book, The 4-Hour Workweek. …the mini-retirement is not an escape from your […]
Creativity as a Priority About a year ago when I initially started to tell people about my plan to quit my job and focus full time on music, there was a variety of reactions. I wonder if everyone agrees that in an ideal world everyone would be excited and supported if a friend or relative […]
Where does it come from? About a year ago, something significant started to happen regarding inspiration for song ideas. The impact of this was certainly an increased motivation to write music. It was also an important factor in the decision to pursue music full time. Musical ideas were popping into my head at the moment […]
I love to learn new things. The decision to leave stability and focus on music production has been motivated in large part to the joy of learning. No matter what becomes of this endeavor, I have enjoyed the learning process. “Growth comes at the expense of previous comfort or safety” – Josh Waitzkin, The Art […]