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Trust the "Process"
I had a different newsletter planned for today. But, some things happened this week that made me change course.
You all know me as a musician, but there's another side of me that I keep very private.
I must admit, I'm also.....a raging sports fan. More...
As many of you know, about a decade ago I graduated with a master's degree in piano performance, and thought to myself...now what?
I had been studying composition for several years as well, and I knew I wanted to write my own music. I also loved film music and video games, and found that whole...
I've talked a lot lately about the process of finding your own artistic voice.
But as some of you have rightly pointed out, that might not be the goal for everyone.
There's an entire industry around making music to fit someone else's vision. This can include music for film, music for ads, or...
Sell your knowledge instead....
Someone asked me recently how they could make money from their sounds.
A valid question.
My advice? Don't.
It seems that most artists today are still concerned about increasing their streaming numbers, or selling more merch/sample packs, or figuring out some way...
There's a lot of focus on music marketing today.
Too many gurus, not enough teachers.
Here's the thing though, marketing isn't "bad" - it's really just understanding human psychology and using it to promote something. Thanks to the abuse of marketing in our world, our minds associate it with...
We all want our art to be seen and heard, but it's often the experiments we do in the dark that mold us.
There's an expectation today that in order for our music (or any artform for that matter) to be "successful." it has to be seen and hear RIGHT NOW.
If it doesn't happen, we're told to move...
"It doesn't go through your filter, it goes through your conduit."
Last year, my friend and very talented pianist/composer/artist Marie Awadis reached out to me about a really intriguing new project.
It was her first experiment with vocal-focused ambient, but she felt that something was missing...
As you know, neither this newsletter, nor my YouTube channel feature any paid sponsorships. This is a deliberate decision that allows me to focus on making quality educational courses that I actually believe in (because I actually made them). If you're interested in diving deeper into the topics...
I'm going to be incredibly transparent with you in this newsletter. I'm intentionally building my YouTube channel differently than most that I see in the music/gear space.
You may have noticed that a lot of YouTube channels are built around current events.
Something happens in the financial...
Most of us can probably relate to coming up with a really cool 4 bar loop or 8 bar phrase and then.....having no idea where to go from there.
We've heard that we need to come up with some kind of a "B Section."
But what does that even mean? What makes a good B Section?? Who says songs can't...
There's been some discussion on Twitter (X?) recently about the importance of gear. And of course, it was presented very maturely and in a manner definitely not combative for the sake of Twitter engagement:
The reality is, it's true that the listener doesn't care what gear you use. Most...
If you haven't seen the news, Bandcamp is going through yet another change of ownership, and a lot of artists are responding with fear and anger.
While nothing has actually changed with Bandcamp as a platform at this point, I can certainly understand those sentiments as a lover of Bandcamp...
