11-04-2018, 05:01 PM
This is probably gonna sound obvious, but I started working on some music today and found myself afraid of doing things differently. I think fear is a killer of creativity in general. It's why we have so many artists out there copying others or just rehashing the same old stuff. But today I just went with my gut creative instinct, no matter how bizarre of weird it would turn out.
Two things I realized. One, I was trying too hard to figure out the "right" way to put together a song in the past. Music theory is helpful, but it gives you what works already. When you have fear of stepping outside of your comfort zone it's easy to keep gravitating back to the same old things that work. Two, validation and wanting to be like someone else. Music is interesting because to me it's an expression of your purest self unfiltered. Sometimes it's hard to really let go and let that come out in the music. For me at least. My songs I like the most are the ones where I wasn't trying to be "good", I was just allowing myself to express myself through the music.
In the past I kept thinking that I needed to learn more. More theory, more production knowledge, more studying track structure, etc. I wanted to prepare myself so I knew exactly what to do and how to do it. But I've realized the really great music is the stuff that sounds unique. And being unique is about creating your own path and exploring your own things, using fundamental knowledge to aid you, but not as a crutch to avoid doing the actual exploration.
Two things I realized. One, I was trying too hard to figure out the "right" way to put together a song in the past. Music theory is helpful, but it gives you what works already. When you have fear of stepping outside of your comfort zone it's easy to keep gravitating back to the same old things that work. Two, validation and wanting to be like someone else. Music is interesting because to me it's an expression of your purest self unfiltered. Sometimes it's hard to really let go and let that come out in the music. For me at least. My songs I like the most are the ones where I wasn't trying to be "good", I was just allowing myself to express myself through the music.
In the past I kept thinking that I needed to learn more. More theory, more production knowledge, more studying track structure, etc. I wanted to prepare myself so I knew exactly what to do and how to do it. But I've realized the really great music is the stuff that sounds unique. And being unique is about creating your own path and exploring your own things, using fundamental knowledge to aid you, but not as a crutch to avoid doing the actual exploration.
INFP
