I recently had an interesting conversation with a fellow producer on Soundcloud and I wanted to share my response to one of his questions — he basically asked me for advice on how to deal with the problem of being scared to put a work of art (or anything else really) out there because you’re always worried that people would hate it and that you would never achieve what you want and through that fear, you’ll start do built up a block that hinders you from doing what you love and want in the first place.

Although this response was written from a perspective of a composer/producer, I think this applies to literally everyone — especially those in a creative field.

Anyways, here is my all out answer:

Thanks for reaching out, I’m happy to help.

This is a problem every artist faces. When I started out, I thought these problems were only “noob” problems or I would just suck, but literally everybody experiences this — even the real big names (sometimes they get hit by it even harder, since there is much more pressure on them to make something).

In the end it really is a life philosophy question. I will give you a more hands on tactic for it aswell, but you first have to understand why you experience this.

Why do you make music? Be real to yourself, you don’t have to tell me or anyone else, just be honest to yourself — no wrong answers here and it’s okay if there are a multitude of reasons.

For me for example, when I started out it was only the exploration of my creativity. I was so fascinated that I could create an audio experience out of nothing. There were so many things I could do and so much too learn. At this point in my life, my career was something completely different, so music was only a hobby.

After a while of learning things and getting a few “validating experiences” (like the first time someone bought my music on bandcamp, people uploading my music on yt, me getting more and more traction on my soundcloud etc.) I started seeing the opportunity in this. I wanted to make something out of it.

So I started focusing more and more on it. Goals I used to have like getting on big youtube channels, working with a label etc. all came true.

And I quickly understood, that achieving these “goals” do not make me as happy and fulfilled as I thought they would. Don’t get me wrong, it feels incredible for the first 5 minutes or so and I’m incredibly grateful that I’m getting this much support, but it’s not this shortcut and finalization of happiness I always thought it would be.

This may seem a bit depressing, but I’m actually happy I noticed this so early and with so “little” success. A lot of people chase the idea of success their whole life and when they are fortunate enough “to make it”, they experience the same thing — if you’re interested in this subject, check out this talk by Josh Radnor (you probably know him as Ted from How I Met Your Mother) about the same thing I talked about: www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jr7MkrHDGt0

Why am I telling you all this?

Because a lot of our decisions are based on the thought, that only if we get succesful, we are worthy. We want to prove everyone wrong who thought of us in a bad way and we want to be validated in our own lifestyle.

But you gotta understand, that even if we achieve all these things, we will not feel all that different to when we started out. Most likely even worse.

So now, I was trying to figure out the real reason why I started making music. What is the underlying force that makes me do this everyday.

For me it is this: I love creating an experience and I love creating in general.

Most of my musical influences come from video game soundtracks and movie soundtracks etc. I love the idea of creating a mood/atmosphere with music.

The idea of someone listening to my music on a hike, while waiting for their commute, while writing/drawing/creating etc. is much more exciting to me than a group of people dancing to my music.

But this is just me. Your real reason might be different and that’s okay, but you should try finding out what really is sitting behind all this.

Figuring this out, will be your safe-haven. You can always come back and remind you of the real reason you’re doing this, especially in times were you feel like you lost yourself in the head of someone else (to quote Jay Shetty on this: “Today I am not what I think I am. I’m not what you think I am. I am what I think you think I am”.)

I know you probably just wanted a short tip from me to solve your problem. And I could have just told you to stop worring and start making lots of music (and to be honest, this is very real advice), but I wanted to attack the root cause of this and not only the surface.

Understanding all this gives you freedom. Definitely not freedom of bad thoughts, or worrying or whatever. This is always going to be there and it has to, “down-phases” are a part of life, without them there would be no “up-phase”.

But you start to understand that, yes you can’t change the negative impulse (worrying, self doubt(bearbeitet)

etc.) but you can change your reaction to it.

I still struggle with feelings like this everyday. But through understanding where I’m coming from, I can deal with it better everyday.

And to finally get to real practical advice:

Just create.

Make tons of stuff. Give yourself the okay to create “shit”.

Learning to seperate the creative and editorial mind is really difficult, but incredibly worth the while.

Stop working on your current project, sometimes things need time and sometimes things just don’t go anywhere even though you spend so much time on them (but this is also what makes it so hard to stop working on them).

Start a new project, don’t think about it too much and just start with something (eg. Drums, Chords, Bass, Melody, Sound Design, Drones whatever) and just follow the music where it wants to go. Even if you end up making some super weird stuff, it’s totally fine, let all that creative juice out.

Collect all the ideas you have.

If you for example made an 8bar loop and are now getting into the editorial mindset and think: “Ooof. How am I gonna make this into a full track.” Just stop and take a short break. Then copy a few elements (but not all) from the 8bar loop into a new 8bar loop and start adding more/new ideas (but keep the old 8bar loop aswell).

Collect as many as you want. Now you got a lot of different ideas.

Start laying them out in your daw, delete stuff or add stuff and see what works. Now it’s more like a puzzle, since you already got so many pieces.

Sure sometimes you’re gonna add something completely new, but that’s okay. Just follow where the music wants to go.

I hope this somewhat helped ❤”