The goal of course is to create a great song, or great piece of music. We don’t need to keep it real, or be genre specific. For example staying true to hip-hop or getting back to the roots of rock and roll is a farce at best. A guitar solo or a rapper is simply vehicle to a good song. Why focus on a certain genre? This is allowing preconception to taint your art.

Seriously, are you really waiting on someone else? No one cares about your art more than you. Period. You need to be willing to make it happen for yourself no matter what. If you have no money, and want to put out an album learn the basics of mastering, the basics of mixing, the basics of design and do it yourself. Paying an expert is better, but that only works when you have money.

Or at least the idea of the muse. Its bullshit. All of it. To create great things, it takes hard work and practice. Lightning is not going to just strike without you putting in the work first.

Recently I felt my creativity drying up. Other than just complete exhaustion from the sleep experiments, I could not come up with decent new ideas. I do have a few ways to deal with that as I talked about here

All I hear about is Pro tools this or Bitwig that, or Reason can’t do convolution reverb but Ableton can. Fuck this shit. Get to work. Create something.

Sadly I just learned that Felix Dennis passed away last month. Not that I knew him personally, but his writing and general attitude had a profound effect on my life. His book “How to Get Rich” blew my mind and every time I return to it I learn something new

Insomnia has plagued my entire life, but I have learned some tricks along the way to deal with it and now I get decent sleep most nights. I did go to a sleep clinic and have both straight insomnia and Apnea. But have you ever tried to wear a C-Pap? Hell no!

Everyone wishes they could rip the mask off and and show the world their true self. I am somewhat convinced this is all art is, someone trying to show the world their soul without giving to much of it away.

Its a tough gig to make money making music, or any kind of art. One little trick I learned is to sell your leftovers from any project. For example, if you created a bunch of synth patches for your album, bundle the patches up and sell them. Have you recorded a bunch of drums?

Sometimes it feels like its all a struggle…some days I feel like I went down the wrong path and life and am fighting to correct it. I had a great job that I really liked, it was certainly a challenge but it was fun and I loved it. Then the economy took a downturn along with my income and the kids were not getting a good education in school (another story in itself) so things got pretty stressful.

One of my biggest pet peeves is when I go to a show (indie musicians are the most guilty of this) and they spend tons of time between each song explaining the meaning of the song. Where they were when they wrote it, what state of mind they were in at the time. Man unless you are Bob Dylan, I just don’t care. You want to yell “Shut up and play!” Geeze it takes more time to explain the song then to play it. Stop wasting my time!

What the heck does that even mean. Who knows what truth is anyway. Its tough in a world of industry created bullshit, fake pop stars, and mass media propaganda. Who can we trust? I don’t know. But I personally find myself gravitating to honest lyrics. However every time I find an artist that seems authentic, you find another major label creation. You have to dig and dig, investigate and move backward to find who inspired who. Maybe there is no truth? Maybe truth is in the eye of the beholder?

Seriously…so did most of my friends. We all grew up with very limited resources. Not to say it was all bad. My mom was handicapped and my dad had a pretty good job as a counselor for juveniles with the state. Money we didn’t have a lot of. And I mean it, many times the fridge was empty and we had to wait for a paycheck to get more food. My parents are far too proud to get help from the government.

In my many adventures in music I have had the privilege of working with a bunch of amazing artists who have a broad spectrum of knowledge. It is fantastic working with new up and coming talent, the perspective is fresh and often the newer artist still has that fire that the industry tends to beat out of you. But at times I notice a few habits that less experienced artists have that make them look like a newbie. So I figured I would make a list of the worst problems I have observed that make you look like a rookie!

For anyone trying to create art for an extended period of time, it can become hard to get new ideas or maybe you just get a bit burnt out because of the grind. Some people call this mind funk, or maybe writers block. I am not a neuroscientist but my understanding is that your brain forms certain patterns and can get stuck in a routine. The goal then would be to violently break the routine. Once I read a interview with Erykah Badu , and she discussed how writers block is a myth and sometimes you are just learning a lesson from life. That seems very poetic to me and something that seems true in my own life, so Erykah didnt write for a few years and then wrote about a thousands songs in a year, cool stuff. At any rate here are a few things I have done over the years to break routine and stay creative.

It seems like musicians have it rough. We love music, equipment and toys and man I love audio gear. When I worked at Sweetwater I had a blast talking about it, learning about it. EVERYTHING. I have tons of vinyl, guitars, amps, pedals, turntables, microphones. But as I look at life it seems I want something maybe more simple, more streamlined

It seems like all the greats do what they do because they have to and that’s it. Not for money, or fame. Simply because they have to. I certainly don’t fully understand what that inner drive is myself. But I get really grumpy if I can’t make something new every few days. Or if I get stuck in a rut for a client and that slows down the creative process.

How do you take steps to complete your next album. Or meet the right people to help the project. How many of us have stacks of ideas sitting on our hard drives? What has helped me is a few things, but it all starts with the same idea of movement. Even small amounts everyday.