Anticipating Tired

It’s still a heavy lift to write, produce, mix, and master a song…or an album.

And once it’s crossed over the finish line and release day finally rolls around…you will be tired.

Your energy will be zapped and all the promotion you once thought these songs deserved goes out the window. You won’t want to do it yourself and you won’t want to do the work of finding someone else to do it.

That energy vacuum is coming. Know that. Don’t mistake your lack of energy in the moment for a lack of love and true excitement for your project.

Make the plan beforehand. Hire the PR, video editors and photographers before hand. Have some easy goals lined up post release to help get some energy back.

It’s a lot easier to make a tired plan before you get tired.

Hum Love on Spotify and Apple

Best Burger

If you make the best burger in town you’re going to get tired of making the best burger in town.

And when you get tired of it you’re tempted to change it.

But no one who comes through the doors is tired of it or wants you to change it.

Keep serving the burger.

»»It certainly helps to like making the burger…but you don’t have to like it in order to serve it. Serving is a worthwhile motivation in itself.

Hum Love on Spotify and Apple

Long Outros

Long outros are good for messing around.

Messing around is good for coming up with cool little musical things.

Cool little musical things are good to add to throughout the whole song.

It might be worth giving all your songs long outros to begin with and see what happens.

Hum Love on Spotify and Apple

Two Tree Branches

If a tree branch is strong and straight and solid it can take a lot of weight. It remains unmoved even while under intense pressure. It holds its position perfectly…until it can’t. That type of branch, without any bend, is either going to grow straight and strong or it will break and have to start over from the beginning.

It’s either completely intact or it breaks.

The bendable branch is different. It flexes with the weight and the changes in its environment. So it’s much less likely to break and have to start over. But also, it also doesn’t grow in the exact direction it did when it started. The aim it had when it was first growing is not where this branch is going to end up.

It’s not going to grow straight and true but perhaps it’s more likely to grow.

It’s a worthwhile metaphor as we grow our creative endeavors.

Hum Love on Spotify and Apple

Answer On Page 86

Navigating life as a creative professional is a lot like a crossword puzzle…

There are some clues

You don’t know most of them

Getting something right feels like a miracle

It’s confusing and time consuming

You wonder why you started this thing in the first place

But in the creative world, unlike the crossword puzzle…the answers are not on page 86.

Hum Love on Spotify and Apple

Players And Artists

Great players (musicians) are known for how well they play, their style of play, and if they hit mostly correct notes.

Great artists are known for the songs they release and how well those songs connect with a market.

In general if you practice really hard you can be known as a great player. You can read charts and play fast and take solos and play to a click. And add a little finesse.

But the only sure outcome of relentlessly practicing being an artist is that you are in fact an artist. You might have made five albums but they’re not very good and no one listens to them…you’re still in artist but all that time and practice and commitment didn’t make you a great one. Because artists trade on musical emotional connection. Not ability or worth ethic or commitment. Ultimately no one cares if a rock band is good at guitar…people only care if they have an awesome rock song.

»» Of course there’s considerable overlap here. Most players are artistic. And most great artists got to be great because of some degree of skilled musicianship.

Hum Love on Spotify and Apple