Have you considered learning programming?
You enter the code to enter the data for you- don’t let anyone know about your code.
And now you’re getting paid to make beats!
Win win win!
Dude! That’s where I’m at in life.
My mind wants to be professional, but my heart still wants to write the prophetic track from Bill and Teds Excellent Adventure
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The inner battle, I could eat strumming my acoustic on a beach or I can live working a 9 to 5.
I make music for fun. But I still have goals & dreams like:
I want to be skilled at playing piano & guitar (I’ve been learning both, but not REALLY seriously, I want to spend more time learning & practicing).
I want to start making some youtube videos. I like to make all my music live for the most part & I think I could make some interesting & entertaining videos. I think it would be a lot of fun to do as well.
I love entering beat battles on forums, but I would like to also enter some battles/competitions in person.
I want to perform a live set (I’ve only performed 1 live set… ay my parents bbq hehehe).
It would be amazing to make money off music, but at the same time I wouldn’t want any pressure, I don’t want anything to fuck with my passion.
I guess somewhat of a dream of mine would be to make videos, to actually enjoy making them & have other people really enjoy them as well. Maybe make a name for myself, sell some albums & songs… maybe sell beats to rappers.
Right now I’m saving money so I can buy an RV & travel for at least a few years. It would be awesome to make videos of little live sets/jams at different locations all over the US, maybe play shows here & there while I’m traveling. That would be AMAZING
I would also love to teach people how to make electronic music too. I taught my brother & a few other people & I really enjoyed it.
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I’m slowly building an identity as a solo artist, but progress has been glacial. Most of my “repertoire” has been improvised noise/ambient/sound art. However, I’ve also been slowly working on more traditionally structured music.
A couple of years ago, I was stuck at home on doctor’s orders for a couple of months. Couldn’t play violin or piano during that time. Could however play guitar, so I learned some chord-melody tunes and improved my hybrid picking in the process.
My GAS for synths and electronic music devices in general hasn’t diminished since that time, but my spending has been consistently more on amplification, processing, and related gear for guitar and violin and not so much on synths beyond cute little PO units, the Fantasy Mansion, the upcoming Nanoloop, etc.
I was recently approached about submitting a track for a locally-focused compilation album. Granted it was at a bar after some drinks, but it’s enough to light a fire under me to commit one of my near-normal “songs” to recording. The comp, even if my track is accepted and appears on it, is unlikely to make me famous/rich, but this is one of the times when I could use the extra motivation to get something done.
I’m in a bit of a career purgatory at the moment, so I’m also pondering switching out of trying to work full time as a software developer and get a part time job at Starbucks or something, to free up more time for music while still keeping myself fed and housed.
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these popped up on my youtube; there are a lot of others, have heard similar responses from other interviews before,
but it is wonderful to hear how simply they describe creative moments that led to recordings (that have become timeless pieces that will last for … if not hundreds of years into the future, perhaps forever.
quite a good motivator to get your guitar out, plug in your OT, turn on your microphone, or whatever your weapon/genre of choice is
43:58 is an interesting question on the McCartney one
also caused me to discover this fantastic thing that I never knew about, even though I’ve been a big fan for decades
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Thanks for this thread. It reminded me that I need to improve my sound mixing skills.
So today I sat down with my MD and AR and did exactly that. I really tried to use my ears and utilise the compressor and different filters to get everything to play nice. I am not there yet but I learned a lot. Today was a good day 
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Im telling me the exact same thing(even if not mainly for music making) But i too know im wrong…
I am on a mission.
Kudos to you for doing it period. It sounds like we have some career aspects in common. Glacial is good way to put my solo artist progress. But I feel in a really solid place. Though, recently cutting much of my regular MH counseling gig, I’m much more financially limited, but I’m much happier and experiencing higher quality musical output. Also, I used to write much more a mix of experimental and dance. Now, I’m playing with traditional and experimental song structures for both lyrical and instrumental stuff but on the Octatrack rather than in Ableton. I’m forever a student but I’m joyful to be right where I am.
I’m at the same spot, doing IT security after being a programmer but I’m disappointed by the sector. A few days ago, I made the decision to go part time, work only 3 days / week until further notice - I can afford working less and still pay rent, albeit savings will be cut to a minimum if at all possible. It should free up some time for art in general (centered around music though) and maybe community work that could turn into a self-employment gig, who knows. The idea is to replace the time spent earning money I don’t absolutely need with time spent doing things I love, thus improving my quality of life.
What I know is that although it will only be effective next month, the effect of making that decision can already be felt, my motivation to do things skyrocketed immediately, it is very surprising to me: I am more motivated to try new things in the kitchen, I’m spending more time again mocking about looking for happy accidents on my Elektron’s like in the early days of music making, in short, it feels … right.
I should be recording the music I do, now I don’t have that excuse of not having time for it anymore 
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Awesome!
I managed to do this a year ago, never felt so good. I’m still part time, but not enough I guess ^^
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Care to share your experience ? How has it been with more 
and less 
? How did you manage to completely avoid slacking off and do things productive (I know you did) ? To tie things back to the OP, how did you use that to help yourself achieve your goals ?
(Humor: Vous appuierez votre réflexion sur les textes du corpus, sur les œuvres que vous avez étudiées en classe et sur vos lectures personnelles. // You will support your reflection with the texts of the corpus, on the works you studied in class and on your personal readings)
I wasn’t that productive, or maybe I could have been more…
But I definitely enjoyed the time spent with kids!
And playing music (with Paula Berthe we managed to play at “Electrons Libres” festival in Nantes’ Stereolux then Astropolis electronic festival in Brest, both 4 hour long fully improvised gigs.
Also learnt a bit about DSP… just to notice I prefer using my time playing music…
And cooking and gardening.
Retrospectively, pretty cool ways to spend time !
I don’t care that much about “productivity” 
May I say, I don’t really like the title “you should be”, fwiw.
I fell like I am what I want to be, and if I am not I try to change things in this direction.
“Should” implies some kind of external incitation, somehow, at least in my mind. And my rebel soul is not very comfortable with this.
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It all depends on your definition of productivity, I’d argue that you still were productive according to my values, ha 
Cooking, gardening, caring for the next generation, all very important and useful.
I’ll drop you a PM about this, could be interesting to me.
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Thanks for the kind thoughts!
I imagine MH counseling is a stressful and emotionally draining career. My career choice hasn’t been stress-free, but my on-the-job interactions with other human beings hasn’t been as intense as what i’ve heard from acquainances and relatives working in social services, nursing, etc. I suspect working at a coffee shop doesn’t compare either - the worse I might have to deal with is whining and shouting from spoiled, entitled-feeling, but otherwise normal humans. I put in a few years working at Pizza Hut as a driver and occasional pizza preparer so I know what I can expect taking a service industry job. I liked how the hours on the job went by fast and the physical activity and never minded being looked down upon by customers working more “prestigious” jobs. My bandmate worked at Caribou Coffee/Peets then Starbucks in the past, and thus is my primary source of info about the coffee shop world. Once she worked her way into the managerial ranks, she was able to request weekends (or more time than that) off to go on tour with her other bands.
As collaborator/side player who joined my friend’s band after she asked me to help add sounds, as well as playing with others, I gradually became more interested in developing my own identity/“brand” as a solo artist. Acquiring my own Octatrack really helped. As I learned how to use it and put in time practicing on it, I grew to appreciate how conducive it can be for the user to develop a personal musical “style”.
Best of luck on the switch ot part time work!
I’ve only just begun researching options for part time work for myself. I asked my friend who walks ase nd occasionally house-sits dogs - his reply was a bit sobering - his gross income is higher than that somebody starting out part time at Starbucks (min. wage set to rise to $14 in DC), but his taxes are high enough that he does freelance work to pay the taxes. I hate driving too much to consider Uber/Lyft.
My friend/bandmate wants to start touring soon. We won’t make much money doing it but after several years of not touring she’s feeling restless and wants to make another try at building an audience. Workng part-time should, in theory, free up more time to do this.
I also want to volunteer - the local Guitars Not Guns program in my case. But I’d feel bad about volunteering while my career is still as unsettled as it is at the moment. Got taken off a project on the client’s whim and am awaiting the result after being submitted to another client.
Fair point. It could also be read as ‘you should be … just as you are’ etc.
Wasn’t actually meant to be provocative, but I do often look at vast periods of time passing in which I feel in retrospect having been a bit unproductive as regards the important things in life; getting sucked into all the less important things.
On balance, IMHO some sense of feeling unsettled with the current state of affairs, personal or otherwise, is healthy.
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I get what you say.
Right now, if I have a dissatisfaction in my current life, it’s not acting enough towards a more sustainable way of life.
Being closer and closer from becoming vegetarian is my actual goal. And use less and less the car.
So many aspects to change…
So yeah, I understand your “you should” in this axis.
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