Fighting Through It
I wanted to make a quick post to share an image that is currently floating around the social media world. Just in case you haven’t seen it, this is a really great quote of Ira Glass.
Actually, I haven’t checked the attribution, so it may not be him. Sounds like something he would say, though. Either way, it’s a great bit of advice, not only for beginners in creative work but for anyone at any level.
I’ve been doing this for a long time. Not always consciously–there are some things I couldn’t quit even if I wanted to (and I have). But some things do require that conscious push to keep going. The latest example is forcing myself into the studio 2-3 nights a week to record something. Even if it’s just one little melodic fragment, I get everything set up, tweak some settings, and go. Anything to keep me writing regularly. Maybe even get a tiny bit better at audio engineering.
The results are starting to show. Not only is there a substantial amount of music on my hard drive, the recording quality is steadily improving. A couple of years ago I didn’t even know to load a virtual synth, let alone create my own patch, write a song, and record it. Recording was a complete mystery to me. I played bass. Maybe a little guitar. Now I’ve opened up an unlimited palette of sounds through synthesizers and MIDI, and I can make decent recordings of my ideas.
Speaking of bass, I’ve stuck with that since I was about sixteen. I’m forty now. Holy cow. That seems impossible–both that I’m that old and that I stuck with one thing for so long.
