MetaMindMusic

I’ve been staring at a dreaded blank screen for a while now, struggling to come up with an idea worth writing about.

I looked through my list of blog ideas, yet none of them really inspired me to pursue them at this moment.

Sometimes when you want to be creative, you hit walls.

And that’s okay.

What trumps crystal clarity, or the passion behind a great idea, is simply this: consistency

Developing a commitment to show up regularly and engage in the creative process is the pathway to all great works. It is the rhythmic relationship you have with your creativity that will spawn your moments of genius.

Law Of Rhythm

Let’s go down a little rabbit hole (a small one I swear!)

The Hermetic Principle of Rhythm states this: everything goes through cycles, yet everything has a rhythm or a pattern.

In today’s world, we see and praise great things, while often overlooking the process it took to achieve them.

That process, aka your...

Heyo! I recently got back from NAMM 2020 in Anaheim California!

I thoroughly enjoyed the weather, especially since I was avoiding -30 blizzards back home.

Winnipeg = A frozen death hole in winter. It should be called Winterpeg. For Realz.

As you might know, NAMM (National Assembly Of Music Merchants) is a trade show of all things music in one giant convention center. I’m not kidding when I say enormous, over 100,000 people attend this thing with several thousands of exhibitors and merchants.

Throughout the weekend I saw all sorts of new gear: guitars, pedals, drums, recording devices, plugins, software, amplifiers, microphones, etc. I also made a bunch of new friends!

As cool as it was to see all these new products, nothing (thankfully) really tempted my G.A.S (gear acquisition syndrome). 

In this article, I’m going to talk about how G.A.S can be the symptom of a deeper underlying problem in your music productions.

Inside Out

As music producers, we’ll...

Happy New Year!

We’ve just entered 2020, a new year and a new decade!

Along with celebrating the end/beginning of a year, it’s the perfect time to reflect on the past year and envision the next one to come.

We all have the ambition to make our lives better. Better health, better relationships, better opportunities, better work-life balance and most of all, make better music.

In this post, I’d like to help you not only envision what 2020 will look for you but how to transform yourself into the person to turn that vision into reality!

2020 Vision

Someone with 20/20 vision has optimal use of their eyes.

However, how clearly can you see your future through your mind’s eye?

The single most important step towards accomplishing your new year's resolutions is to have a CLEAR vision; to have 20/20 vision in terms of your goals and desires.

This is the perfect analogy for the year 2020. Muahaha

The better you can paint the picture of what you would like to accomplish,...

Have you ever been frustrated by a slow repetitious process? Or just can’t seem to get songs finished?

Or the worst nightmare of the music producer… lose your work?

Music production is a vast subject. Whether you’re a beginner or know your DAW like the back of your hand, you know there’s A LOT to learn.

On the technical side, we focus on things such as EQ techniques, parallel compression, reverb buses, mixing strategy, etc.

On the creative side, we focus on the arrangement, melodies, harmonies, rhythms, lyrics, etc.

What’s most often overlooked is a proper workflow approach. With so much to learn, it’s often pushed aside. Yet, it can have the most impact on your overall productivity.

Once you’ve produced a few tracks you’ll inevitably realize that certain production methods you use might actually be slowing you down.

It’s time to design a home studio workflow to remove all your roadblocks and skyrocket your productivity!

And...

As music producers, we often face internal resistance. We face self-doubt and have to listen to the dreaded imposter syndrome.

Who invited him anyway?

This type of hesitation is something we will constantly face as creatives, we have to develop the skills and work ethic to overcome these types of problems.

+1 Creative Confidence!

I don’t know about you, but I’m somewhat of a gamer myself. I know Super Mario World like the back of my hand, and can definitely destroy you in Smash Bros.

Hadoken!

Gotta say it… I’m kind of a nerd. Though, I think I’ve struck a healthy balance.

I’d like to explore the mental framework of the “gamer” attitude and how it can level up your creative confidence within music production.

Researcher and game designer Jane McGonigal coined the term “Urgent Optimism”. Described as: extreme self-motivation, the desire to act immediately to tackle an obstacle. Coupled with the belief that we have reasonable...

What if I told you that achieving greater creative freedom, developing your authentic voice and finishing more projects, are all directly linked to your flow state?

You know you’ve experienced it. It could be described as an ecstatic bliss; the liquid moment when you are actively engaged in creative acts.

When you “lose yourself” in the moment.

Flow state is what drives the creative process of music’s most gifted artists. A sort of transcendental experience that gives rise to raw inspired creation.

Your authenticity will show itself when you allow yourself to create from that place of zen.

The question is, how can you tap into your flow state on the regular?

The Flow, Defined

Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi is a major contributor to positive psychology. His research spawned many discoveries that contributed greatly to creativity and mindset. Cool dude.

Being a psychologist, and author of “Flow: The psychology of optimal experience” he founded the...

What’s needed in today’s music world to achieve a successful career?

MINDSET.

More specifically, a creative mindset of success.

A headspace that supports your creative talents and guides you towards building the career of your dreams.

What is “mindset” though?

Your mindset can be defined as your general attitude and how you shape your perceptions of the world (and yourself) based on your experiences. It is the single most powerful tool in your arsenal to support and serve you throughout the entirety of your life. DEEP

Your attitude and thought patterns are the mental architecture that will support all of your future efforts, opportunities and artistic creations.

Did I build it up enough? Lol

Ze Musicpreneur, Hon Hon

To be successful as a musicpreneur, you need the right mindset. Thankfully your mindset is something that you can control, you just have to learn to utilize it properly.

Success in the music world today has greatly changed from a linear to a...

Decision anxiety, talk about a first-world problem…

Have you ever been sifting through the massive Netflix catalog to then realize you’ve been browsing for half an hour? This is a great example of what happens with too many choices.

It stifles your decision-making abilities, and thus your creativity.

While this applies to practically every creative pursuit, it is especially true when it comes to the modern 21st-century music-making DAW.

We’re bombarded with possibilities: plugins, effects, routing possibilities, instruments, microphones, arrangements, chord progressions, samples, melodies, etc. The choices are endless.

You must find a way to render the vastness of infinity into your creative work. You have to constrain, clarify and calibrate your options to stimulate your creativity.

Analysis Paralysis

The myth we seem to have bought into is that if choice is good, more choice is better.

However, in his book “The Paradox Of Choice” Barry Schwartz says...

Today, we are in the information age. If your goal is to build a career from your passion for music, you must embrace the truth…

You NEED to become an entrepreneur!

The fact that the accessibility to make music and to reach an audience has greatly increased, have both pros and cons.

With streaming services such as Spotify as the new normal for music consumption and the relatively inexpensive cost to produce and release music, we are in a whole new playing field.

Some of the pros are: 

1. It’s a lot easier to get into making music and create a good product from home. 
2. You can reach a far wider audience than ever before, thanks to the wonders of the internet and social media.

Some of the cons, however: 

1. There’s is a lot more competition since it’s easier to make music and release it.
2. You have to harness the skillset to market and build an engaging audience.

All these changes in the music industry paint a completely new picture of how you...

In our current information age, we have never before seen access to create and listen to music. As a music artist, how do you stand out? How do we remain memorable? How do you pierce through the veil of information fog that surrounds us?

Authenticity.

You want to be original? You want to be different? Unique? There’s one surefire way, my friend…

Be yourself, exceptionally.

Then, all you need is the confidence to consistently share YOUR own experiences!

Know Thyself

Partially pioneered by rock, punk, and metal in popular music culture, authenticity could be described as “@#$% you, I’m gonna do what I want” or“being yourself”. Familiar themes are challenging the status quo and ignoring the mainstream mass appeal.

What’s ironic is, that’s what’s appealing!

I can sense your left brain urging to comment “Alex, being authentic is a completely subjective concept. There’s no way to objectively measure or gauge it, how...