Why are you unhappy with your music and how to solve this?

It’s really common for producers to feel unhappy about the music and their careers, but most of this unhappiness often comes from things that we’re doing and that we should have avoided. Therefore, here are a few takes on how to beat unhappiness as a music producer…

4 THOUGHTS FROM ME

1. Stop overthinking your music.

Often we overthink our music so much that we start disliking the songs that we’ve made and start feeling unhappy about the end result. Sounds familiar, right?

Like anything that takes too long to finish, the song can start to feel like a chore, which drains our motivation and overall happiness with the end result, sometimes leaving it unfinished. To avoid that, you can do the following:

1. Learn how to let go. Your song will never be perfect and you need to learn how to be happy with your song, which often means learning how to let go of the little details. Therefore, before any change, ask yourself if anyone would notice it, and if your answer is NO, consider not changing anything;
2. Ask for specific feedback from your producer friends. When you feel that you are overthinking something in your song, an external opinion can help you refocus your mind and set it back to normal. For example, if the bass of your song is bothering you, then ask your friends what they think about the bass specifically, and this can clarify if you’re overthinking it or not;
3. Test your changes with ‘non-producer’ friends and weigh in the marginal gain/cost of these changes. After you’ve made changes that bother you, ask your friends which version they prefer, or if they notice any difference. Most of the time, they won’t even notice the difference, and when you learn that most of your effort is not even perceived, you’ll start learning to let go of these little changes that delay you from finishing songs.

In essence, all these actions can help you overthink your songs less, finish more, and stop being unhappy about your lack of finishing

2. Get out of your comfort zone and start challenging yourself.

Music gets boring when you do the same thing repeatedly, and that’s exactly why many artists change their genres and signature sounds. Not only this, but when you stick to a formula or a template for your tracks, your songs could end up being formulaic and generic, which is never good for your music.

Instead, here’s what you could do:

1. Challenge yourself to do things that you’re not used to doing. Do you always do your songs using Serum? Then, what if you only had Diva, or vice-versa? Do you always mix your songs with digital EQs? Then, what if you only used Analog EQs only, which wouldn’t allow you to be as precise with your resonance cuts? This not only can bring you a learning experience on what really makes a change to your song, but also challenge your knowledge and workflow, which is crucial for having fun and developing as a producer;
2. Produce where you don’t normally do. If you’re used to always sitting in your studio to produce, try to create something outside or in another area of your house. Just by switching places, your brain can make different connections because of the ‘slightly unfamiliar situation’ and spark some creativity in your mind while also refreshing your perspective of music;
3. Incorporate some elements of a trendy genre into your new tracks. Another way to challenge yourself is by tapping into new genres, and adding elements from trendy genres into your music as this can be a way to blend your sound with what is current, which can also help you by reaching new crowds to your music.

3. Find a way to solve your issues or they will drive you crazy.

A big reason why producers get unhappy about their music is because they get stuck on issues and don’t know how to move past them. But, if you don’t move past an issue, it can drain your motivation since it will always bug you and your tracks, so you have to act and solve it to move on.

If this is what is currently making you unhappy, here’s what I recommend:

1. Discover what the issue is. You can either ask for feedback or try to compare your songs with songs you love, but list the issues that are bugging you so you know who you’re fighting against;
2. Go to YouTube and look for ways to solve this issue. Be careful with “instant solutions” as they might not work for you, but also don’t neglect these ideas as they can be what solves your issue. But, most importantly, what I love doing is checking long, start to finish, production walkthroughs or livestreams as these are the ones that really show how that producer deals with the issues that might be bugging you.
3. Find someone to help you or to mentor you. Find a friend who knows how to do what you want and ask for help or do a collab with them to learn how to solve your issue. Or, you can find a professional to mentor you, which often is faster and, if you’re limited in time, possibly “cheaper” than hustling through hours to find a solution (if you’re struggling with something, definitely reach out to us by answering to this email and we’ll help you)

A lot of the unhappiness I’ve felt with music had to do with ‘this is not where I imagined my music to be at this point of the game’. In other words, I was more worried about making progress to achieve my goals than about developing myself and making good music, and that led me to frustration, lack of motivation and almost quitting music.

However, I’ve adopted a different approach recently, and here’s what I recommend:

1. Focus on developing yourself and finishing songs rather than releasing songs. The first two are things that you control whether releasing songs might depend on a label, and often out of your control. All you have to focus on is constantly working, learning, and finishing songs, and, with time, you’ll get your releases;
2. Focus on having fun as this is what will keep your interest in music and motivation alive (you can read more about how to keep this alive over here);
3. Stop comparing yourself with other producers. You don’t see how much and how smart other producers are working, so instead of being bitter about how others are progressing more than you, collab with them and learn from their process so you can apply this to your songs as well.

1 QUESTION FOR YOU

What else could make you unhappy with your music?

1. Stop pressuring yourself to make the perfect song.
Instead, focus on creating one idea every week. This way you will increase your chances of eventually coming up with a nice track and also be able to practice creativity weekly, which can help you avoid writer’s block (more on how to avoid writer’s block here)

2. You don’t have time for music and it has become a chore.
When music becomes a chore, it becomes something tedious to work on and Netflix/Steam/Not Producing becomes easily more attractive. In this situation, talk to your friends (including me) and their stories/struggles with music can help you get inspired again (more on how to regain momentum with your music here).

3. Stop taking bad feedback and rejections personally.
Rejections and bad feedback HURT, but they are not a reflection of you as a producer, but of that specific track. Don’t let one song beat you as a producer, so go make more tracks to make one rejection irrelevant among the songs you have ready to submit (more on how to crush rejection here).