This morning during breakfast, I was listening to Youtuber and musician, Mike Enjo talk about music and mental health in his recently released video on his Youtube channel Creative Sauce. Mike covers some very important issues regarding music making, success, enjoyment and so much more. I particularly resonated to a section where he’s talking about enjoyment of music making versus success and how the pursuit of success can end up sapping the enjoyment of music making. If you're like me, a musician who has struggled with enjoyment versus success in music, I highly recommend you watch this video. 

As a life-long musician, I’ve always made music because I enjoy it. It fills my cup to overflowing and that overflow then can be shared with others. I feel this is the way things are supposed to work for artists. But about ten years ago, I ran across a music-marketing-for-musicians ad online. This ad touted the importance of being a good marketer and promoter of your own music if you are planning on being successful n the music business. So, I took the bait and bought into the program. What I found over the next two years as  I learned marketing techniques, was two things. The first thing was, I was so busy learning and applying these skills that I had little time to practice or make music. The second thing was this insidious need to start comparing my music to others artists which then led me to become more critical and un-accepting of the music I was making. In my mind, it had to be better which then led to better still wasn’t good enough. The enjoyment of making music began to gradually erode away over the next several years until finally early last year, I just had to stop for a bit to figure out why I was so unhappy with what I was doing. Now, there were definitely spurts of happiness in making a piece of music that I truly enjoyed but then I would start judging it - could this be a commercial success? No. I felt it lacked. So I would go about trying to figure out what the song lacked until I would mess it up so bad that I would give up on it altogether because it had evolved (or rather devolved) from an inspired pieced of magic into a soulless piece of whatever. This happened with several songs which to this day I haven’t still looked at. 

I longed for the time when making music was enjoyable. Then I realized, what I was missing…

All of this led me to start believing that I was this hack musician with no value. That, maybe, I had spent a lifetime of making music only to become a laughable artist-wannabe who was too old and that maybe I should just throw in the towel before I made a complete fool of myself trying this game. But then why would I have been given this incredible gift of music making if the above was true? It was at this point where I was sitting in the room where I record and sat in stillness to feel out what I was missing. I longed for the time when making music was enjoyable. Then I realized, what I was missing was the idea that it didn’t matter what others thought. This how I operated when I was younger. I  truly didn’t care what others thought. I simply loved what I did to the point where I would playing again and again just to feel the sweetness. I wanted that feeling back. So, over last several months I’ve been getting back to the basics of practice and as well as making it a point to just let myself play before I record. This has been super helpful because it's loosened up my mind enough to allow myself the time to let a song and my musicianship evolve - things I wasn't doing in the haste of trying to force a song out before its time. The result is the joy is coming back and I’m letting go of trying to write that elusive hit song.

All of this is to say that maybe I’m not an artist that was meant to be in the music business in the first place. At least not the way the biz is run now. The music business is solely focused on making a profit through writing the next hit song or album and I’m just not that artist. To me this smacks of a compose-on-demand feel that has never appealed to me. I’m more interested in developing my musicianship and creativity to let it blossom to its full potential. That’s where I have the most growth and fulfillment and gain the most confidence. The evolution of my musicianship has also included learning to play other people’s music again. This is something I hadn't done for  long time but getting back into it has felt so good and has been a rich learning experience. For example, I've been learning some of the music from Sigur Ros, which is a band from Iceland. I’ve been learning two of their songs Vaka and Agaetis Byrjun. In doing so, here’s what I’ve been learning so far. 

How to layer sounds for this emotional and rich atmospheric feel.

How to put together simple ideas that in the end, sound complex. (something I knew before but sometimes forget)

How to use rhythms in the drums as an integral part of the song instead of just as a metronome for the other instruments

I'm sure there's much more to learn as keep working on these songs and I look forward to that experience. 

….the joy comes in finding ourselves, our own emotional connection to being human and the experiences we have while we are on this plane….

I’ve been loving this process! Digging in and finding why their music is so rich and beautiful. I can absorb some of these elements and put them into my composer’s toolbox, to make them my own later on. And that’s the crux of what I want to say, that when we learn to play music, the joy comes in finding ourselves, our own emotional connection to being human and the experiences we have while we are on this plane. To express those emotions to connect to others in a way that only we can. To learn those skills and techniques that can help us express those emotions. This is one of the things I love most about being a musician. I feel so lucky to be finding my way back from the idea that I have to be successful in the way the music business dictates. There are other ways of being successful and for me the best way is to just be present to what I’m doing. Be in the moment and let it fill me to the point where I share it with others. 

If you got this far, thank you for reading! I hope you find this article useful in some way. Please feel free to share it. Also I want to mention that I will have a new release coming out called Hero in the Mirror. It will be available on 30 January for download on this site and on Bandcamp as well as for streaming on Spotify and other streaming platforms. I would love your support for this song! It has been a very special song to me in getting me to look at my own inner hero and letting her come out to play. 

Take care everyone and sending you lots of love. 

Pam

IMPORTANT READ: If you really like the content I make here and elsewhere, you can support more of this work either by either making a one time contribution to my virtual tip jar or signing up for a Patreon membership. I also have music available for purchase on this site and Bandcamp or if you want to learn to play didgeridoo you can contact me here.

Thank you so much for your consideration and stay amazing! Pam