Pacing for Sustained Making

0:58 What's good everybody?Welcome back to Love Music More.I am Scoobert Doobert.Today I want to talk about the pace of creativityand how creativity is so strangebecause there will be timeswhere things will happen very quickly,times that things will happen very slowlyand they both have to coexistand you have to weather bothin order to make it through the creative journey.So on a share, I've, I just checked,

1:22 I was pulling together my catalog.I have at least 382 commercially released songsand I want to get 400, hopefully by the end of the year.But one of the things that struck mewas how grouped they wereand thematically different types of projects,different styles of music.I think that there is a tide to music.It comes out, it goes inand in order to really be in itand have a long-term career,I think you have to do both.

2:01 You have to know when it's time to fill up your cup,when you need to soak up creativityand when it's time to pour out the cupand turn that creativity into actually released material.But the trick is knowing which is whichand when to do whichbecause it's very easy to do the opposite,particularly when it's like,it's easier, I suppose, to collect the inspirationto work on listeningand playing and transcribing

2:35 or learning a new instrument.It's a lot harder to flip that aroundand say, okay, I'm ready to contribute back.So I would say when in doubt, make something.However, that's not the way that everything goesand also some art is supposed to be slow,some art is supposed to be fastand it can be tricky knowing which one you're making.Particularly when you're thinking about a recordor several cycles of records,

2:58 you wanna create something that you'll look back onand like, something that other people will like,something that you'll stand behind and feel proud of,something that'll mark a momentthat'll feel like the moment,something that doesn't feel phoned inand you're just doing what you're good at.At the same time, you wanna be not holding yourself backbecause a lot of people never make that album.

3:21 And figuring out which is something that I struggle withand just wanna be candid about kind of how I go about itin my career and a lot of it is trying to figure outwhere is the excitement?Excitement can help you break down wallsthat are very, very difficultand finding the things that have enough excitementin them for you to go all the way to finish the record

3:45 is a really good tell as to what music you should be making.And I'm finding something kind of tricky personally,just vulnerably about my own careeris that I lost excitement on my last recordbecause I was putting it out as I was making itand not enough people liked it.And I actually think that that's a real mistakeand something that I'm gonna try to rectifyfor future things, but making it so that

4:10 as you're making a record, you're releasing that record.A lot of people do this.This is the main kind of form,you release the singles as you're going,you kind of get a vibe and then you drop the whole record.But when you do that, you can kill the record,you can kill the momentum, you can kill the excitementand you can change things midstreamthat makes that body of work never actually come out.And that can be a shame

4:30 because people might not like singles one through sixbut they might love single sevenbut if you burn out all of your intensityon public reception of one through sixbefore you even made seven, you may never make it.And so what I'm thinking about doingis releasing this last record that I was working onas kind of like a, oops, an EP.Like I did it and it kind of fizzledbecause I think that one of the things

4:57 that's been standing in my way for making new musicis the fact that this record exists undone.And I hate that, but at the same timeI don't have the inspiration I've triedto go back and finish it because it's gone.And that's part of the speed versus deliberate thingthat I'm really thinking about is thatif I was faster, I would have finished itand I would have captured that momentbecause I wasn't fast enough.

5:25 I let that moment go by.And it's okay, it's its own weird little thingand maybe this is the way it was always spent to go.So I'm not gonna cry over this build milkbut I do think it's an important lessonjust to reflect back to myselfand also to the peoplethat maybe haven't made as much music as I haveis like if you have that inspiration,run with it as far as you can

5:48 and if that becomes a single and EP or an album, great.But if you don't have enough inspiration to keep goingit might be time to try a different thingbecause albums are fricking hard.And albums always suck.Like there were always, always, alwaysno matter how smooth and how seamless, how fastthere will be moments where that record guts youand you think you're just a terrible musician

6:11 or terrible creative or terrible songwriterthat will creep in because it's part of the creative process.It is required to make something coolis you have to be on the absolute edgeof what you're capable of doing.Doesn't mean that it has to be super complex.Doesn't mean that it has to be virtuosic.It just means has to be on the edgeof your creative capacity.And that alone is a high wire act

6:31 because you are, you're existingon the thing where you're about to fall overand energy and passion is the thing that can help rescue.It's like the harness.If you're doing things well enoughyou are going to screw up or you're gonna make a bad songor you're going to get in over your headwriting something and you're gonna be in the boothlike singing it and being like, I hate these lyrics

6:50 and inspiration has to see you throughbecause you need to write new lyricsright then and right there.And if you're inspired by the song,by the feeling, by the arrangement,by the things that you've put into itby the rest of the record around ityou're gonna figure it out.But if you're not, you probably won't.And so there's that.Then the other thing is talking about the preciousness

7:08 of making the record that you want to.And I'm evaluating, do you release the singlesbefore the record's done?And I'm starting to come to know.It was a cool time in life to have done that.But I don't think that's the waythat I should be making thingsunless the inspiration only is single-shaped.In which case, yes.But if you have an idea, a big ideaone that will require five, six months to make.

7:32 At this point, for me, I think the best thingis to see that idea throughbecause then it comes out wholeand then people can accept or deny it.But if you take the idea and midstreamyou start piecing it off, peeling bits of it awayand handing it to people and saying, do you like this?And you watch the numbers go up and downand the numbers matter because that is your bank account.It's not just vanity.

7:57 I don't just like having six figuresin my monthly listener account.I like having the check hit my bank accountbecause if the check hits in the bank accountthen I can quit and go full-time on music.And you don't like it when it goes the other direction.Even if the reason why it goes the other directionevery once in a while is just things do,nothing goes up forever.But it's so easy to accidentally get in your head

8:20 and think I have less money from musicbecause my new music's bad.And I don't think it is.It just was its own thing.And I think I don't wanna go there again.So what my plan is is when I have an album-shaped idea,separate it from the single-shaped ideasand try to make it so that you can get to a pointwhere you have enough putty or you have enough stuffthat you can start peeling it away

8:51 without hurting the general conception.So you can be both fast and slow at the same time.You could protect the ideawhile at the same time giving people access to itjust on the right timeline.And so that's the thing that I'm thinking going forwardis there's a value to the rat race, I guess,of creating, creating, creating, releasing, releasing,releasing.It's very fun.But at a certain point, I think that there is

9:20 gonna be more value for both the artist and the audienceto get bigger ideas.Maybe in pieces, but not in a waythat jeopardizes the big idea.And hopefully that helps somebody out there.I'm not saying that that's everything.It depends on the shape of the idea.But albums are beasts.You gotta go into the belly of them to figure outwhat you're actually creating, why you're creating it.

9:48 You will probably fail at your original ideaand that will become the album.It'll be through the trial of failurethat you will discover the thing you actually wantedto make rather than the reference.That's one of the hardest thingsis to recognize your inadequacy against a referencebecause that is the first stepto creating something that's cooler or more differentor more you than the reference itself

10:16 than whatever reference, playlist, words or poems,whatever you're trying to reference.You're like, you have to fall shortin order to fall into a new place.And I think that the feelings of artistic inadequacycombined with the commercial demandsof releasing something mid album cyclecan be very toxic and difficulttowards the ultimate goalthat everyone should have great music fully realized.

10:54 I hope you go make that recordor encourage anybody in your lifethat is a musician to make their great recordand then make another, then make another,then make another forever and ever and ever.The point is creating and continuingbut it should be at your own paceand you should see your ideas through.If you enjoy this podcast,I'd love to invite you to check outsome of the stuff that I've made at scoobertdoobert.pizza

11:17 also made a little video game on thereif you go into the basementand subscribe to the podcast, share it with your friendsand I will see you next week.Thanks for listening.