Making music can give you somewhere to put things you don’t know how to say. You can spend an evening working on an idea and come away feeling better, even if nobody else ever hears it.
But it can also become the thing you’re beating yourself up about. The track you haven’t finished. Opening something you liked yesterday and deciding it’s rubbish. Wondering why something you enjoy has started making you feel worse.
I think we should be able to talk about that without making struggling sound like something you have to do to be a proper artist.
Does being creative make you more vulnerable?
I do wonder whether some people are drawn towards making music because they already need that outlet. Something they can get absorbed in, or a way of expressing things they find difficult to explain.
That’s a different question from whether making music causes the difficulties. And I don’t think there’s one answer that covers everyone.
Some people seem able to finish an idea and get on with the next one. Others can spend days questioning a decision nobody listening would probably even notice.
Being critical of your work can help you improve. But there comes a point where you’re no longer deciding whether the bass is too loud. You’re questioning whether you’re any good at this at all.
I wouldn’t pretend to know where someone’s personality ends and a mental health difficulty begins. But I do think creative work can become a place where things you already struggle with get a lot of room to play out.
Especially when you’re doing most of it on your own.
It’s difficult not to take it personally
You can spend weeks working on something and still struggle to judge it fairly. You know every part you’re unsure about. Then you listen to someone else’s finished track and wonder why yours doesn’t feel like that.
It doesn’t have to reach anyone else for the comparison to start. You can be sitting on your own with a project nobody’s heard, already deciding what it says about your ability.
For producers who release music, there’s the response to deal with as well. Putting that much work into something and getting very little attention must be difficult, especially when other artists seem to be moving ahead.
But I don’t think you need to be releasing records for creative work to feel personal. Wanting to make something you’re happy with can be enough pressure on its own.
You’re comparing the work someone else has chosen to show you with everything you know about your own. Including the abandoned ideas and the evenings where nothing seemed to work.
That’s quite a difficult comparison to come out of feeling good.
The same applies to building Mix Lock
I can see the same thing with Mix Lock. It’s a different kind of project from making a track, but there’s still a lot of me in it. My experience of producing, the things I think are useful, and a lot of time spent trying to explain them properly.
People have bought it and taken the time to leave some lovely reviews. That means a lot to me. Hearing that something I’ve built is helping someone with their music gives me a reason to keep working on it.
Those reviews keep me building. When you spend so much time looking closely at something, you get very familiar with everything you still want to improve. A customer telling you what they’re getting out of it reminds you that what’s already there has value too.
That doesn’t mean the doubts disappear. There’s always another guide I could write or something I could make clearer in the app. It can be difficult to finish for the day when you care about making it better.
Building Mix Lock is where a lot of this feels personal to me. I recognise that feeling of caring about something so much that it becomes difficult to leave it alone. The feedback helps me keep some perspective, and I’m grateful to the people who’ve taken the time to give it.
Music starts following you out of the studio
For people trying to build an audience for their music, making the track can be only part of the work. There’s pressure to keep posting and give people a reason to pay attention. I recognise that side of it through trying to show people what Mix Lock does.
Even having nothing to share can start feeling like a problem.
If you’re fitting this around a job, an evening away from music might be time you needed for something else. But instead of enjoying it, you’re thinking about the person who’s already finished another track this month.
Their circumstances might be completely different. You still feel behind.
I think that can take a lot of the pleasure out of something you originally did because you loved it. You sit down with a bit of time to make music and immediately feel under pressure to have something to show for it.
Some sessions won’t give you that. You might try a few things and leave them. You might enjoy playing a synth without turning it into a finished track.
I don’t think every evening needs to justify itself afterwards.
Knowing when to leave it alone
There’s a lot of admiration for people who never seem to leave the studio. Sometimes a long session is brilliant. You’re enjoying yourself and the track is moving.
Other times you’re tired and getting annoyed, but you keep going because stopping would mean admitting you haven’t got anywhere.
You turn things up, then back down. Listen to the same section again. Start wondering whether the whole idea was wrong.
At that point, another hour might not give you the answer you want.
Taking your music seriously doesn’t mean giving it every spare hour you have. And having a life outside it doesn’t make you less committed.
It helps to have people you can talk to without needing a finished track or some good news first. Someone asking how you are, rather than how the music’s going.
Those can be very different questions.
You don’t have to feel bad to make something good
I’m uncomfortable with the idea that suffering is part of what makes an artist interesting. That if someone gets themselves into a better place, they might lose whatever made their music special.
Someone making good music while struggling doesn’t mean the struggle was what made it good. We don’t get to hear everything they couldn’t finish, or see what it cost them away from the music.
And you don’t owe anyone that.
Music can help you through things. But it doesn’t have to be the only place you take them. If what you’re feeling is affecting the rest of your life, it’s worth speaking to someone qualified to help. You don’t need to wait until everything has fallen apart.
I’d rather see someone take longer over something they care about and be alright than keep pushing because they’re afraid a break means they’ve failed.
The project will still be there when you come back to it.