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Any tips for making music with a full time job?


Berk

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8 hours ago, Berk said:

The deadlines, the cerebral work, takes up a lot of mind space and kills all creativity. I think i need a level of boredom and to feel relaxed, which i often don't anymore. Work work work.

can totally relate. a long time ago I was in a band and was unemployed. I remember the ideas I was coming up with at the time were great, and seemed like they would never stop. I had some money saved up and had all day to do nothing, just messing around with guitar and synth stuff. then I finally had to get a day job and it killed the creativity. we collectively felt it and phased out.

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In life you cant have it all.

You can't have full time job and have full energy for music. You can't have absolute integrity and make millions of dollars.

If you want something you have to sacrifice something else. If you want a stable life with secure income and security, you work full time and have to sacrifice music time.

If you want more time to make music you have to sacrifice some work time and security and if you want to go even further, it also mean sacrificing other things for it like time with friends, various entertainments, discard a future with kids in most cases, having a house, etc.

If you want to make money off it you'll probably have to sacrifice a degree of integrity and get in the music business.  If you just want money, you'll have to play the capitalist game and find how to make money no matter what.

It's all about what you're ready to sacrifice and what is more important for you and the degree of sacrifice you're ready to have for each of the aspect of your life.

What do you want more?

time or security? money or music?

to what degree are you able to handle financial insecurity? to what degree are you able to handle lack of time and not working on music? to what degree are able to handle music business?

There is degrees of the investment of time and energy in all of those and the choice is up to you. All those great artists you are looking up to have sacrificed A LOT for their work.  Im talking about 8,10,12 hours a day of constant working.

Some have lived poor, some have lived with the constant stress of touring, some have done intense studies at school.

And then there is the usual sell out who goes for it.

But you'll have to sacrifice something in the end, you cant have it all.

Edited by thefxbip
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2 hours ago, nikisoko said:

dedicate time every day. i get up about 3 hours early and end up putting in a bout 2 hours of music time in the mornings. i end up feeling burnt out by EOD but that’s ok! it’s been way better for me than when i tried to stay up late because my energy was all zapped and i couldn’t focus.

 

but yeah you could also try communal living somewhere cheap and try to avoid a job or setup some passive income with a web scam of some kind

Was gonna more or less post this. Not sure if this would help with achieving the mindset you describe but one thing I occasionally struggle with is that I generally feel it's easiest for me to get some creative work done during hours when I'm certain I won't be disturbed and I feel the time is entirely mine to do with as I wish without feeling guilty about procrastinating on something else. This has always meant losing a lot of sleep but then I started to realize I could also wake up early and use that time. Although admittedly I've only dabbled in this as I've been stuck in a go to bed around 3 and wake at 8 routine again for over a year. But hypothetical me goes to bed around 22, wakes up around 5 to meditate and pursuit creative endeavors and then leaves for work around 9. It's amazing, thoroughly hypothetically recommended. In theory.

And also, yeah, make sure you have your stuff all set up and configured and then just sit down with it for a bit, I think often the pressure you can feel when you make yourself sit down with the intent to "make music" can be enough to start loathing it and it becomes a chore in and of itself. Keep the goal initially just to spend some time with your gear every day or every other day and perhaps you start falling into a new routine.

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well aware that mileage could vary with this one, but I've found that a certain medicinal herb has helped at times give a boost to the creativity process. 

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51 minutes ago, Wunderbar said:

I heard if u are good at it u will make money off of it? Still trying to figure that one out.

Money off music? Ufff good luck with that!

! for serious money you need to gain fame first 

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24 minutes ago, zero said:

well aware that mileage could vary with this one, but I've found that a certain medicinal herb has helped at times give a boost to the creativity process. 

 

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20 minutes ago, cern said:


And I don't think you can be rich as fuck by making IDM..

Idm is dead.

In electronic music, your best chances are with dance music; some subgenres more than others but in 2022, for any level of fame (and consequently, money), make dance music! 

Edited by xox
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Find someone to make music with. It's always easier to get motivated when more people are involved and you won't have to do the hard work which is coming up with ALL the ideas.

Hell, do some jam sessions using Ableton Live's Link feature.

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There is basically many types of artist lifestyles and none of them is easy. You just pick the one you're more comfortable with. Depends on many things but mostly on the type of character and the aims you have.

Academic artist: you work in the academic environment, grants and all, you may have a job as a teacher. It has it's own disadvantages. Closed circle, a certain uptightness and conservatism might be there. There might be an perfectionism culture that kill your passion for your work.

Artist as a Job: you work your art as a job, its becomes a hustle. You have to make sure it stays profitable, you have to find gigs etc. It has it's own disadvantages as well. Stress, danger of becoming jaded and burn out. Have to think about profiting your skills and art all the time. Tour life is NOT easy. Have to become a bit more commercial.

Bohemian artist: You work on your stuff without any money or time constraint or barely any, as an outsider. It also has it's own disadvantages. You might live in squalor, be poor, fall ill, have no security for the future, become complacent about the quality of your work because there is little external pressure on it.

Hobby artist: you work on your art on the side, it's a hobby, you may have a full time job or something else to live on. It has it's own disadvantages as well. You might lack time and energy to work on it, have a family that take some of your time on top of your job, in time some just give up because they dont have results, ambitions or energy anymore for it.

Complete sell out artist: You do anything to become famous and have money with your art. It also has it's own disadvantages. Sell your soul to the devil and the Big Man. Moral corruption, lack of integrity. Have a public personage facade which is not truly you. You're a product. Art is always secondary to money and fame.

And you can probably have people that fall into these different categories to different degree on the spectrum.

This is all of course a theory i just made up and i might be completely wrong hahaha (I have personally met people from all those different types of lifestyles) but my point is that there is many ways to do it you just have to choose which is the one for you. Which advantages/disadvantages you're able to live with. 

Also which ones you can do in regard to your situation or capabilities. Not everyone can be a concert pianist, not everyone can be a rock star, not everyone can be a dad, not everyone can be a poor starving artist, not everyone can be a teacher with a doctorate.

 

Edited by thefxbip
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Something that helps me - turn off wi-fi when you're home. I so often come home from work thinking "aaaaaah and now to some music making". But then I just quickly check my e-mails, get reminded of contacting the guy who sold me a laptop adapter that never arrived, click on a newsletter, starting to head over to this board, youtube, social media, clicking this clicking that and suddenly it's 9:30PM...I find that making music requires a certain piece of mind that can get totally destroyed from internet distraction ?

On the topic in general: a day-job can really kill your creativity. But having no job can be even worse, at least for me. As someone on here said switching off after a day of work through making music is a helpful antidote. Whereas trying to be creative but having constantly the question in the back of your mind how to survive the coming months I found awful.

Part-time jobs are also a nice trade-off. But they're usually hard to find. Last year I had one with only 20 hours and the pay was just enough to life a very cheap life. Unfortunately I disliked it so much that the hours felt more like 30.

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3 hours ago, Wunderbar said:

kpop, go make kpop.

This is the most accurate post in the thread so far.

 

But you still have to have the resourcess to hire a band to play it, promote it, etc. The k-pop industry is hard core.

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5 hours ago, ignatius said:

became an adult dancer. you can make a lot of money in short period of time and have more time for making music. 

You lost me at "become an adult"

Edited by TubularCorporation
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Avoid the "buying new gear world" thinking it can make you do better music, it will make everything much more complicated! 

Dont shuv your Bandcamp account into peoples throats, nobody cares about that. 

Dont let music burn you out.

 

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On 2/8/2022 at 10:04 AM, Berk said:

For me it's really difficult to keep up the music making, while at the same time I have to juggle my full time job. The deadlines, the cerebral work, takes up a lot of mind space and kills all creativity. I think i need a level of boredom and to feel relaxed, which i often don't anymore. Work work work.

Any tips how to sort of achieve that flow again? Thx

I am kind of in the same place as you are - full time job and even though I work from home, I am a dumbass who spends probably way too much brain cycles doing work. The result is that I am really tired most evenings and well I also try to have a social life and family (no kids though, just a cat).

On the other hand, I think music wise I am doing OK. I started doing WeeklyBeats in 2018 and since then I have kept up putting a track on Soundcloud each week. With @TubularCorporation we are also running a weekly livestream on Twitch and Youtube. I also go out in the real world once every 2 weeks to jam with a local guitarist pal for 2h where I play drums. All this still takes a good chunk of my time - let's say 1 evening 4h for doing the stream with setup-teardown and another evening making a track (4h again). Most weeks I will not get all the things done that I want, and this is probably just overly ambitious thinking on my part. Also, this schedule is probably only possible thanks to the pandemic killing off social life. ?

That said, I have some practical suggestions for digging out of the hole and starting a creative routine.

In your situation, the first thing what I would do is set some regular time each week (lets say 1-2 hours) for music. You could do it like weeklybeats, and set a target to make one new track each week. I think it's best to aim to create something new each week - either it is a finished track or a cool new Live preset, or you just take a youtube tutorial and try it out, or even just work on setting up your template project. Having tangible results to look back on to see "I did that" is a massive motivation boost, at least for me. Even if your result is just a single saw tone with a modulated filter, that's already great - you won this week's battle against fucked up time constraints and achieved something! Just like with hitting the gym or practicing anything else, you are not going to instantly win, but if you do steady work over time, you'll get there.

2nd thing - the project template. It's a reality problem that if you are struggling for time, you do not have time to reinvent your gear setup or whatever it is that you use to make music. So it's good to have your DAW project and favorite sounds set up in a nice sounding mix so you can get started quickly. Doing those livestreams I have everything set up to go, all I do is just open up the project and jam in some loops as sound check to begin with. Same with the video part. I never built that stuff from scratch, everything has evolved step by step by tweaking the mix and elements here and there.

 

In my opinion, the main thing you first want to achieve is that you get a routine going that fits you. You should not feel bad that you are not creating amazing music off the bat, maybe you never will, but I have found that after listening to my own tracks from years ago, some of them occasionally are not dog shit.

 

And since everyone's being philosophic, let me share a Bukowski quote.

Quote

“If you're going to try, go all the way. Otherwise, don't even start. This could mean losing girlfriends, wives, relatives and maybe even your mind. It could mean not eating for three or four days. It could mean freezing on a park bench. It could mean jail. It could mean derision. It could mean mockery--isolation. Isolation is the gift. All the others are a test of your endurance, of how much you really want to do it. And, you'll do it, despite rejection and the worst odds. And it will be better than anything else you can imagine. If you're going to try, go all the way. There is no other feeling like that. You will be alone with the gods, and the nights will flame with fire. You will ride life straight to perfect laughter. It's the only good fight there is.”
Charles Bukowski

 

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Some great, concrete tips so far and also some perspectives that are really nice.

Just for the record, I'm not trying to be famous or successful even as a musician really. Just for fun. 

Might release something once in a while, perhaps. Maybe not - I don't know how you people feel about it, but deep down I think we make music/art for it to be heard or seen or whatever. And as soon as your art is perceived, it's very hard to not pay attention to what people think of it. You start paying attention to what people say (or don't say), and the initial pureness goes away. You start comparing your work to other people's work. It's bullshit. Just enjoy yourself and don't take it seriously. But on the other hand, you want to make something good, so you have to take it seriously up to a certain point.

I'm trying to go for big brain emoji rating with this post.

also, sorry about the red text halfway through, I'm on phone and don't know what happened

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Keep a good, quick & tidy setup. You don't want to spend half the alotted time hooking up jack cables, tuning your fancy analog mono or figuring out what causes the hum in your audio interface. Reduce the scope of what you want to do each session, maybe just a new patch, record a single track or fine-tune some effect. Think of it like switching to postal correspondence chess. 

Sort your schedule out and reduce clutter. Get up earlier, stay up later, sleep an hour or two less a few days a week, see if you can reduce work hours, whichever of these suits best. A lot of creatives get up early and go to sleep right after work instead, or work night shifts. For me the late hour is where I'm most creative and unfiltered, so I try to sleep less a few days a week. On evenings after work I just pump out ideas and don't do any boring editing, I keep that to weekends or off days.

I find it's most important to maintain energy & focus through regular exercise. 

Edited by chim
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A while ago I had this joke idea that you should treat music production like a gym.

Start with 16x4 sets of techno beats, just open up a project, make a 4 bar beat, save the project, then a next different 4 bar beat. Get your APM up so your subconscious only has to hint towards "polyrhythm" and your fingers already do the motions and 2 seconds later (if Live has not crashed) you have a beat going.

Take 2 minute break.

Follow up with 4 reps of bass sound design, alternate between FM and AM synths.

OK anyway you get the idea..

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