NOT finishing songs fast is ruining your future success (Focused Finisher Series pt. 2)
The first time I got behind a wheel, I was terrified.
But as I did it more and more - it's become a seamless skill for me I can do almost without thinking (not to say I drive with my eyes closed lol but you get what I mean)
It's the exact same with making incredible music.
Your songwriting, mixing, mastering, sound design ALL get better the more you do it.
This is why learning to finish songs consistently (and fast) is the literal only thing you need to do to get better at music.
Now how do we finish songs consistently in a way that is inspiring and effortlessly feels like play while also improving our song quality each time?
Steps to finish songs effortlessly in a way that also gets you creating better songs each time
1. Make song ideas so good that you're excited to come back and work on it again (the last letter talked about this)
I am a huge fan of using systems.
I'll admit that I'm quite a lazy person, I want to reach all my goals with the least amount of effort possible.
Smartly designed systems allow me to do this.
Last week, we talked on how to make song ideas so good you're excited to come back to.
We do this by removing as much blockage possible from our creative workflow.
This lets us create the ideas we have in our head seamlessly and with the least amount of resistance.
2. Learn the simple formulas for you to finish songs in your genres
Now - to finish these high quality ideas, we simply need to learn the formula or structure of the best songs in your genre.
NOTE - I said best, NOT favourite for a reason.
It's important that before you try to be fancy or unique that you first understand what people like and don't like.
Play is safe until you know it like the back of your hand... Then you can break these rules, be creative and try new things.
Trying to be unique before becoming good at music is like trying to run 10K before you can even run 5K.
Learn the fundamentals first - don't be impatient. Your future self will thank you :)
3. Start future production sessions with intention.
After you've already started an idea and come back to it in a second, third, fourth etc. session, it's key you have in mind what you're going to work on before starting.
Knowing exactly what success looks like from your session will get you making progress fast instead of working randomly with no clear direction of what to do.
This is how you consistently finish songs.
By setting intention before you start producing.
4. Incorporate a method for you to mix and master your songs to industry standards all "in house"
Lastly, you need to have a method to quickly mix and master your songs "in house" - as in entirely yourself without engineers or relying on generic AI tools.
The reason is simple.. You maintain full creative control over your songs and avoid turn around time with engineers.
And the process of mixing and mastering well is simple too - getting clean mixes and loud masters is the easiest thing to do once you understand the process behind what you do and why.
Seriously though - it’s a simple formula that you can follow every time and it’s straightforward to do once you understand it.
When you're learning and getting better at music production and discovering your style/sound - speed is key.
The faster you can produce and finish songs, the faster you can release them, and the faster you get feedback on what to improve in your next song.
Regardless, there is a learning curve to getting good at music production (just like anything else!)
So you might as well speed things up and learn as fast as you can.
This was a brief letter but that’s because it’s simple to do - just hard to execute without the right setup/guidance.
Next letter, we’ll be talking about leveraging your continuous cycle of constantly improving songs to grow an audience almost on autopilot by again upgrading our system and introducing a new part.
Peace,
Vig/MA
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