you cant make good songs if you don't know how to start them (Focused Finisher Series pt.1)
Welcome new folks and all the long time readers
There are a lot of new people and I want to spend the next 4 letters on sharing only my best (if that's cool with you)
This 4 part series is dedicated to helping you understand the high level strategy and plan you'd need to;
Create high quality song ideas
Finish them into full songs consistently
Mix and master your songs to pro level standards like you hear on the radio
Be able to create the sounds you hear in your head and from your favourite songs.
Network and reach out to bigger DJs and artists
All so you can begin taking the right steps to living your dream with music front and center (which if you're reading this, I assume you want!)
The name Focused Finisher derives from the system I used to get 60K+ Spotify streams in 5 months on a new artist project.
How I've gotten my own brand outside this project from 0 to 300K+ views across different platforms in 9 months.
How I got one of my students a major label release (in their genre) in also 5 months after working together.
How I got another to 45K+ organic views on their social media and original songs in just 2 weeks after working together.
OK, let's dive in.
The very first thing we have to talk about here is
Why you should care about starting high quality song ideas
Most people assume that high quality ideas can only come from luck or from talent.
While 100% of the time, having luck and talent DOES lead to high quality ideas...
Luck and talent is also 100% useless as it's unreliable and unpredictable.
You can't rely on luck or talent to better your productions or artist project - as it's not predictable.
Instead, you need to reverse engineer what results you want and systemize that process.
Think about it.
If you had a reliable, predictable way to always make high quality song ideas - is that not worth more than talent or luck in the long run?
This is why a system or process for starting high quality song ideas fast is key.
Talent is like a bazooka - Its hit or miss, and if you miss - it's hard to take another shot as they are so hard to shoot.
A systematic process is like a sniper.
They know exactly what they want, where to aim and where to shoot and when - they always hit their mark/goals.
I'm a firm believer that we are all creative individuals and all have the potential to create a million play song.
But lack of knowledge, experience, and conditioning creates a ton of blockage for us to creatively express ourselves and achieve that.
The quality of your ideas depends on how good your system for starting them is
This means the better you process/system, the better your ideas.
Now this begs the question - "What makes a good system?"
3 Things.
Simple – Is the system clear, direct, easy to follow and focused?
Sustainable – Will the system last and stand the test of time?
Save Time - Does it save time and effort or is it more work to use the system than to go without out it?
So if our goal is to now start high quality song ideas consistently with a smart process/system...
How do we make it simple, sustainable and save time?
Simple
The hardest part of making a system simple is actually to keep it simple.
The biggest temptation you'll get is to overcomplicate the process and steps.
For example, morning routines are big now a days.
Breathing exercises, morning walk, cold shower, journal, meditate.
People try to stack all these together so the rest of their day is "perfect and productive".
But instead, this entire routine ends up taking away so much time and effort that it ends up being "counter-productive"!
All it does is add more blockage.
It would make more sense to ditch the routines entirely and immediately get to work in the morning.
It's the same with our creativity and starting songs.
We all have bad habits and ways of starting tracks that kill our creativity and stops us from making our best ideas.
So the key is to make sure the system is so simple to follow that even a 10 year old could use it and get results.
Sustainable
A sustainable system is something that's easy and seamless to use - it shouldn't feel like you are going out of your way to use it.
Your system/process shouldn't take away time and effort from your end goal either.
I used to use a big excel sheet to track and manage all my songs.
It was working great for a while...
But it became such a hassle to use it as the format was bad and the daily tracking was such a pain that eventually - I stopped using it entirely.
To make this system UN-sustainable.
I should have made it seamless and effortless to use - in most cases, that means to keep to the essentials only.
Don't get fancy and overcomplicate things when you start songs - stick to the bare minimum you need only.
Getting fancy leads to burnout and voids the entire purpose of the system in the first place - which is to work for you long term and to achieve consistent, high quality results.
Save Time
This is my favourite part of systems and why I love them so much.
I'll admit that I'm somewhat a lazy person.
I want to reach all my goals with the least amount of effort possible.
Smartly designed systems allow me to do that.
To make a system save time, it's key you automate as much as you can.
Remove both monotonous and uninspiring work from the process - outsource those things to your system.
Things like routing, loading effects, choosing instruments, sound design, etc.
Anything that creates friction and blocks your inspiration when you start new songs.
Remove it and put it into your system.
This allows us to make our workflow clear, direct, and simple and thus save us time.
With time as you improve the system, you start to increase its efficiency and thus it becomes easier for you to focus just on starting good ideas
vs
All the other random things you normally start with and waste time on.
This way you have a clear and focused direction to go in when you start.
Actionable Takeaways:
Here's what you need to do to make a simple, sustainable and time-saving process/system to start high quality song ideas fast
1. Remove all monotonous and uninspiring work and bake that into your process for finishing songs (more on this next letter)
Things like routing, loading effects, choosing instruments, sound design, etc.
Note all the time wasters and things that stop you from truly starting a good idea right away.
2. Ensure you have an easy to use, seamless method to start songs in any place you want.
This means if you're inspired to start with the drums - you can do so really fast or if you want to start with a melody, you can likewise do the same.
3. Start off simple and slowly tweak it as you use it and get more feedback from it.
It's tempting to go nuts and start adding a bunch of stuff you think will work but stick to only the essentials at the start.
Only add one new thing at a time and make sure to compare your results from before vs after adding the new thing.
This is how to make sure what you add actually gets you to your end goal fast vs taking more time and effort from you.
Next letter we are going to talk about how to finish your high quality ideas in to full songs consistently by expanding on the system.
In the meantime, check out the free EDM Producer training - it explains more about the Focused Finisher System and how we can help you create yours so you can make top level productions and grow your artist project.
If you have any questions - let me know on Instagram
Peace,
Vig/MA
How I Help you
