The internet-musician-content-industrial-complex is overflowing with information for both amateur and professional musicians alike. Any would-be musician’s musician has a near unlimited supply of YouTube channels, podcasts, and articles to get their fix. What, if anything, does a young professional freelance musician have to add to this cacophony of conflicting content?
Firstly, this blog is going to be different from the get-rich-quick, “Top 10 Mix Tips,” type shit that is already clogging your feed. I don’t have the answers. I’m still searching. My ultimate goal is to build a community that will share in this search. I want to grapple with deep questions about music, practice, and a little philosophy. I’m calling it the “Musician’s Way” as an intentional nod toward The Artist’s Way, the modern classic about creativity. By writing about my steps and missteps, I want to dig into what it means to have music as a daily calling.
This blog will be a public journal about “process.” I will be open and unfiltered about my struggles and aspirations on my never-ending quest for mastery. I won’t hide the pimples and warts, and there will be many, but I don't want this to be all about me! My aim is to start a dialogue about your path as much as my own. What are you practicing? How are you better (or worse) today than you were yesterday? I don’t have absolute answers but I have many thoughts and reflections. This will be a conversation among peers. We are all perennial students and I can’t wait to learn.
Admittedly there are some selfish benefits to writing. By breaking down my goals and practice tangents in this public way, I will be forced to reflect and clarify my thinking. This clarity will hopefully create a feedback loop into my daily practice, helping with both productivity and daily growth. I'm keeping myself honest by making this journey public, and I'm excited to find out all the ways that I’m WRONG! There is no better teacher than peers who are striving for the same goals. Let’s walk together on each others’ musical journeys. As musicians we tend to silo off and struggle alone, but we don’t have to!
To reiterate, I am NOT going to teach or evangelize or pontificate about the right way to do anything. There is no right way. I am just a guitar player sharing their daily growth journey in the hopes that my fellow travelers get something from it they can bring to their own path. Let’s connect over living and loving the Musician’s Way.
Up Next: "How the book Effortless Mastery saved me from Burning Out....Again"