April 1, 2025 • 34 mins
Why do children create fearlessly while professional producers get stuck staring at blank DAW sessions? In this insightful conversation, Ben and Carl explore the counterintuitive truth that creative freedom comes from embracing constraints, not avoiding them. From Sufjan Stevens' state-themed albums to the natural evolution of decision-making throughout the production timeline, they reveal how limitations spark inspiration rather than stifle it. Whether you're battling decision paralysis with 87,000 clap samples or struggling to maintain a social media presence, this episode offers practical approaches to turning constraints into catalysts for your best work.
Discover:
LA Wildfire Relief:
Musicares - https://donor.musicares.org/page/lafirerelief
WAMTN - https://give.wearemovingtheneedle.org/campaign/654724/donate
Learn more about StudioLand - https://www.welcometostudioland.com/a/2147995182/bmyFf8p5
Download our free guide: "The Future-Proof Mixing Engineer: 8 Essential Skills for 2024 and Beyond" - https://mpe-ebook.benwallick.com/future-proof-mixing
Connect with us:
Secret Sonics - https://www.instagram.com/secretsonics
Ben - https://www.instagram.com/benwallickmusic/
Carl - https://www.instagram.com/carlbahner/
Learn more:
https://www.benwallick.com/
https://www.carlbahner.com/
This episode with edited by Gavi Kutliroff - https://www.instagram.com/pleasant_peasant_music/
Discover:
- How constraints unlock creativity rather than limit it
- Why limitless possibilities lead to decision paralysis
- Practical constraint methods for both music and business
- The natural evolution of constraints throughout the production timeline
- Decision-making confidence across different creative domains
- The value of deliberate practice in building decisiveness
LA Wildfire Relief:
Musicares - https://donor.musicares.org/page/lafirerelief
WAMTN - https://give.wearemovingtheneedle.org/campaign/654724/donate
Learn more about StudioLand - https://www.welcometostudioland.com/a/2147995182/bmyFf8p5
Download our free guide: "The Future-Proof Mixing Engineer: 8 Essential Skills for 2024 and Beyond" - https://mpe-ebook.benwallick.com/future-proof-mixing
Connect with us:
Secret Sonics - https://www.instagram.com/secretsonics
Ben - https://www.instagram.com/benwallickmusic/
Carl - https://www.instagram.com/carlbahner/
Learn more:
https://www.benwallick.com/
https://www.carlbahner.com/
This episode with edited by Gavi Kutliroff - https://www.instagram.com/pleasant_peasant_music/
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
If you have something in front of you, you have
an opportunity to say yes and to commit to it
and to do the thing and to be decisive. And
I think so much of the good things that we
do in our life are those moments where we said, Okay,
I'm doing this. Hi, I'm Ben and I'm Carl, and
you're listening to secret Sonics, honest conversations chock full of
tactical advice to help you build your dream career in
(00:22):
music and audio.
Speaker 2 (00:23):
Whether it's skill development, mixing mindsets, personal branding, or work
life balance. We talk about ways to help set yourself
up for success in the ever changing music industry.
Speaker 1 (00:32):
Let's get started, Hi, Ben, Hi Carl.
Speaker 2 (00:38):
Let's dive head first right into this episode.
Speaker 1 (00:42):
I like a head first start. That's good.
Speaker 2 (00:44):
Yeah, ruh, headfirst, like Scrooge McDuck into a big pile
of coins that somehow doesn't instantly kill him. Random reference. Okay,
So in the last episode, one of the things we
talked about was some like creative constraints, and some of
the examples we talked about specific we're giving ourselves time
constraints to try to write an measure instrumental loop or
(01:07):
like write just like the chorus of a song, like
just accepting small, something bite sized for the purpose of
not just getting the reps in of being creative, but
also to take the pressure off of feeling like everything
that we create has to inevitably come out as a finished, releasable,
wonderful project that is perfectly representative of our creative selves. Right.
(01:31):
There's all this pressure that we put on ourselves a
lot of times as creatives, and not just as artists
or as musicians or as engineers and producers. Like, there's
always a lot of this self imposed pressure that we
put on ourselves, and we feel I guess really stressed
out about, especially the idea of putting anything out into
(01:53):
the world that's not finished and doesn't meet our I
guess our quality threshold, our self impost quality threshold, right,
And that a lot of times stops us from even
trying to do things, because, you know, writing a new song,
trying a new style as a big time commitment, and
we tend to have an attitude of it's all or nothing.
(02:15):
And in the last episode, we talked about a lot
of things, but one of the things we talked about
was how we can maybe set ourselves little timers, And
so I wanted to talk today about creative constraints and
things that we can do beyond just setting a timer, right,
but things to help us to force ourselves to try
(02:36):
something new, but in a smaller burst, rather than looking
at a new idea, a new style of music, a
new whatever, and looking at it as if we have
this really far away goal that we have to reach.
Otherwise it's not worth it to even try, and we
shouldn't even bother. And obviously setting time limits is a
(02:57):
really good way to try that. But I wanted to
talk about and maybe brainstorm some other ways other types
of constraints that are not just time bound constraints we
can give ourselves to try something new, push ourselves, whether
it's just a new style of music, or it's just
a new instrument, or it's just like a new way
of thinking about songwriting. So, yeah, that's what I wanted
(03:20):
to pitch to you today and get this conversation rolling.
Speaker 1 (03:24):
Interesting. Yeah, the first thing I'm thinking about is remixing, actually,
which I know we spoke about a lot also in
that episode. I think that was actually two episodes ago.
By the time this one comes out, it doesn't matter
but the important thing is you were going on a
whole thing about remixing, and I think what's cool about
remixing is it does give you a constraint because the
song is already there and you can't really change the song.
I mean, I guess you could change the song, but
(03:45):
like the melodic pieces are there, how they were done,
the different instruments you could choose to use or not use,
but they're already done for you. And that is like
a limiting factor in of itself of like, Okay, we're
going to base this off of this guitar like in
the song and this melody hook, and you know you
could scratch you know, the rest of it and just
go off of that, but it's already limited you into
(04:06):
like what the song is. I'm sure we've talked about
this before on the podcast. Of just like when you
have no limitations, you know, you could do whatever you want,
people usually don't do anything interesting because there's too many options.
And if you have too many options, then you're just
there's just paralysis, right of like oh, I could do this,
I could do this, I could do this, And I
think so much of life is not getting into these
(04:27):
like paralysies of not being able to do anything because
you have too many options.
Speaker 2 (04:30):
I want to jump in. I want to jump in
real quick and say, yes, it's not that they don't
do anything creative or anything like interesting and new. It's
that they never finish anything interesting or new because there's
always an infinite amount of things that they could do differently.
And I feel like that's we've all dealt with artists
that have that kind of oh yeah thing where they
start a song and then four years later they're still
(04:50):
working on the same song. So anyway, I just wanted
to say, like, for those listening like I was thinking,
it's not just like a yeah, yeah, you can be
creative when you have into the possibilit But the more
possibilities you have, the harder it is to say to yourself, Okay,
this is done.
Speaker 1 (05:06):
I would say even for starting For me, having limitless
possibilities can also prevent me from starting something, not just
finishing something. They're both valid, and so I think limiting
your choices is just a really healthy way to get
shit done, because then you say, okay, these are the options.
You know, if you have two roads to choose from,
you choose one road right, if you have like twenty roads,
then you don't even know where to begin or which
(05:30):
we're to start with. So yeah, I think remixing is
a great, a great way to limit yourself in terms
of like that, do you want to like think about
ways of like how limiting factors can help you finish
or like a creative idea, like do you have an
idea for that right now?
Speaker 2 (05:44):
Like what I'm just thinking of after you are saying that,
there's this the way that I kind of look at
music and I don't know if this is going to
make any sense or it might be like way too
existential and weird and just makes sense in my head.
Speaker 1 (05:58):
Well, all it's existentialists here, Carl's.
Speaker 2 (06:00):
But every like every decision that you make in a
song does create a limitation, right, like because the limitations
are context, right, It's just in the creative field, you
could even kind of maybe I don't want to say
you could use those words interchangeably constraints and context, but
I'd argue that maybe you can, and that like if
you decide, like let's say that even if you start
(06:21):
with a totally blank page and then you decide I'm
gonna grab my guitar and just write something that is
in itself, excluding other ways of starting the song, It's
inevitably going to end up different than if you would
have started by opening up Splice, or if you would
have started by pulling out a piece of paper and
writing lyrics. So even that very first decision, as early
(06:44):
as it may be, and as like seemingly insignificant as
it may be, that is the first decision that is
kind of like pushing that snowball off the hill, and
then everything after it is going to be informed by
that decision. Even if you start with your guitar and
you're like, I got nothing, I'm gonna switch over and
try you know, I'm gonna pull up Splice and see
(07:04):
if I can find that it's a cool like drum
pattern to use. The fact that you chose to open
up Splice and look for a drum pattern was because
you ruled out the guitar as a starting point, and
you know that that is no longer going to be
the thing. So like every decision that we make, and
I think once we just make that very first decision,
we just do that little poop to push the snowball
(07:27):
over the edge, Then I think everything becomes. You know,
it may not immediately roll down perfectly into this wonderful
end result, but it's just making that first choice. Yeah,
something as simple as I'm gonna pick up my guitar,
I'm gonna pick up my drumsticks, I'm gonna open up splice,
I'm gonna sip down by my piano, I'm gonna go
record some folly of birds outside whatever. It is just
(07:48):
making that first choice. If we look at just making
that as a decision, whether we like it or not,
that is starting the snowball of creative constraints and creating context.
Speaker 1 (07:58):
Yeah. I really like that, and I think becoming a
creative person you need to be comfortable making decisions because
if you don't make decisions, then you're just going to
be You're not going to actually do anything. And so,
like it's like anything in life, like even dating, Like
you know, when you're dating people, you know you have
to make a decision, like because there's infinite people, you
could continue dating, but at some point you if you
(08:18):
want to actually achieve something, then you have to make
a decision of like, Okay, I'm good with this person.
Speaker 2 (08:24):
You know, maybe not everybody is as infinitely handsome as
you and some of us have limits.
Speaker 1 (08:29):
Now, we all have our limits. Obviously, who am I
to talk about this stuff, But I'm saying, like I
think people like there's like this paralysis of decisions, like, oh,
but you know, maybe there's other people out there, or
maybe there's or there's other job out there, or there's
other artists that I could maybe work with instead of
working with this artist that's available right now. Like, if
you have something in front of you, you have an
opportunity to say yes and to commit to it and
(08:51):
to do the thing and to be decisive. And I
think so much of the good things that we do
in our life are those moments where we said, Okay,
I'm doing this and you just don't know because there's
too many variables. If you don't know, you know, like
you can't even conceive of it. So I think a
lot of life is just like making those decisions. And
so I don't remember when this came up in the podcast,
but at some point somebody said that, like you have
(09:13):
to see the experiment through, you know, and so like
I don't remember which which episode this was, but it's
like every song is an experiment and if you stop
the experiment too early, or if you don't like go
all the way, you'll never know if it was a
valid experiment, you know. So like, even if the song
ends up being a bust, at least you finished it
and now you know if you like it or don't
(09:34):
like it, or the mix. You went down this mixing
path and you don't know if it's going to be good.
But like, until you take it all the way, it's
hard to know if it was a valid idea or not.
And so like stopping along the way and becoming indecisive
is also a problem. And you know, we also talk
about fast mixing and being decisive while you're mixing and
then usually get better results. Also going with your gut.
(09:55):
I think it just applies to so many things, you know,
like being a decision maker.
Speaker 2 (09:59):
Yeah, I feel like we all have a variable relationship
with decision making, and I feel like there are going
to be parts of the creative process that we feel
very confident about and we trust our gut and we
just we go with it and we don't think about it.
We just go and it works out as great because
we have a lot of familiarity with working within those
particular constraints, whether that's for me, it's mixing like I
(10:22):
am very fast, I am very like I trust my
gut and I get good results, you know what I mean.
Like that's I don't want to oversimplify it, but I'm
going to say it's that simple for me. But when
it comes to figuring out chord structures and when it
comes to choosing the beginning parts of a song, like
starting something from scratch, I am not comfortable there. I
(10:44):
second guess everything possible. So it's not even that like
Ben is really great at making decisions and I am not,
or Ben's not good at making decisions and I am.
It's even within one person. There's a whole spectrum of
how confident and therefore how quickly we make decisions and
follow through on them. And I think that's something that
(11:05):
we don't take enough time to analyze about ourselves and
become self aware of that.
Speaker 1 (11:09):
Yeah, that's a really good point, I think. Yeah, for
whatever reason, you have these set of skills or hesitancies
or confidences. You know, some people might struggle with like
finding what they want to work on in this industry,
and somebody might struggle with you know, I don't know
relationships and somebody might struggle with there's all kinds of things,
but I think there's something to like working on having
(11:31):
the discipline, even if you don't think you have all
your shit together. Nevertheless, trying to be a decisive person,
I think that requires discipline and I think it will
only help you, and even if it leads you down
the wrong path, then you could adapt and learn from
your mistakes. But like, I think we've all been in
places where we're just ambivalent and we don't know which
(11:52):
way to go next, and we just kind of get lost.
But making any decisions sometimes is the right decision because
it could lead you either down the right path or
down and obviously wrong path, but at least you took
that path long enough to know that it was wrong,
you know, and then adjust from there.
Speaker 2 (12:07):
Yeah, man, I am I'm torn right now because about
what the trying to stay on task part of me
wants to start, you know, like say, okay, like there's
a lot of these reasons why this is important, and
we talked about the time constraints, so let's talk about
some other types of constraints, because that's what we teed
(12:29):
up this episode to talk about. But then the other
part of me is like listeners, like you probably do
this with your business too, and you second guess shit.
And there are some things you do right away and
you feel comfortable and confident, and then there are things
that you'd know you should be doing, but you're not
quite sure how to do it, so instead of doing it,
you just watch YouTube videos or avoid it and pretending
(12:53):
that social media doesn't exist and that you don't have
to do it for your business, you know what I mean. Like,
there's there's a lot of stuff that we do beyond
just like a creative side. And I'm bums that we
only have time to record one episode today because I
could be like that could be a whole a whole
new episode, and I don't know if we'll be in
the in the right mindset for it next time.
Speaker 1 (13:12):
I'm happy to go on a little tangent if you
want to.
Speaker 2 (13:14):
Well, you know what, let's do this. Let's do a
little tangent on that. But then we'll bring it back
and we'll come up with some constraints.
Speaker 1 (13:24):
For okay, cool. I like that you just like gave
two great example of what you could do when you're
you know, when you know you need to do this
in your business, but I'm gonna go doom scroll or
I know I need to get on social media, but
I don't feel like it, and I'm just not gonna
do it because it shouldn't be this way. Fuck this shit,
you know.
Speaker 2 (13:42):
Oh yeah, my work should speak for itself.
Speaker 1 (13:44):
Yeah, So what are ways we can constrain ourselves to
do the stuff that we either don't want to do
or we can't stick to it? Like, how do we
reel ourselves in?
Speaker 2 (13:53):
So let's use social media as an example. I think
a lot of people that haven't used social media for
their their business they think that it needs to be
some like super high production value, really well thought out,
long form, beautiful cinematography like fancy lighting, rightly nice, really
nice camera. They think all these things when in reality,
(14:16):
people that your current followers, for example, and like artists
like they're happy to see you and they just want
to you know, hear. How you think about music, how
you talk about a song that you like? You know,
it can be that simple. And I think that's how
I try to get people to start, is to just
pull up your phone and just say something nice about
what on the clients you're working with right, like literally
(14:39):
pull up your phone and just say I love working
with this band, because the first time I met them,
we just hit it off right away. We both not
even just musically, but just like we both had a
snarky sense of humor even during like the the ice breaker,
like the first two minutes of the conversation, like we
knew right away we were both going to be sarcastic
(14:59):
buttole but like in the best way possible. And from
that point on, like the relationship was great because we
were both fearless. We weren't afraid to say things to
each other, and we also knew that because we're both
a bit sarcastic but playful, nobody took what the other
person said offensively, Like we could be open and notis
and say no, this kind of sucks, I don't like this,
and nobody got hurt about it, you know. And that's
(15:22):
kind of like a long way of saying like, I
just felt like, you know, when I met these guys,
we just hit it off right away beyond the music,
Like we just were really great. They're just like my people,
and I'm just so glad that you got to work
on this really cool song together and then in the
background of that video is the music playing. You know,
if you want to like show the artwork and like say, oh,
you know, here's the album cover whatever, cool, that'll take
(15:45):
you five minutes. And not only is it going to
force you to talk on camera, but also like you're
just you're not talking about yourself, you're not self promoting.
You're actually like saying how you feel about somebody that
you like, right and that you create with. They're gonna
feel super appreciated and they're gonna want to like it
and comment on it and share it to all of
their friends. So you're gonna get put in front of
(16:07):
more eyeballs a little bit more proactively. And then artists
that see that are gonna think, oh, that guy seems awesome,
like he's you know, mixed engineers don't usually do that.
They don't usually like go out of their way to
just say nice things about how cool the artists are,
you know, they're usually just talking about how cool their
reverb plugins. And you know, so it's like something that
(16:30):
low pressure of just literally pulling up your fucking phone
and just like talking about, you know, the artists or
talking about, you know, something really cool in the song,
like the first time that you heard the song when
they said you the demo the thing that cut your attention,
and you were like obsessed with and you really wanted
to make sure that you didn't get in the way
of that because it gave you goosebumps the first time
you heard it, even in the demo, and you wanted
(16:51):
to make sure that every listener gets those same goosebumps,
you know, Like it's really easy to do. You don't
have to pre plan it. You can just kind of
ramble into your phone and chop it down later and
you'll be surprised how well it's received. And I'm not
saying you're gonna get a gazillion views, but like the
people that do see it are going to appreciate it
and are gonna start seeing you in a bit of
(17:12):
a different way because they're going to see more of
the real you and the real like how you think
about your collaborators. So just like the whole idea of
setting yourself a timer for making like an instrumental or something,
give yourself a really low bar of like what you
need to accomplish, and like what the expectations are for yourself,
(17:33):
because those expectations are self imposed, and just set yourself
very low expectations and you're gonna knock it out in
a few minutes. So you could set a timer and say,
all right, I've got five minutes to film this. Cool,
Then at least you can get it started. And then
all you have to do is just like you made
the decision that you're going to talk about it, you
made the decision of who you're gonna talk about. You
(17:54):
decide it's going to be five minutes. You decided that
you're gonna pull up your stop watch and hit it
or your alarm whatever, and and hit start, and then
all of a sudden, that snowballs going down hill.
Speaker 1 (18:04):
This kind of goes back to input goals that we've
spoken about a bunch of times of like, Okay, I
know I need to be more president on social media
if I want to succeed in this business. Okay, so
here's what I have to do. I have to post
once a day or whatever it is, twice a week
or whatever whatever you think is a good amount that
you can you can sustain, and then commit to that thing.
(18:25):
I'm not saying I do this.
Speaker 2 (18:28):
But I was going to say, I'm like Ben, let's go, Ben,
Do I do this bad?
Speaker 1 (18:33):
Not enough? But but but I'm preaching to myself more
than anybody in the audience at this point. So, like say,
I could commit to three times a week posting to
social media, and three times a week I'm gonna put
in on my calendar ten minutes of creating content for
social media, and that's it. Thirty minutes a week, that's
what I'm spending. That's all I can handle. But then
you put it in your calendar and you commit yourself
(18:53):
to doing it, and those input goals will hopefully lead
to what you want, which is exposure on the internet
and people find out who you really are, what kind
of music you like to work with artists, figuring out
like if they would vibe with you, that whole thing.
So I think that's what you're getting at here, Carl, right.
Speaker 2 (19:09):
Exactly so, And that would be like a time constrained
like ten minutes. And sometimes sometimes those constraints are not
self composed, and sometimes it's the fact that you have
three kids and you only have so much time in
the day. Then you have to be realistic. And I
think a lot of times people will say, well, I've
got kids you know, I've got all these projects that
I'm working on. I don't have time to do that.
(19:31):
What in reality, if you actually, you know, if you
hire the fly on the wall to actually watch how
much time you spend doing real stuff versus the three
minutes here and there that you spend scrolling through your
phone or whatever, you realize, Oh, no, like you have time,
you're just not prioritizing it. You're just subconsciously priorities.
Speaker 1 (19:49):
And by the way, that might not be your fault, right,
these big tech companies, they are They are absolutely using
us and our attention spans and the algorithms are totally
fucked up. It's not your fault that you're stuck on
your phone all the time. But if you're aware of it,
then that's at least something you could do to get yourself. Okay, ich,
why Amy wasting time on Instagram? Let me do something
proactive while I'm here. You know, I'm just being mindful
(20:11):
of that. Stuff is good. So don't feel guilty. Don't
feel guilty that you're doom scrolling. It's it's big tech.
It's not you. Yeah, it's not. It's not a conspiracy theory.
This is like real the real deal, right.
Speaker 2 (20:22):
But I'm going to be devil's advocate a little bit.
Speaker 1 (20:24):
Always good to be a devil's advocate.
Speaker 2 (20:25):
I think you could also take the fool me once,
shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me sort
of approach to it where it's like, if you know
social media is designed to do that, Like it's not
it's not a secret. It's not like Ben just wrote
a you know, a New York Times expose exposing social
media at its algorithms, Like.
Speaker 1 (20:44):
That's that's me.
Speaker 2 (20:45):
I did that, Like that's the fact that social media
is is designed to be addictive is somehow less surprising
than you know, me getting diagnosed with ADHD. So I
think there is an element of like, if you know
that it's a problem, but you don't at least try
to do something about it, not necessarily saying that if
you don't figure it out right away, it took god
(21:05):
like I, it took me so long for me to
try to get out of it. And I've been very
conscious or very aware of the fact that I get
sucked into my phone for a long time and I
could not figure out how to get out of that,
you know. So it's not even necessarily a matter of
whether you're doing it or you're not. If you realize
it it's addicting and you don't do anything about it,
(21:26):
you know, then you're a loser and you haven't figured
it out because it is fucking hard. It is. It
is hard, and they make it hard that I think
it's just a question of like maybe this could be
something where it's like, all right, I've got those ten minutes.
I'm going to use those ten minutes. That's my new constraint,
and I'm going to try something proactive for my business
for making it making a social media post, which is
(21:47):
again like get off social media.
Speaker 1 (21:49):
To that's the problem. It is, it is hard.
Speaker 2 (21:51):
I understand what I'm here.
Speaker 1 (21:53):
If we didn't actually have to go on social media
to do the social media work, you know.
Speaker 2 (21:57):
And also I mean back to the idea of like,
instead of doing what we know we should be doing,
we go on YouTube to like watch videos about how
to do it, and we go to learn, you know,
and also on like Instagram going to.
Speaker 1 (22:07):
Account all of a sudden you're like flat earther.
Speaker 2 (22:10):
Yeah, like it just it's tempting because we think, oh,
there is a lot of educational material on Instagram, like
speaking for myself, like I try really hard to make
a really helpful Instagram content, but going to my page
and like watching my videos and learning all these things
that I talk about, but then not actually doing anything
about it. Like what's the point of following me? What's
the point of watching this stuff that I'm trying to
(22:31):
help you to do if you're not going to do it.
One of the things I've noticed over the past twenty
years being in the industry is that audio school usually
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(22:52):
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Speaker 1 (23:21):
So let's rein in the business part of this conversation
and move back to the creation side of the conversation
and the.
Speaker 2 (23:28):
Constraint constrains, the non time based constraints, Right, So.
Speaker 1 (23:31):
What are some non time based constraints that can help
you do a better mix, or start a better song,
or finish a better song.
Speaker 2 (23:39):
Well, I think i'm gonna say it start for like
songwriting from early, from the very beginning parts. It could
just be like, oh, you know what, my constraint is
that it has to be something that I can play
on acoustic guitar. I would say, like for myself, like
I'm not a guitarist, Like I can play guitar. I
probably shouldn't play guitar, but I can. And it's like
I want it to be something that's simple enough that
I can play it and it doesn't sound butchered. That's constraint.
(24:01):
It could be you know, you're a bassist and the
constraint is I'm gonna try to write something that has
no base in it for the first two minutes, you know,
I want to figure out how can I make this
song not need bass until the second verse.
Speaker 1 (24:15):
I think that's really good. Yeah, I think just choosing
the right a different instrument is always a nice way
to get inspired. Maybe for someone like me who does
kind of rely on instruments to do creative things, the
opposite might be more creative, Like it might be a
better constraint for me to kind of find stuff on
Splice and patch something together and then see where that goes,
you know what I mean. Like for me, it would
probably be the opposite that would be more constraining for me.
Speaker 2 (24:37):
Yeah, Or and I mean I've done that a lot
of times too, where like I'll just be like create
digging on Splice just for like cool things that I
like the sounds of, and even if that ends up
not ever being in the song, right, but it just
like something that gets me sonically or musically is just like, oh,
that's in line with the vibe that I'm in right now,
Like I'm I'm feeling that even if I I don't
(25:00):
use that sound or I you know, shut off Splice
entirely that's helped me to kind of clarify the mood
that I'm in creatively, and then I can just roll
with that. So it can just be like a spark.
It doesn't even have to actually be Oh, I'm gonna
find something to use in a song. I'm going to
find a sound to start this, and you could even
say lyrically. It could be something where I've just been
(25:21):
like in a very bitter mood and I don't know why,
and I'm going to write some bitter lyrics. I'm just
gonna see what that does, you know, and whether or
not you're a singer, whether or not you're a lyricist,
whether or not you ever even use it. But it
just like starts that snowball down the mountain and starts
to kind of create ideas because it starts that process
(25:43):
of Okay, I'm gonna start with this emotional idea. Then
I'm gonna start writing some lyrics, and then probably, knowing myself,
I'll probably start hearing some sort of like melody or
rhythmic pattern in my head that'll work out a particular
tempo range, and then I'll think, okay, well, let me
go grab a guitar. Let me grab a keyboard, whatever
it is, and it starts going and starts going, And
(26:04):
I think it almost doesn't matter what the constraint is,
because the whole point of the constraint is that is
the constraint leads you.
Speaker 1 (26:11):
It starts leading you down that path.
Speaker 2 (26:13):
Yeah, like the constraint is the first step. It's not like,
what do I do? What's the first step after I've
picked the constraint. It's like, the constraint is the first
step because we're creative, you know, you're if you're listening,
you're a creative person, and you're going to figure it out,
you know. So just finding some sort of constraint and
then like your brain is going to start going a
mile a minute trying to think of like, okay, well
(26:35):
what can I do now? What do I do here?
And it's just that first, that very first pre step
that is the bigger struggle.
Speaker 1 (26:43):
Yeah. I get so much joy like seeing my six
year old like workout art projects, and it always starts
with like a constraint. It always starts with, oh, I
have this cardboard box. What can I do with this
cardboard box? It's literally that simple. And then he'll just
go off on the cardboard box and he's like literally
fig he's figured out how to like make holes in
the cardboard and make like you know, things that stick
(27:03):
out in the cardboard to connect things together. Like he's
just like this is what I'm dealing with, and like
it's amazing that this is what makes him happy. But
it's so cool to see that because it's really the
same thing that we're trying to do as like artists.
Is like, Okay, like I have this song where I
have this lyric. You know, I had a lyric that
you made me think about. What you were talking was
like I lyric like everybody knows, Like everybody knows this.
(27:26):
Everybody knows that, Like like in an era where everyone's
disagreeing on so many things in the world has become
so polarized, there are some things that everybody knows and
here are some of these things, you know what I mean.
Like and like that's like a powerful lyric to like
just like get into like the truth that you're seeing
in this moment. And that's like a constraint.
Speaker 2 (27:42):
And I think like maybe that's maybe the difference between
trying to this is this might make sense. I hope
this is gonna either sound really smart or I'm gonna
sound like a crazy person. But I feel like as
creatives inside of us, we still have this childlike wonder, right,
like this excitement for new things and using our imagination,
Like that's why we're in the field that we're in.
(28:04):
And I think the part that becomes difficult as we
become adults is that your kids didn't get caught up thinking, oh,
should I make something with the box, or should I
make something with that paper bag, or should I make
something with the legos? Like they didn't stop and think
of like, oh, there's so many crafts I could make,
Oh there's so many things I could build. They just
(28:25):
saw something and they just went back and then figured
it out when they were there. And I think that's
the problem that we have, is like we I just
want to say, like, they're just aware of what's directly
in front of them and so they go for it.
And the downside I think of growing up is that
we become aware of all the things around us, and
that becomes the infinite amount of choices of what we
(28:47):
should be doing, how we should be spending our time,
you know, and that goes into time management and like
all this stuff of like adulting. But when it comes
to music, I think we have the same thing where
there's so many things at our disposal, you know. Even
going back to like the Splice example, there's probably Okay,
if I go on splace and I type in, I'm
just gonna type in clap. I typed in clap, and
(29:09):
there are eighty seven and sixty.
Speaker 1 (29:11):
One results for the for the work, all of them.
Speaker 2 (29:13):
Yeah, even there, there's just like a ridiculous amount of options.
And I think that's what freaks us out. And when
we're able to say, Okay, I'm I'm gonna put it
on random and I'm gonna type in, I'm just gonna
hit random and just go and find something that I
have to find something on the first page of the
random results, and I have to use that. That's putting
(29:34):
on those childlike focused blinders on, like whatever's in front
of me, I'm going to make it work. That is
the difference the kids. They just see whatever's in front
of them and make it work. My daughter is the
exact same way, Like, yeah, she made like a leprechaun
trap the other day for Saint Patrick's Day, and it's
like a cardboard box and like shish kebab skewers that
I'm not sure.
Speaker 1 (29:53):
That's kind of dangerous.
Speaker 2 (29:55):
Yeah, yeah, she's almost nine. I mean she's natural consequences
if she pokes herself. But she like made this elaborate
thing and had a whole like storyline of like, well,
how is the leprechaun gonna enter? And like they're gonna
climb up this little ladder, and and she doesn't get
overwhelmed by all of the different things she could make
art with. She just grabs whatever's closest and makes art.
(30:18):
And I think that's what that's the lesson what we're missing.
Speaker 1 (30:21):
That is what we're missing. Like here's something that I'm
thinking about now is like artists sometimes like will take
like a theme and they'll make a whole song or
a whole record about that theme, and that kind of
can be the limiting factor. Also, like Sufi and Stevens
has like the fifty States project, but he only did
two states, but those are two amazing records, like the
Michigan and the Illinois Come on Field the Illinois record
(30:43):
are amazing, and like they're all like the themes are
based on you know, places and history, historical events that happened,
you know in those states, Like come on Field in
Illinois is just an amazing record, So like that's an
amazing constraint that he used to like once he was like, okay,
I'm in theme of Illinois, you know, and we talk
about like the tallest you know building in America and
(31:04):
like make a song out of it, like fuck yeah.
Speaker 2 (31:07):
And I you know, if we want to tie this
bow up with the suppone Stevens. It's also you know,
he did two albums the two states because I'm sure
there are other reasons behind it, but also like realis
is probably not that feasible, you know, and it's okay,
but he saw he went for it. He like saw
those two albums to completion, and he didn't get this
seemed like got caught up in the infinite possibilities of things.
(31:28):
But I don't. I don't know too much about the
backstory of that album. So maybe that's actually I don't either, no,
but it probably is what happened. Like he was he
did the Michigan record, right, and he was I think
he's from Michigan, and then he was inspired and did
the Illinois record and.
Speaker 1 (31:41):
Like that's a masterpiece. And then Okay, like, okay, I
did that. Now I don't really want to do another state,
but you know what, awesome you did it, and now
we have the Illinois record. So and then okay, now
you got into the age of ads and some other
weird stuff but cool. You know, I'm not sure how
deep into super On you are.
Speaker 2 (31:56):
Not as sleep as my wife is. Yeah, because trains
can come from any where, but they can come from you,
sometimes by choice and sometimes by your own subconscious, self
imposed fear. And I think the idea is that, you know,
initially we went into this thinking, oh, well, let's brainstorm
some other non time bound constraints. But then I realized, like,
(32:18):
there's infinite constraints because any any choice you make begins
a series of new constraints. I mean, if you think
about the production process, well it's pre production. Everything is
an option, everything's a possibility. And then by the time
he gets a mastering, it's like, tiny little moves, don't
fuck up this great thing that we have already made. Yes,
you know, yes, So it's like, yeah, that's a perfect,
(32:39):
perfect way to think about it. Like the amount of
choices and the amount of ridiculous bold moves that you
can make. It's very very different in pre production versus master.
Speaker 1 (32:51):
Right. Yeah, that's a really that's a really great point.
I love that. Yeah. Wow, I never thought about it
quite in that light, but I think it's I think
it's awesome, and I think the big takeaway for me
in this conversation is also just thinking about decisiveness and
how it's a good thing and you can also get
better at it by being disciplined and figuring out where
you go off the rails. Yeah, I'm practicing, just putting in.
Speaker 2 (33:13):
Rap, practicing to do getting reps in giving yourself constraints.
Speaker 1 (33:17):
Right, I know you got to go, Carl, So we
should wrap this. But this was fun. This went in
different directions than I was expecting. But I like this
conversation and I feel I actually feel inspired. So thank you.
Speaker 2 (33:26):
Oh well, thank you. Yeah, I feel good like that.
You're right, it went a bit differently than I had envisioned,
but I think it. I don't know, I feel inspired too.
Speaker 1 (33:34):
I'm excited just making the decision to go down this
path of this topic led to that snowball going down
the hill in this direction that it did, and so
I'm glad we made that decision.
Speaker 2 (33:44):
Yes, thank you for the podcast inception moment.
Speaker 1 (33:50):
There amazing good stuff.
Speaker 2 (33:53):
You're the man, Ben. I appreciate you so much. I
hope you have a wonderful day. Bye back to.
Speaker 1 (33:57):
Carl, Bye Carl. I feel like I'm supposed to say bye.
Speaker 2 (34:01):
Carl. I was like, what are you doing?
Speaker 1 (34:03):
You bust it up. We hope you enjoyed this conversation
as much as we did. If anything here resonated with you,
please share this or your favorite episode with a friend.
Speaker 2 (34:13):
And as always, we love to hear from our listeners,
so find us on social media at Secret Sonics.
Speaker 1 (34:18):
At Ben Wallach Music, and at Carl Bonner.
Speaker 2 (34:21):
Until next time, Bye Ben.
Speaker 1 (34:24):
Bye Carl. That's good. I think the outro is great.
If you have something in front of you, you have
an opportunity to say yes and to commit to it
and to do the thing and to be decisive. And
I think so much of the good things that we
do in our life are those moments where we said, Okay,
I'm doing this. Hi, I'm Ben and I'm Carl, and
you're listening to secret Sonics, honest conversations chock full of
tactical advice to help you build your dream career in
(00:22):
music and audio.
Speaker 2 (00:23):
Whether it's skill development, mixing mindsets, personal branding, or work
life balance. We talk about ways to help set yourself
up for success in the ever changing music industry.
Speaker 1 (00:32):
Let's get started, Hi, Ben, Hi Carl.
Speaker 2 (00:38):
Let's dive head first right into this episode.
Speaker 1 (00:42):
I like a head first start. That's good.
Speaker 2 (00:44):
Yeah, ruh, headfirst, like Scrooge McDuck into a big pile
of coins that somehow doesn't instantly kill him. Random reference. Okay,
So in the last episode, one of the things we
talked about was some like creative constraints, and some of
the examples we talked about specific we're giving ourselves time
constraints to try to write an measure instrumental loop or
(01:07):
like write just like the chorus of a song, like
just accepting small, something bite sized for the purpose of
not just getting the reps in of being creative, but
also to take the pressure off of feeling like everything
that we create has to inevitably come out as a finished, releasable,
wonderful project that is perfectly representative of our creative selves. Right.
(01:31):
There's all this pressure that we put on ourselves a
lot of times as creatives, and not just as artists
or as musicians or as engineers and producers. Like, there's
always a lot of this self imposed pressure that we
put on ourselves, and we feel I guess really stressed
out about, especially the idea of putting anything out into
(01:53):
the world that's not finished and doesn't meet our I
guess our quality threshold, our self impost quality threshold, right,
And that a lot of times stops us from even
trying to do things, because, you know, writing a new song,
trying a new style as a big time commitment, and
we tend to have an attitude of it's all or nothing.
(02:15):
And in the last episode, we talked about a lot
of things, but one of the things we talked about
was how we can maybe set ourselves little timers, And
so I wanted to talk today about creative constraints and
things that we can do beyond just setting a timer, right,
but things to help us to force ourselves to try
(02:36):
something new, but in a smaller burst, rather than looking
at a new idea, a new style of music, a
new whatever, and looking at it as if we have
this really far away goal that we have to reach.
Otherwise it's not worth it to even try, and we
shouldn't even bother. And obviously setting time limits is a
(02:57):
really good way to try that. But I wanted to
talk about and maybe brainstorm some other ways other types
of constraints that are not just time bound constraints we
can give ourselves to try something new, push ourselves, whether
it's just a new style of music, or it's just
a new instrument, or it's just like a new way
of thinking about songwriting. So, yeah, that's what I wanted
(03:20):
to pitch to you today and get this conversation rolling.
Speaker 1 (03:24):
Interesting. Yeah, the first thing I'm thinking about is remixing, actually,
which I know we spoke about a lot also in
that episode. I think that was actually two episodes ago.
By the time this one comes out, it doesn't matter
but the important thing is you were going on a
whole thing about remixing, and I think what's cool about
remixing is it does give you a constraint because the
song is already there and you can't really change the song.
I mean, I guess you could change the song, but
(03:45):
like the melodic pieces are there, how they were done,
the different instruments you could choose to use or not use,
but they're already done for you. And that is like
a limiting factor in of itself of like, Okay, we're
going to base this off of this guitar like in
the song and this melody hook, and you know you
could scratch you know, the rest of it and just
go off of that, but it's already limited you into
(04:06):
like what the song is. I'm sure we've talked about
this before on the podcast. Of just like when you
have no limitations, you know, you could do whatever you want,
people usually don't do anything interesting because there's too many options.
And if you have too many options, then you're just
there's just paralysis, right of like oh, I could do this,
I could do this, I could do this, And I
think so much of life is not getting into these
(04:27):
like paralysies of not being able to do anything because
you have too many options.
Speaker 2 (04:30):
I want to jump in. I want to jump in
real quick and say, yes, it's not that they don't
do anything creative or anything like interesting and new. It's
that they never finish anything interesting or new because there's
always an infinite amount of things that they could do differently.
And I feel like that's we've all dealt with artists
that have that kind of oh yeah thing where they
start a song and then four years later they're still
(04:50):
working on the same song. So anyway, I just wanted
to say, like, for those listening like I was thinking,
it's not just like a yeah, yeah, you can be
creative when you have into the possibilit But the more
possibilities you have, the harder it is to say to yourself, Okay,
this is done.
Speaker 1 (05:06):
I would say even for starting For me, having limitless
possibilities can also prevent me from starting something, not just
finishing something. They're both valid, and so I think limiting
your choices is just a really healthy way to get
shit done, because then you say, okay, these are the options.
You know, if you have two roads to choose from,
you choose one road right, if you have like twenty roads,
then you don't even know where to begin or which
(05:30):
we're to start with. So yeah, I think remixing is
a great, a great way to limit yourself in terms
of like that, do you want to like think about
ways of like how limiting factors can help you finish
or like a creative idea, like do you have an
idea for that right now?
Speaker 2 (05:44):
Like what I'm just thinking of after you are saying that,
there's this the way that I kind of look at
music and I don't know if this is going to
make any sense or it might be like way too
existential and weird and just makes sense in my head.
Speaker 1 (05:58):
Well, all it's existentialists here, Carl's.
Speaker 2 (06:00):
But every like every decision that you make in a
song does create a limitation, right, like because the limitations
are context, right, It's just in the creative field, you
could even kind of maybe I don't want to say
you could use those words interchangeably constraints and context, but
I'd argue that maybe you can, and that like if
you decide, like let's say that even if you start
(06:21):
with a totally blank page and then you decide I'm
gonna grab my guitar and just write something that is
in itself, excluding other ways of starting the song, It's
inevitably going to end up different than if you would
have started by opening up Splice, or if you would
have started by pulling out a piece of paper and
writing lyrics. So even that very first decision, as early
(06:44):
as it may be, and as like seemingly insignificant as
it may be, that is the first decision that is
kind of like pushing that snowball off the hill, and
then everything after it is going to be informed by
that decision. Even if you start with your guitar and
you're like, I got nothing, I'm gonna switch over and
try you know, I'm gonna pull up Splice and see
(07:04):
if I can find that it's a cool like drum
pattern to use. The fact that you chose to open
up Splice and look for a drum pattern was because
you ruled out the guitar as a starting point, and
you know that that is no longer going to be
the thing. So like every decision that we make, and
I think once we just make that very first decision,
we just do that little poop to push the snowball
(07:27):
over the edge, Then I think everything becomes. You know,
it may not immediately roll down perfectly into this wonderful
end result, but it's just making that first choice. Yeah,
something as simple as I'm gonna pick up my guitar,
I'm gonna pick up my drumsticks, I'm gonna open up splice,
I'm gonna sip down by my piano, I'm gonna go
record some folly of birds outside whatever. It is just
(07:48):
making that first choice. If we look at just making
that as a decision, whether we like it or not,
that is starting the snowball of creative constraints and creating context.
Speaker 1 (07:58):
Yeah. I really like that, and I think becoming a
creative person you need to be comfortable making decisions because
if you don't make decisions, then you're just going to
be You're not going to actually do anything. And so,
like it's like anything in life, like even dating, Like
you know, when you're dating people, you know you have
to make a decision, like because there's infinite people, you
could continue dating, but at some point you if you
(08:18):
want to actually achieve something, then you have to make
a decision of like, Okay, I'm good with this person.
Speaker 2 (08:24):
You know, maybe not everybody is as infinitely handsome as
you and some of us have limits.
Speaker 1 (08:29):
Now, we all have our limits. Obviously, who am I
to talk about this stuff, But I'm saying, like I
think people like there's like this paralysis of decisions, like, oh,
but you know, maybe there's other people out there, or
maybe there's or there's other job out there, or there's
other artists that I could maybe work with instead of
working with this artist that's available right now. Like, if
you have something in front of you, you have an
opportunity to say yes and to commit to it and
(08:51):
to do the thing and to be decisive. And I
think so much of the good things that we do
in our life are those moments where we said, Okay,
I'm doing this and you just don't know because there's
too many variables. If you don't know, you know, like
you can't even conceive of it. So I think a
lot of life is just like making those decisions. And
so I don't remember when this came up in the podcast,
but at some point somebody said that, like you have
(09:13):
to see the experiment through, you know, and so like
I don't remember which which episode this was, but it's
like every song is an experiment and if you stop
the experiment too early, or if you don't like go
all the way, you'll never know if it was a
valid experiment, you know. So like, even if the song
ends up being a bust, at least you finished it
and now you know if you like it or don't
(09:34):
like it, or the mix. You went down this mixing
path and you don't know if it's going to be good.
But like, until you take it all the way, it's
hard to know if it was a valid idea or not.
And so like stopping along the way and becoming indecisive
is also a problem. And you know, we also talk
about fast mixing and being decisive while you're mixing and
then usually get better results. Also going with your gut.
(09:55):
I think it just applies to so many things, you know,
like being a decision maker.
Speaker 2 (09:59):
Yeah, I feel like we all have a variable relationship
with decision making, and I feel like there are going
to be parts of the creative process that we feel
very confident about and we trust our gut and we
just we go with it and we don't think about it.
We just go and it works out as great because
we have a lot of familiarity with working within those
particular constraints, whether that's for me, it's mixing like I
(10:22):
am very fast, I am very like I trust my
gut and I get good results, you know what I mean.
Like that's I don't want to oversimplify it, but I'm
going to say it's that simple for me. But when
it comes to figuring out chord structures and when it
comes to choosing the beginning parts of a song, like
starting something from scratch, I am not comfortable there. I
(10:44):
second guess everything possible. So it's not even that like
Ben is really great at making decisions and I am not,
or Ben's not good at making decisions and I am.
It's even within one person. There's a whole spectrum of
how confident and therefore how quickly we make decisions and
follow through on them. And I think that's something that
(11:05):
we don't take enough time to analyze about ourselves and
become self aware of that.
Speaker 1 (11:09):
Yeah, that's a really good point, I think. Yeah, for
whatever reason, you have these set of skills or hesitancies
or confidences. You know, some people might struggle with like
finding what they want to work on in this industry,
and somebody might struggle with you know, I don't know
relationships and somebody might struggle with there's all kinds of things,
but I think there's something to like working on having
(11:31):
the discipline, even if you don't think you have all
your shit together. Nevertheless, trying to be a decisive person,
I think that requires discipline and I think it will
only help you, and even if it leads you down
the wrong path, then you could adapt and learn from
your mistakes. But like, I think we've all been in
places where we're just ambivalent and we don't know which
(11:52):
way to go next, and we just kind of get lost.
But making any decisions sometimes is the right decision because
it could lead you either down the right path or
down and obviously wrong path, but at least you took
that path long enough to know that it was wrong,
you know, and then adjust from there.
Speaker 2 (12:07):
Yeah, man, I am I'm torn right now because about
what the trying to stay on task part of me
wants to start, you know, like say, okay, like there's
a lot of these reasons why this is important, and
we talked about the time constraints, so let's talk about
some other types of constraints, because that's what we teed
(12:29):
up this episode to talk about. But then the other
part of me is like listeners, like you probably do
this with your business too, and you second guess shit.
And there are some things you do right away and
you feel comfortable and confident, and then there are things
that you'd know you should be doing, but you're not
quite sure how to do it, so instead of doing it,
you just watch YouTube videos or avoid it and pretending
(12:53):
that social media doesn't exist and that you don't have
to do it for your business, you know what I mean. Like,
there's there's a lot of stuff that we do beyond
just like a creative side. And I'm bums that we
only have time to record one episode today because I
could be like that could be a whole a whole
new episode, and I don't know if we'll be in
the in the right mindset for it next time.
Speaker 1 (13:12):
I'm happy to go on a little tangent if you
want to.
Speaker 2 (13:14):
Well, you know what, let's do this. Let's do a
little tangent on that. But then we'll bring it back
and we'll come up with some constraints.
Speaker 1 (13:24):
For okay, cool. I like that you just like gave
two great example of what you could do when you're
you know, when you know you need to do this
in your business, but I'm gonna go doom scroll or
I know I need to get on social media, but
I don't feel like it, and I'm just not gonna
do it because it shouldn't be this way. Fuck this shit,
you know.
Speaker 2 (13:42):
Oh yeah, my work should speak for itself.
Speaker 1 (13:44):
Yeah, So what are ways we can constrain ourselves to
do the stuff that we either don't want to do
or we can't stick to it? Like, how do we
reel ourselves in?
Speaker 2 (13:53):
So let's use social media as an example. I think
a lot of people that haven't used social media for
their their business they think that it needs to be
some like super high production value, really well thought out,
long form, beautiful cinematography like fancy lighting, rightly nice, really
nice camera. They think all these things when in reality,
(14:16):
people that your current followers, for example, and like artists
like they're happy to see you and they just want
to you know, hear. How you think about music, how
you talk about a song that you like? You know,
it can be that simple. And I think that's how
I try to get people to start, is to just
pull up your phone and just say something nice about
what on the clients you're working with right, like literally
(14:39):
pull up your phone and just say I love working
with this band, because the first time I met them,
we just hit it off right away. We both not
even just musically, but just like we both had a
snarky sense of humor even during like the the ice breaker,
like the first two minutes of the conversation, like we
knew right away we were both going to be sarcastic
(14:59):
buttole but like in the best way possible. And from
that point on, like the relationship was great because we
were both fearless. We weren't afraid to say things to
each other, and we also knew that because we're both
a bit sarcastic but playful, nobody took what the other
person said offensively, Like we could be open and notis
and say no, this kind of sucks, I don't like this,
and nobody got hurt about it, you know. And that's
(15:22):
kind of like a long way of saying like, I
just felt like, you know, when I met these guys,
we just hit it off right away beyond the music,
Like we just were really great. They're just like my people,
and I'm just so glad that you got to work
on this really cool song together and then in the
background of that video is the music playing. You know,
if you want to like show the artwork and like say, oh,
you know, here's the album cover whatever, cool, that'll take
(15:45):
you five minutes. And not only is it going to
force you to talk on camera, but also like you're
just you're not talking about yourself, you're not self promoting.
You're actually like saying how you feel about somebody that
you like, right and that you create with. They're gonna
feel super appreciated and they're gonna want to like it
and comment on it and share it to all of
their friends. So you're gonna get put in front of
(16:07):
more eyeballs a little bit more proactively. And then artists
that see that are gonna think, oh, that guy seems awesome,
like he's you know, mixed engineers don't usually do that.
They don't usually like go out of their way to
just say nice things about how cool the artists are,
you know, they're usually just talking about how cool their
reverb plugins. And you know, so it's like something that
(16:30):
low pressure of just literally pulling up your fucking phone
and just like talking about, you know, the artists or
talking about, you know, something really cool in the song,
like the first time that you heard the song when
they said you the demo the thing that cut your attention,
and you were like obsessed with and you really wanted
to make sure that you didn't get in the way
of that because it gave you goosebumps the first time
you heard it, even in the demo, and you wanted
(16:51):
to make sure that every listener gets those same goosebumps,
you know, Like it's really easy to do. You don't
have to pre plan it. You can just kind of
ramble into your phone and chop it down later and
you'll be surprised how well it's received. And I'm not
saying you're gonna get a gazillion views, but like the
people that do see it are going to appreciate it
and are gonna start seeing you in a bit of
(17:12):
a different way because they're going to see more of
the real you and the real like how you think
about your collaborators. So just like the whole idea of
setting yourself a timer for making like an instrumental or something,
give yourself a really low bar of like what you
need to accomplish, and like what the expectations are for yourself,
(17:33):
because those expectations are self imposed, and just set yourself
very low expectations and you're gonna knock it out in
a few minutes. So you could set a timer and say,
all right, I've got five minutes to film this. Cool,
Then at least you can get it started. And then
all you have to do is just like you made
the decision that you're going to talk about it, you
made the decision of who you're gonna talk about. You
(17:54):
decide it's going to be five minutes. You decided that
you're gonna pull up your stop watch and hit it
or your alarm whatever, and and hit start, and then
all of a sudden, that snowballs going down hill.
Speaker 1 (18:04):
This kind of goes back to input goals that we've
spoken about a bunch of times of like, Okay, I
know I need to be more president on social media
if I want to succeed in this business. Okay, so
here's what I have to do. I have to post
once a day or whatever it is, twice a week
or whatever whatever you think is a good amount that
you can you can sustain, and then commit to that thing.
(18:25):
I'm not saying I do this.
Speaker 2 (18:28):
But I was going to say, I'm like Ben, let's go, Ben,
Do I do this bad?
Speaker 1 (18:33):
Not enough? But but but I'm preaching to myself more
than anybody in the audience at this point. So, like say,
I could commit to three times a week posting to
social media, and three times a week I'm gonna put
in on my calendar ten minutes of creating content for
social media, and that's it. Thirty minutes a week, that's
what I'm spending. That's all I can handle. But then
you put it in your calendar and you commit yourself
(18:53):
to doing it, and those input goals will hopefully lead
to what you want, which is exposure on the internet
and people find out who you really are, what kind
of music you like to work with artists, figuring out
like if they would vibe with you, that whole thing.
So I think that's what you're getting at here, Carl, right.
Speaker 2 (19:09):
Exactly so, And that would be like a time constrained
like ten minutes. And sometimes sometimes those constraints are not
self composed, and sometimes it's the fact that you have
three kids and you only have so much time in
the day. Then you have to be realistic. And I
think a lot of times people will say, well, I've
got kids you know, I've got all these projects that
I'm working on. I don't have time to do that.
(19:31):
What in reality, if you actually, you know, if you
hire the fly on the wall to actually watch how
much time you spend doing real stuff versus the three
minutes here and there that you spend scrolling through your
phone or whatever, you realize, Oh, no, like you have time,
you're just not prioritizing it. You're just subconsciously priorities.
Speaker 1 (19:49):
And by the way, that might not be your fault, right,
these big tech companies, they are They are absolutely using
us and our attention spans and the algorithms are totally
fucked up. It's not your fault that you're stuck on
your phone all the time. But if you're aware of it,
then that's at least something you could do to get yourself. Okay, ich,
why Amy wasting time on Instagram? Let me do something
proactive while I'm here. You know, I'm just being mindful
(20:11):
of that. Stuff is good. So don't feel guilty. Don't
feel guilty that you're doom scrolling. It's it's big tech.
It's not you. Yeah, it's not. It's not a conspiracy theory.
This is like real the real deal, right.
Speaker 2 (20:22):
But I'm going to be devil's advocate a little bit.
Speaker 1 (20:24):
Always good to be a devil's advocate.
Speaker 2 (20:25):
I think you could also take the fool me once,
shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me sort
of approach to it where it's like, if you know
social media is designed to do that, Like it's not
it's not a secret. It's not like Ben just wrote
a you know, a New York Times expose exposing social
media at its algorithms, Like.
Speaker 1 (20:44):
That's that's me.
Speaker 2 (20:45):
I did that, Like that's the fact that social media
is is designed to be addictive is somehow less surprising
than you know, me getting diagnosed with ADHD. So I
think there is an element of like, if you know
that it's a problem, but you don't at least try
to do something about it, not necessarily saying that if
you don't figure it out right away, it took god
(21:05):
like I, it took me so long for me to
try to get out of it. And I've been very
conscious or very aware of the fact that I get
sucked into my phone for a long time and I
could not figure out how to get out of that,
you know. So it's not even necessarily a matter of
whether you're doing it or you're not. If you realize
it it's addicting and you don't do anything about it,
(21:26):
you know, then you're a loser and you haven't figured
it out because it is fucking hard. It is. It
is hard, and they make it hard that I think
it's just a question of like maybe this could be
something where it's like, all right, I've got those ten minutes.
I'm going to use those ten minutes. That's my new constraint,
and I'm going to try something proactive for my business
for making it making a social media post, which is
(21:47):
again like get off social media.
Speaker 1 (21:49):
To that's the problem. It is, it is hard.
Speaker 2 (21:51):
I understand what I'm here.
Speaker 1 (21:53):
If we didn't actually have to go on social media
to do the social media work, you know.
Speaker 2 (21:57):
And also I mean back to the idea of like,
instead of doing what we know we should be doing,
we go on YouTube to like watch videos about how
to do it, and we go to learn, you know,
and also on like Instagram going to.
Speaker 1 (22:07):
Account all of a sudden you're like flat earther.
Speaker 2 (22:10):
Yeah, like it just it's tempting because we think, oh,
there is a lot of educational material on Instagram, like
speaking for myself, like I try really hard to make
a really helpful Instagram content, but going to my page
and like watching my videos and learning all these things
that I talk about, but then not actually doing anything
about it. Like what's the point of following me? What's
the point of watching this stuff that I'm trying to
(22:31):
help you to do if you're not going to do it.
One of the things I've noticed over the past twenty
years being in the industry is that audio school usually
leaves most graduates completely unprepared for entering the industry. I mean, sure,
you learn how to rewire a patch bay or sleep,
but they probably won't teach you how to stand out
and attract the kinds of artists that fuel your passion
for recording. I appreciate what you bring to the table,
(22:52):
let alone pay their rates. You want to get paid,
and YouTube university is full of people telling you that
their way is the right way, and it doesn't help
you apply things to your unique struggles, personality, and ideal clients.
So I've been building studio land to fill those gaps.
We use structured learning paths with the live classes in
a private community of other pros to help you discover
how to turn your technical expertise into a thriving business
(23:14):
that attracts the right clients at the right rates. Try
it out for free the links in the show notes.
Speaker 1 (23:21):
So let's rein in the business part of this conversation
and move back to the creation side of the conversation
and the.
Speaker 2 (23:28):
Constraint constrains, the non time based constraints, Right, So.
Speaker 1 (23:31):
What are some non time based constraints that can help
you do a better mix, or start a better song,
or finish a better song.
Speaker 2 (23:39):
Well, I think i'm gonna say it start for like
songwriting from early, from the very beginning parts. It could
just be like, oh, you know what, my constraint is
that it has to be something that I can play
on acoustic guitar. I would say, like for myself, like
I'm not a guitarist, Like I can play guitar. I
probably shouldn't play guitar, but I can. And it's like
I want it to be something that's simple enough that
I can play it and it doesn't sound butchered. That's constraint.
(24:01):
It could be you know, you're a bassist and the
constraint is I'm gonna try to write something that has
no base in it for the first two minutes, you know,
I want to figure out how can I make this
song not need bass until the second verse.
Speaker 1 (24:15):
I think that's really good. Yeah, I think just choosing
the right a different instrument is always a nice way
to get inspired. Maybe for someone like me who does
kind of rely on instruments to do creative things, the
opposite might be more creative, Like it might be a
better constraint for me to kind of find stuff on
Splice and patch something together and then see where that goes,
you know what I mean. Like for me, it would
probably be the opposite that would be more constraining for me.
Speaker 2 (24:37):
Yeah, Or and I mean I've done that a lot
of times too, where like I'll just be like create
digging on Splice just for like cool things that I
like the sounds of, and even if that ends up
not ever being in the song, right, but it just
like something that gets me sonically or musically is just like, oh,
that's in line with the vibe that I'm in right now,
Like I'm I'm feeling that even if I I don't
(25:00):
use that sound or I you know, shut off Splice
entirely that's helped me to kind of clarify the mood
that I'm in creatively, and then I can just roll
with that. So it can just be like a spark.
It doesn't even have to actually be Oh, I'm gonna
find something to use in a song. I'm going to
find a sound to start this, and you could even
say lyrically. It could be something where I've just been
(25:21):
like in a very bitter mood and I don't know why,
and I'm going to write some bitter lyrics. I'm just
gonna see what that does, you know, and whether or
not you're a singer, whether or not you're a lyricist,
whether or not you ever even use it. But it
just like starts that snowball down the mountain and starts
to kind of create ideas because it starts that process
(25:43):
of Okay, I'm gonna start with this emotional idea. Then
I'm gonna start writing some lyrics, and then probably, knowing myself,
I'll probably start hearing some sort of like melody or
rhythmic pattern in my head that'll work out a particular
tempo range, and then I'll think, okay, well, let me
go grab a guitar. Let me grab a keyboard, whatever
it is, and it starts going and starts going, And
(26:04):
I think it almost doesn't matter what the constraint is,
because the whole point of the constraint is that is
the constraint leads you.
Speaker 1 (26:11):
It starts leading you down that path.
Speaker 2 (26:13):
Yeah, like the constraint is the first step. It's not like,
what do I do? What's the first step after I've
picked the constraint. It's like, the constraint is the first
step because we're creative, you know, you're if you're listening,
you're a creative person, and you're going to figure it out,
you know. So just finding some sort of constraint and
then like your brain is going to start going a
mile a minute trying to think of like, okay, well
(26:35):
what can I do now? What do I do here?
And it's just that first, that very first pre step
that is the bigger struggle.
Speaker 1 (26:43):
Yeah. I get so much joy like seeing my six
year old like workout art projects, and it always starts
with like a constraint. It always starts with, oh, I
have this cardboard box. What can I do with this
cardboard box? It's literally that simple. And then he'll just
go off on the cardboard box and he's like literally
fig he's figured out how to like make holes in
the cardboard and make like you know, things that stick
(27:03):
out in the cardboard to connect things together. Like he's
just like this is what I'm dealing with, and like
it's amazing that this is what makes him happy. But
it's so cool to see that because it's really the
same thing that we're trying to do as like artists.
Is like, Okay, like I have this song where I
have this lyric. You know, I had a lyric that
you made me think about. What you were talking was
like I lyric like everybody knows, Like everybody knows this.
(27:26):
Everybody knows that, Like like in an era where everyone's
disagreeing on so many things in the world has become
so polarized, there are some things that everybody knows and
here are some of these things, you know what I mean.
Like and like that's like a powerful lyric to like
just like get into like the truth that you're seeing
in this moment. And that's like a constraint.
Speaker 2 (27:42):
And I think like maybe that's maybe the difference between
trying to this is this might make sense. I hope
this is gonna either sound really smart or I'm gonna
sound like a crazy person. But I feel like as
creatives inside of us, we still have this childlike wonder, right,
like this excitement for new things and using our imagination,
Like that's why we're in the field that we're in.
(28:04):
And I think the part that becomes difficult as we
become adults is that your kids didn't get caught up thinking, oh,
should I make something with the box, or should I
make something with that paper bag, or should I make
something with the legos? Like they didn't stop and think
of like, oh, there's so many crafts I could make,
Oh there's so many things I could build. They just
(28:25):
saw something and they just went back and then figured
it out when they were there. And I think that's
the problem that we have, is like we I just
want to say, like, they're just aware of what's directly
in front of them and so they go for it.
And the downside I think of growing up is that
we become aware of all the things around us, and
that becomes the infinite amount of choices of what we
(28:47):
should be doing, how we should be spending our time,
you know, and that goes into time management and like
all this stuff of like adulting. But when it comes
to music, I think we have the same thing where
there's so many things at our disposal, you know. Even
going back to like the Splice example, there's probably Okay,
if I go on splace and I type in, I'm
just gonna type in clap. I typed in clap, and
(29:09):
there are eighty seven and sixty.
Speaker 1 (29:11):
One results for the for the work, all of them.
Speaker 2 (29:13):
Yeah, even there, there's just like a ridiculous amount of options.
And I think that's what freaks us out. And when
we're able to say, Okay, I'm I'm gonna put it
on random and I'm gonna type in, I'm just gonna
hit random and just go and find something that I
have to find something on the first page of the
random results, and I have to use that. That's putting
(29:34):
on those childlike focused blinders on, like whatever's in front
of me, I'm going to make it work. That is
the difference the kids. They just see whatever's in front
of them and make it work. My daughter is the
exact same way, Like, yeah, she made like a leprechaun
trap the other day for Saint Patrick's Day, and it's
like a cardboard box and like shish kebab skewers that
I'm not sure.
Speaker 1 (29:53):
That's kind of dangerous.
Speaker 2 (29:55):
Yeah, yeah, she's almost nine. I mean she's natural consequences
if she pokes herself. But she like made this elaborate
thing and had a whole like storyline of like, well,
how is the leprechaun gonna enter? And like they're gonna
climb up this little ladder, and and she doesn't get
overwhelmed by all of the different things she could make
art with. She just grabs whatever's closest and makes art.
(30:18):
And I think that's what that's the lesson what we're missing.
Speaker 1 (30:21):
That is what we're missing. Like here's something that I'm
thinking about now is like artists sometimes like will take
like a theme and they'll make a whole song or
a whole record about that theme, and that kind of
can be the limiting factor. Also, like Sufi and Stevens
has like the fifty States project, but he only did
two states, but those are two amazing records, like the
Michigan and the Illinois Come on Field the Illinois record
(30:43):
are amazing, and like they're all like the themes are
based on you know, places and history, historical events that happened,
you know in those states, Like come on Field in
Illinois is just an amazing record, So like that's an
amazing constraint that he used to like once he was like, okay,
I'm in theme of Illinois, you know, and we talk
about like the tallest you know building in America and
(31:04):
like make a song out of it, like fuck yeah.
Speaker 2 (31:07):
And I you know, if we want to tie this
bow up with the suppone Stevens. It's also you know,
he did two albums the two states because I'm sure
there are other reasons behind it, but also like realis
is probably not that feasible, you know, and it's okay,
but he saw he went for it. He like saw
those two albums to completion, and he didn't get this
seemed like got caught up in the infinite possibilities of things.
(31:28):
But I don't. I don't know too much about the
backstory of that album. So maybe that's actually I don't either, no,
but it probably is what happened. Like he was he
did the Michigan record, right, and he was I think
he's from Michigan, and then he was inspired and did
the Illinois record and.
Speaker 1 (31:41):
Like that's a masterpiece. And then Okay, like, okay, I
did that. Now I don't really want to do another state,
but you know what, awesome you did it, and now
we have the Illinois record. So and then okay, now
you got into the age of ads and some other
weird stuff but cool. You know, I'm not sure how
deep into super On you are.
Speaker 2 (31:56):
Not as sleep as my wife is. Yeah, because trains
can come from any where, but they can come from you,
sometimes by choice and sometimes by your own subconscious, self
imposed fear. And I think the idea is that, you know,
initially we went into this thinking, oh, well, let's brainstorm
some other non time bound constraints. But then I realized, like,
(32:18):
there's infinite constraints because any any choice you make begins
a series of new constraints. I mean, if you think
about the production process, well it's pre production. Everything is
an option, everything's a possibility. And then by the time
he gets a mastering, it's like, tiny little moves, don't
fuck up this great thing that we have already made. Yes,
you know, yes, So it's like, yeah, that's a perfect,
(32:39):
perfect way to think about it. Like the amount of
choices and the amount of ridiculous bold moves that you
can make. It's very very different in pre production versus master.
Speaker 1 (32:51):
Right. Yeah, that's a really that's a really great point.
I love that. Yeah. Wow, I never thought about it
quite in that light, but I think it's I think
it's awesome, and I think the big takeaway for me
in this conversation is also just thinking about decisiveness and
how it's a good thing and you can also get
better at it by being disciplined and figuring out where
you go off the rails. Yeah, I'm practicing, just putting in.
Speaker 2 (33:13):
Rap, practicing to do getting reps in giving yourself constraints.
Speaker 1 (33:17):
Right, I know you got to go, Carl, So we
should wrap this. But this was fun. This went in
different directions than I was expecting. But I like this
conversation and I feel I actually feel inspired. So thank you.
Speaker 2 (33:26):
Oh well, thank you. Yeah, I feel good like that.
You're right, it went a bit differently than I had envisioned,
but I think it. I don't know, I feel inspired too.
Speaker 1 (33:34):
I'm excited just making the decision to go down this
path of this topic led to that snowball going down
the hill in this direction that it did, and so
I'm glad we made that decision.
Speaker 2 (33:44):
Yes, thank you for the podcast inception moment.
Speaker 1 (33:50):
There amazing good stuff.
Speaker 2 (33:53):
You're the man, Ben. I appreciate you so much. I
hope you have a wonderful day. Bye back to.
Speaker 1 (33:57):
Carl, Bye Carl. I feel like I'm supposed to say bye.
Speaker 2 (34:01):
Carl. I was like, what are you doing?
Speaker 1 (34:03):
You bust it up. We hope you enjoyed this conversation
as much as we did. If anything here resonated with you,
please share this or your favorite episode with a friend.
Speaker 2 (34:13):
And as always, we love to hear from our listeners,
so find us on social media at Secret Sonics.
Speaker 1 (34:18):
At Ben Wallach Music, and at Carl Bonner.
Speaker 2 (34:21):
Until next time, Bye Ben.
Speaker 1 (34:24):
Bye Carl. That's good. I think the outro is great.
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