The most successful music producers are C students

Last week, I wrote about what to do when you hate your own music. More precisely, what to do when you reach the inevitable point at which you have worked on something long enough that you just don't enjoy it any longer.

I say inevitable, because there is always a dip in the process. You ride the high of a new idea and eventually, production becomes a bit of a slog as you're working that idea into a song. You encounter skill gaps, writer's block, and the novelty of the idea wears off. This is all common.

One of the major skills we all have to learn is how to push through the dip. There are many techniques for going about it.

You might come to understand the emotional nature of the dip and train yourself to remain analytical and action-oriented to navigate your way through it. This is the approach that I discussed last week.

You might choose to work quickly, efficiently, and intuitively. Finish your song before you ever arrive at the dip and before the glow fades away. One benefit of this approach is you have to remain anchored in what's essential to the song. You can't bloat it with too many ideas or deviations.

You might also shoot for "good enough." This came up in a lesson last week with my student, John. Like all of us, John also struggles with the dip. As we were discussing ways to navigate it, he brought up the 70% rule.

The idea is simple: imagine what your song would sound like if it were 100% finished. This is perfection which, of course, is never achievable. Great, now ratchet progress back to 70%. Go for that. Hit publish at that point. More often than not, our 70% is more than good enough for everybody else. The only people who find it lacking is ourselves.

I always look forward to John's lessons in part because of discussions like these. He always leaves me with something to think about. This week even more so as he launched his own newsletter and continued exploring similar ideas to the ones we discussed. If you read Keep Living With Music (and here you are, you are indeed reading it) then I can't encourage you enough to go subscribe to John's newsletter. I'm so excited for what he'll publish this week.

A reminder that good enough is damn good

I have spent this past weekend reflecting quite a bit on my own output and approach to the dip. In my reflecting, my thoughts have consistently returned to this newsletter and my YouTube channel. I seem to have intuitively landed on the 70% approach with both of them. Being comfortable with good enough has been the result of my prolific output.

When I compare my musical output, the difference is quite stark. My last release was in 2024. I have since demoed for a game and a few commercials but nothing public. I've also been working on a lot of music as well. I am constantly making new ideas for my YouTube channel. I have a collection of dance music that I've been working on finishing as well. This collection of dance tracks is the source of my thoughts regarding the dip.

What if I settled for good enough? What if I committed to just 70% how would that change everything I'm doing right now?

Settling for growth

As an educator, I know for a fact that good enough is the key for growth. Getting things out there and repeating the process over and over is exactly how you become the producer you want to be. This is true in every area.

Returning again to my YouTube channel, let me link for you the first video I posted when I committed to a weekly schedule:

Now, compare it to my most recent YouTube video:

While that first video has this cool thing going for it where it's continuously underscored (that just took way too long to produce) my most recent video is an improvement by nearly every measure: audio quality, production quality, structure, general polish, etc.

That first video is what good enough looked like seven months ago. The second video is what good enough looks like now. Good enough keeps getting better.

Now, seven months later, I'm a YouTube Partner and I just made a major camera upgrade. Good enough will continue to get better.

As a total side note, the whole reason I chose to start a YouTube channel was to promote Step-By-Step Songwriting: Music Theory for Producers. It has been that long since I ran that course. I'm opening enrollment again on June 30th. Make sure you're on the waitlist.

What would your music sound like in seven months if you settled for good enough?

That is the question swimming in my head right now. I'd encourage you to take a dip as well. The water is cold and clarifying. Where would you and your music be in seven months if you got that shit out there?

I was thinking of waiting until I had an albums worth of tracks to release but I think I should change my approach. I think I need a season of singles and EPs right now.

I'll keep you all in the loop. I hope you'll do the same for me.

Til next time.

-ZW

P.S. If you're one of the folks who expressed interest in my mastermind group, hold tight! That is on its way. You'll hear more about it once the enrollment window has closed for Step-By-Step Songwriting.