"I like to publish and move on."

Hey there,

A few months back, I was watching a video from YouTuber Mary Spender when she said something that has stuck with me for a while now.

"I like to publish and move on."

That fact has been true in my creative life for some time now, but only with respect to certain areas. This newsletter is one of those areas. YouTube is another one of those areas. One area in which this hasn't been true, however, is music.

I spend most of my days teaching other composers and producers how to establish a workflow and get tracks finished. I understand the process and most of the pitfalls to a tee and, yet, I fall victim to them. (Ask any teaching artist if they have this experience and they will nod vigorously at you. It's phenomenally common.)

My main problem is that I treat it all way too preciously. I can befall the trap of thinking that what I'm making right now will be the defining musical statement of my life. It of course never is but that's one of the many ways perfectionism rears its ugly head.

It's pretty well documented at this point that the best way to change patterns of thinking is to change the behaviors associated with it and so last week I decided to say "fuck it" and release a track.

I made this track entirely from two recordings of a beehive, one taken at the mouth and the other taken from inside the hive. I then made a whole YouTube video about the process and released it last Friday. Where things differed is that I also uploaded the track to Bandcamp as well (and streaming service distributors this morning) and linked it in the video.

Nothing amazing happened. The song isn't an overnight sensation and I didn't rack up a million plays or sales. But, something even more significant happened: it felt really good to do. It's as if I'm finally breathing a sigh of relief after holding my breath for far too long. I want to do it again. I want to see the number of releases on my Bandcamp page grow.

There's over a thousand of you reading this newsletter now each week (which, like, wow thank you all!) and I'd wager that half of you deal with this as well, if not more. So I just want to tell you, put that shit out there. You'll feel better.

And send it to me if you do!

Til next time,

ZW