So You’ve Decided to Write Music. Godspeed.

Looking on, I’ve come to accept that the period of my life in which I believed music could be “figured out” has long since passed. I have tried, of course. I have written songs, recorded them, abandoned them, resurrected them, and on more than one occasion convinced myself that purchasing a new piece of gear constituted meaningful artistic development. It did not. But every attempt has revealed something about how I prefer to work, and—more inconveniently—what I wish someone had told me before I spent years squinting at waveforms in dimly lit rooms.

What follows is not a definitive method, nor a prescription for artistic success. Think of it instead as a set of observations for anyone who insists on writing and recording music despite the many gentler hobbies available to them.

Every act of creation, whether musical or otherwise, is ultimately an invitation to sit with yourself. Not with some grand or mythic “truth,” but with whatever you happen to be in the moment: distracted, uncertain, buoyant, hollow, curious. Authentic work emerges when you follow an idea at the exact moment it appears, before you have the chance to dress it up or explain it away. In doing so, you move slightly closer to what is essential within you.

A friend once said something that stopped me in my tracks: the point of art is to be present with the creator and watch it happen. There is a quiet accuracy to this. The real magic is not in the final product but in the act of witnessing creativity unfold—even when it resists tidy understanding. What you play tonight may not resemble a “song” or a “structure” or even a coherent sound. It may glitch, stretch, dissolve. But it will be honest to the moment, and therefore honest to you. The composition is the vehicle; the improvisation is the confession.

Practice, at its core, is a long negotiation between the artist you imagine yourself to be and the artist you actually are. Consistency matters more than intensity because intensity is fickle—dramatic, charming, but unreliable. Showing up each day, even briefly, creates a quiet continuity between you and your craft.

Practice is not punishment. It is an act of respect. A small, steady offering to your future self. Over time, discipline builds trust: you learn that when you reach for something musically, your hands will know where to go.

If you want to find your voice, you must write and record your own material. There is no shortcut around this. Thinking in singles encourages fragmentation; thinking in albums invites coherence. A record allows you to capture a chapter of your life before you move on to the next one.

No one else will build this world for you. That responsibility is yours alone.

The modern musician is subjected to an endless parade of metrics, comparisons, and curated illusions. There will always be someone younger, faster, more algorithmically fortunate. Their presence will slowly erode your attention if you let it.

Ignore them. Social media is a hall of distorted mirrors; your craft deserves better than to be measured by its reflections.

Focus on what is within your control: your curiosity, your practice, your taste, your persistence. Everything else belongs to the wind.

The paradox at the center of all this is that discipline eventually produces freedom. The more you learn, the more you repeat, the more you refine, the freer you are when the moment arrives to improvise. You gain not rigidity, but possibility.

Seek out musicians who challenge you. Stay curious enough to keep learning, and humble enough to collaborate. The craft is vast, and no one reaches the end of it.

Writing and recording music is, in the end, simply a way of documenting who you are before you change again. Treat it with the seriousness it deserves, or with the irreverence it provokes. Either way, the truth will find a way through.

That is all.

P.S. — Beware of tone knobs. They are liars.