Reading Notes

7-9 Minute Read | Laptop or Tablet Recommended

Topics and Themes

Why measuring progress backwards works like gangbusters; Applying to a long-term project and making my life easier.

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If you’re a regular reader of this blog, chances are you read my previous article on measuring progress backwards.

If you haven't, lets just say that there's a great deal of magic that happens when you compare yourself from where you started. It’s easy to do this, too: You first choose a goal, put in the work, and you only compare yourself to where you started. Like, that’s it. Rather than focusing on how much work you have to complete, how far you have to go, measuring progress backwards asks you to compare yourself to where you first began.

There's a wealth of goodness in measuring progress backwards. There's a smoothness that comes to our lives once we embrace this simple mental trick. I’ve noticed a massive spike in my happiness that was directly attributed to celebrating how much further I got each day on a project. This came in handy in the summer of 2024 when I approached a very brain-intensive project that required a lot of energy to complete.

Measuring Progress Backwards in a Long-Term Creative Project

Over the past 25 years, I often woke up from dreams with songs in my head. I often recorded these ideas, as well as any other musical sketch I made in my waking life. All in all, I had about 2,000 audio sketches lying around on my computer, completely disorganized, strewn about like the way my dog leaves her toys on the floor in my home. I needed to organize these sketches so that I could search them by mood, vibe, intrumentation, and genre. I could use them if only they were searchable. After I started this process, it took me two full months of consistent effort to finish. This sketch catalog is now my backup; I have a buffer of musical ideas, just in case a director asks for something brand new and I’m out of fresh ideas. It's a brain I can count on when the pressure is on. I've already used it dozens of times to find better ideas for music I'm working on. It’s more than proved it’s value.

When I shared this story originally, I got some comments to the effect of “Why did you do that? I mean, it’s so much work. It gives me a headache to think about it. Didn’t you get discouraged?”

The only way that I was able to commit to organizing this heavy mess of sketches was because I made damned sure to measure my progress backwards, every single day. Everytime I finished categorizing a sketch, I celebrated the win, verbally, out loud. I also celebrated every five sketches cataloged. I also celebrated my daily goal of 55 sketches cataloged. I also celebrated finishing 275 sketches cataloged every week.

To take the idea even further, I decided to make my celebrating way more fun. I always said something like this, out loud and obnoxiously: “Well, that was five more records than I had 10 minutes ago. Yes!” and “Wow! That was 55 more sketches than when I started this morning. Awesome!” and “Yes! That was 275 more sketches cataloged than when I started this week! I'm crushing it!”

This created momentum for my project. I got into a rhythm, a routine, a habit. I woke up every day excited to celebrate each and every little win. I watched this catalog of sketches go straight up in number, almost without me noticing. I ended up finishing the project with a week to spare, and let me tell you, I smoked a very expensive cigar to celebrate that win!

Remember, before I began the project, I had none of the thousands of sketches catalogued. None. Now, I had all of them done. I grew it from nothing.

Measure. Progress. Backwards.

I used to really fuck this up when I was younger…

This is in huge contrast to my old attitude toward long-term projects. I used to despair at the wide gulf between accomplishing a goal and where I was. It didn’t help I was comparing myself to some insane idealized version of myself. With that ideal rattling around in my head, I always felt behind, no matter how much progress I made toward any goal. I never felt good enough. I kept on thinking how much farther I had to go before I completed a goal. It always felt like the most annoying slog.

Henry David Thoreau truly nailed it when he said:

The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation.

I look at that younger me now with a mixture of embarrassment and wisdom. I want to reach through time and slap the shit outta him, but I'm trying to be a little more self-empathetic. I just didn't know any better.

The Gap and the Gain: Always the Gain.

As I've mentioned elsewhere on this blog, The Gap and The Gain by Benjamin Hardy and Steven Mitchell solidified a change in how I view progress that’s so fundamental that I wanted to write about it twice. I no longer look at how much farther I've got to go in any project, no matter how large or small. I only measure progress backwards, to where I started. That’s it.

The result is one of continual satisfaction. There's a smoothness to working. I feel a satisfying momentum most of the time. I only see progress. I always feel like I'm ahead of the game. No matter what, success always finds me. I don't care how my small my wins appear to others: Every small success is a huge win for me, equally worthy of celebration. I feel happier. It reminds me of this quote from the Buddha:

There is no way to happiness. Happiness is the way.

I can only imagine what my life would have looked like if I had read The Gap and the Gain earlier, if I had only focused on the gains I made toward a goal. I mean, hindsight is definitely 20/20. If I'm lucky, I'll have the next 50 years to focus only on the gains.

Happiness is the way.

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The Double Headed Seagulls – Play Artful – EP Review

Full disclosure…even though this would technically be my first time reviewing the music of The Double Headed Seagulls, it would be far from the first time I’ve reviewed the music of the man behind it all, Mr. Dave Wirth.  While it’s not something that comes across my desk each and every day, I’ve technically been listening to his music in a variety of forms since sleepingbagstudios was about a year & a half old, and I’ve genuinely cherished it for just as long.  Whether it’s been writing about or playing it on the ol’ SBS Podcast – this dude has been making music that’s been on my personal soundtrack for quite some time now, and I’m grateful for that.  Dave’s also what you’d call a proud, perpetual student of his craft, and one of those folks that’s always looking to be hit where it hurts when it comes to the feedback I provide.  Which, to be fair, you regular readers know that no one directly needs to ask for – I always say what I want to say, however I wanna say…always have, always will.  It just so happens that I tend to enjoy what this dude does for the most part, so he’s generally escaped my wrath throughout the years.  I think it’s basically crazy that this is the third project name I’ve reviewed his music under, which doesn’t count his solo work…so that’s four names you’ve gotta know in order to be able to track him down online and THAT is insane in today’s world for sure…but sound-wise, he’s always created stuff I’ve been interested in and that remains to be true here in the case of The Double Headed Seagulls.  What’s more true than anything else dear readers, dear friends, is that there can be no mistakes when there are no rules.  Sure things will or won’t be accessible based on the decisions someone makes in how they go about creating this or that…but that’s really all there is to comment on when you do your own thing.

So here goes anyway Dave…hope this helps.

With the warm digital glow of “Full Oxford” starting out the EP, I immediately felt like this was going to work out well for The Double Headed Seagulls in its debut.  The low-end that enters into the peaceful serenity is more than noticeable to the point where I suppose a few listeners might find it to be a little jarring when it first shows up, but I think that after you give “Full Oxford” a spin or two, you welcome it.  You’ll spend the opening two minutes in this strange sound-bath of sorts, which essentially serves as the audible amuse-bouche, before The Double Headed Seagulls begins to expand this first idea in the most delightful of ways as you head past the two minute mark into modulating frequencies and malleable sound.  You get the sense that change is coming, which will be welcome for those that were getting a little antsy I suppose.  Honestly, to me, “Full Oxford” felt akin to hearing a great story unfold – I don’t want anyone to rush those situations, so personally I was more than pleased to listen to the opening couple of minutes help build this song’s character and establish its presence.  That being said, hearing how it goes on to morph itself anew was absolutely fantastic…that’s when I guess you’d feel like it was almost difficult to go backwards from there.  Thankfully, that’s not how time, or songs work…we move forward, and the adventure of “Full Oxford” continued to get more and more interesting as it played.  As you trip into its third minute, it’s like you’ve become untethered to float around blissfully in the ether.  When that low-end comes back in minute four, it’s like the warm hug you always wanted to get, and it envelops you entirely as the music supplies a series of enchanting complements along the way.  It all feels new, exploratory, and absolutely beautiful…and by the time it ends, you’ll wish it would never stop.  The amount of work that’s been put in to make this opening song flow so fluidly is absolutely staggering.

What do they call those things in school…when you’re like…supposed to be familiar with something before you dive into something else…or like…at least it helps?  Prerequisites?  Is that the word I’m looking for?  The press release gives you insights into the inspirations for a lot of what you’ll hear on this EP…stuff like Brian Eno, Radiohead, and Four Tet for example…all names I’m intensely familiar with and have celebrated throughout the years on my own playlists over here.  Four Tet alone probably managed to shift my entire musical palette at one point in time long ago.  Anyhow.  I wouldn’t say you NEED to know all those names in order to enjoy what The Double Headed Seagulls is creating – but yes, it helps.  As I listened to the cleverly interlaced percussion of the record’s title track, “Play Artful,” it was like I could hear how each of those influences played a role in paving the way for The Double Headed Seagulls to exist today.  “Play Artful” feels playful…like reconnecting with the joy of discovery and what that’s like to experience when you’re listening to music.  It’s not a moment to take things too seriously, you know what I mean?  Don’t mistake that for a lack of craft…that’s not at all what I’m saying.  What I think I’m getting at more than anything else, is that the music of Mr. Wirth has often come with the weight of heavy emotional elements to it, and there’s something about “Play Artful” that really feels like he was much more focused on just having a moment where he could leave all that behind for a minute or two.  And heck – couldn’t we ALL stand to feel that way for a bit?  When I started to think about it, I wanted to make “Play Artful” my personal anthem for the year…a direct affront to all the bullshit we’ve all been forced to endure through the corruption & erosion of our politics in the modern era.  “Play Artful” gives you the opportunity to close your eyes and reconnect with simpler times, where the joys of finding new music you love, the beauty of the sun above, and the potential of every day was as exciting as it has ever been.  We might not be able to physically go back there anymore, but songs like this can transport you.

You want raw honesty Mr. Wirth?  Here’s some for ya – what’s the point of doing ANYTHING for a minute and twenty-six seconds?  Not just music…I’m talking ANYTHING in life, though I’m more than fine with declaring I’ve always been at war with shorter songs.  I certainly understand all too well what their place in today’s society would be with our ever-disappearing attention spans & all…but I kinda feel like it’s our collective job to rebel against that.  Now…do I like what there is to be heard on “One Pot Screamer?”  Sure!  Does that mean I’m in favor of its appearance in this lineup?  No!  Though to be clear, I’m not ever going to be completely opposed to hearing something I enjoy, no matter how short it is.  Plenty of those influential names we pointed out earlier on in this review all have shorter tracks of their own…it’s a thing…don’t get me wrong, I’m just complaining like an old man on the porch yelling at the state of the world.  Even “Play Artful” was like, right on the borderline of what I’d consider to be a worthwhile venture.  I mean…you should SEE some of the effort that folks like Dave pour into the making of “One Pot Screamer!”  You’d likely assume that a shorter song directly equates to having to spend a whole lot less time twisting dials and knobs to get everything where it needs to be, but more often than not, they’ll end up spending more time in pursuit of perfecting something that’s even shorter than the male orgasm…and that ain’t right, is it?  Shouldn’t we want music to be longer than that?  Shouldn’t it have taken you longer to listen to “One Pot Screamer” than it just did to read about it here?  No issues with what I’m hearing…production-wise, it sounds good…but at 1:26 in total length, it’s also really damn hard to argue that there’s anything so significant to be found here that it’d bring you running back for another repeat too.  “One Pot Screamer” is a quality cut for the length it provides I guess – that’s about the most I can say to support it, and even that seems like it’s as positive as I can be.  As I’ve said many times in the past, if song-length is all you’ve left a critic to pick on, you’re doin’ A-OK.

Alright…rant over…I think I got that outta my system…for now.  “Doss Money” is the final track on The Double Headed Seagulls Play Artful EP, and I’d say this is likely more representative of what I assumed the record would have sounded like, long before I pushed play.  “Doss Money” is like a somewhat logical progression from where we left off with Dave Wirth’s solo music…so this kinda makes sense to me and my ears.  That being said, I think “Doss Money” is probably the most mood-dependent track on the EP, as in, it might not always be the track you’re looking to listen to the most in this particular set of songs.  Again, I’m not opposed to it, and I’d argue that after about four minutes of floating around in a bubble, you finally land with a minute & change left to spare that will reveal all the most significant highlights that there are to be found within “Doss Money” – but overall, I enjoyed it.  This is one of those sit up close and listen, textural & sensory types of songs for the most part…bending notes, resonance and such…more based on how the music moves you, as opposed to the music itself moving in a more tangible way, if that makes any sense to ya.  We’re not so far off the deep end that “Doss Money” would play like a Robert Fripp experiment into Frippertronics, whereby he’ll play one note and let it ring for a half hour while he fiddles with the knobs and dials…nothing that extreme here at all.  I’d probably argue that “Doss Money” is more like what it’s like to hear the art of evolution in real time.  I’m not suggesting that it’s not rehearsed or doesn’t move with purpose – I absolutely think it checks both of those boxes.  I suppose what I’m saying is that “Doss Money” feels gradual and organic, once again unfolding like a great story does, without feeling like it needs to gloss over any chapters along the way.  And while like those great stories we know of, this final cut saves its largest doses of potency and impact for its last act, “Doss Money” ends up developing at a pace that takes a surgeon’s precision & patience, and delivers a conclusion to this EP that will certainly stimulate the curiosity required for you to want to spin it again.

Spotify this EP by The Double Headed Seagulls, or check it out at Apple Music by following this link here:  https://distrokid.com/hyperfollow/thedoubleheadedseagulls/play-artful

Reading Notes

1-2 Minute Read | Laptop or Tablet Recommended

Topics and Themes

Play Artful, the new record by The Double Headed Seagulls, releases August 28th, 2025.

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The seeds of the new are planted in the ashes of the old. In the case of Play Artful, the seeds originate from The Double Headed Seagulls' 2011 record Slimline, specifically the numerous, extra cassette tape recordings made during its years-long production process. Digital synthesizers, direct-to-interface guitars, and vibrant real-time feedback were all captured on tape and subsequently forgotten, waiting for the right moment to resurface. They were just begging for a new life beyond their original purpose.

Play Artful's manipulation of cassette fragments, lo-fi electronica, and jazz guitar chord modulation evokes the sounds of Pat Metheny's early self-titled record and Watercolors, as well as Brian Eno's Ambient 4: On Land and Music for Films, Four Tet's Everything Ecstatic, and Radiohead’s landmark 2007 album In Rainbows. This newest album by The Double Headed Seagulls demonstrates how old recordings can be reworked, revamped, and rearranged to create a completely new statement. The result bears a resemblance to the project's earlier work but introduces a more playful and childlike flair. While Slimline was serious and noisy, Play Artful is more propulsive, energetic, and imaginative. It represents a departure in tone and energy, yet remains close to their established core sound.

Play Artful is a fusion of dreamy jazz guitar chords, lo-fi electronica, and lush synthesizers, all combined in a vibrant and captivating manner. It consistently aims to surprise and delight listeners. The vibe evokes the image of creative kids with crayons drawing on the walls, with the parents rolling their eyes but loving every second of it.

Releases August 28th, 2025

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Reading Notes

3-5 Minute Read | Laptop or Tablet Recommended

Topics and Themes

Measuring progress backwards; Celebrating small wins; Shifting our mindsets in a productivity-obsessed economy.

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When you make a purchase through links found on this site, we may earn commissions from Amazon, Perfect Circuit, and other retailers.

The next three paragraphs have something in common. Can you spot it? It’s easy. I promise:

Two months ago, I had no idea how to finish a blog post without expending a great deal of energy. Now, I have pinned down a lighter and easier process. I went from spending up to 7 hours on a single blog post to just 1-3 hours. That wasn’t the case two months ago.

Three months ago, I also didn’t have a reliable car. My car at that time had no AC, old tires, and engine issues. Now, I have a new car that I can drive anywhere in comfort and style. It's much more reliable, and quite a bit safer. That’s a lot better than where I was more than three months ago.

Six months ago, I hadn’t yet written a note that I liked for a major film scoring project. I was still grappling with the direction I was going to take. Today, I can look back and see all the tiny advancements I made until I finished it. I delivered the score, the director was pleased, and I felt fantastic. That wasn't the case more than six months ago.

Did you spot the common theme? In each of these examples, I measured progress backwards.

Measuring progress backwards means comparing ourselves to where we started. From that vantage point, we often (and only) see remarkable progress. By only seeing progress, we tend to build momentum. To me, that's super magical.

In The Gap And The Gain by Ben Hardy and Dan Sullivan, they talk extensively about measuring progress backwards. I nabbed the audiobook version to hear Dan Sullivan get interviewed by Ben Hardy in between chapters. In one interview, Dan said,

If there’s only one thing that you do as an entrepreneur, always measure your progress backwards.

Why does he recommend that?

Possibly because measuring progress backwards gives us a ton of momentum. It also helps us break the habit of looking at the future as a distant place we are so far away from.

I can’t think of a worse way to live my life than to only see how far I've got to go before I reach a goal. That’s similar to when I allowed an ideal to drive me. Comparing myself to that ideal made me miserable. The cliché “Comparison is a thief of joy” is a cliché for a reason. Whenever I compared myself to that ideal, I felt depressed, annoyed, and aggravated that I hadn't accomplished more with my life.

Thankfully, measuring progress backwards guards against using an ideal as motivation. Since I only compare myself from where I started, I always feel good. I always feel like I’m progressing. I always have momentum. I like that feeling! It’s the wind at my back.

When I started that film score, I only focused on my wins. If I wrote a cue that worked for a scene, I celebrated that win. I would simply say, “Wow, I didn’t have that written this morning!” It felt great every single time I saw progress.

Truly, measuring progress backwards means I only compare myself to where I started. I count and celebrate every win, and it feels good. That's a tonic we all could have more of, especially in the hyper productivity-obsessed work environments so many of us feel squelched by, nowadays.

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There are two possible outcomes when asking someone to pay you what you're worth:

1. You gain a collaborator who’s eager to invest in you.

2. You get rejected by someone who isn't ready to invest in you at this moment.

Both outcomes are wins.

Reading Notes

7-9 Minute Read | Laptop or Tablet Recommended

Topics and Themes

Patience in commitment; The "Tepid Yes" concept; A framework for categorizing commitment levels

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When you make a purchase through links found on this site, we may earn commissions from Amazon, Perfect Circuit, and other retailers.

After the success of Titanic, director James Cameron waited years for the right technology to develop so that he could create Avatar. He believed in the idea but didn’t commit to it immediately. He was unconvinced that the visual effects industry could bring his vision to the big screen. Instead, he bided his time, focused on the story, and patiently watched as 3D filmmaking and motion capture advanced enough to realize his vision fully. When the time was right, he pounced.

Cameron's commitment to ensuring that every aspect of Avatar was worthy of the time and resources invested into it paid off. The film became one of the highest-grossing of all time and received critical acclaim for its innovative visual effects.

This story reminds me that it’s okay to be patient. It reminds me that I can wait on an idea until it's time has come. It reminds me that I can have many ideas simmering in the background. We don’t need to commit to everything right away, as James Cameron did with Avatar.

The challenge is knowing which commitments deserve our full attention. Truly, we could all do ourselves a huge solid by being more thoughtful about not only what we say yes to, but also how much to commit to them. Instead of charging forth, giving our full, undivided, honor-is-on-the-line commitment to everything we've said yes to, why not give most of them a tepid-yes and let them simmer?

Most options out there don’t deserve any commitment whatsoever. I believe that 99% of the options that get presented to me are pretty trashy. But when I do find an idea, project, or option that resonates deeply, I don’t have to go all in, right from the start. It’s better to match the commitment to the project’s actual importance, at any one time. It's better to remain flexible and assess how much energy a project truly needs before blindly jumping in, thus expending our time and energy wastefully.

Examples Proving When A Tepid Yes Works In Your Favor

There are tons of examples of well-known companies giving a casual, tepid yes to projects, simply to see if they are worth a more hard-core yes later on. Google is a great role model in this respect. They only invest fully when an idea proves itself in their labs. Google Calendar started as a small project. After a tepid yes, Google escalated their commitment to the project as its potential became clear. The rest is history.

I appreciate the "tepid yes" because it allows me to explore without feeling trapped. This way, I avoid the sunk cost fallacy and can step back if something no longer serves me. Amazon did this with its Fire tablet. The product failed, but Amazon didn’t cling to it. They committed just enough to gauge its success and pulled the plug when it was clear it wouldn’t work.

Rating The Level of Commitment

Some commitments are minimal, like deciding whether or not to grab a cheap salad for lunch. I consider these level one commitments. They are many in number and have the smallest amount of trade-off if you don't do them. Changing one's mind is easy with level-one commitments.

Level five commitments are significant, like marriage, raising children, or a deep commitment to a chosen profession. They are few in number but of outsized importance. They are so intregal to our lives that not honoring them is both unthinkable and painful.

As I mentioned, level one commitments are largest in quantity but smallest in importance. Level five commitments are smallest in quantity but largest in importance.

This undeniably simple graphic (created by the office intern who is a juvenile graphic designer-wannabe, who has a poster of Jan Tschichold in his bedroom, who is a gushing fanboy of Edward Tufte, whose Mom is super proud of his work) shows it best:

A ridiculously stupid-looking graphic that gets the point across… I can only fucking hope.

The Downsides of Misjudging Commitment Levels

Misjudging your level of commitment can lead to several nasty problems. A lack of critical thinking can develop into a habit if we don’t fully consider what we say yes to. That's dangerous! Overcommitting forces you, out of the necessity of saving time, to look past the details. There's a reason why the saying "the devil's in the details" is a cliche.

Burnout is another risk. Committing too quickly or too deeply will drain us, especially if a project demands more time and energy than we expected.

Let's not forget about the dangers of unrealistic expectations, inflexibility, and the pressure we place on others to capitulate to what we committed to. Further, think of all the great opportunities you'd forgo if you just committed to a whole mess of really crappy ideas. Yuck.

A Framework for Judging The Scale of Commitment

To avoid overcommitting, it helps to write down what we’ve said yes to and evaluate it soberly.

Start by writing down your commitment on a piece of paper or text file. Then, rate your answers to these questions on a scale of 1 to 5:

1. How worthy is this person/path/idea/option of your full commitment?

2. How good do you feel when you fully commit?

3. How unthinkable is it to abandon this commitment?

4. How aware are you of the trade-offs and benefits of staying committed?

5. How dire are the consequences of stepping back from your commitment?

The higher the average number, the higher the commitment level you need to give to it.

In Conclusion

Overall, it's best to relish saying no, way before you even get committed in the first place. As I mentioned, most of all the options out there are super trashy and trivial. But when you do say yes, it doesn’t have to be an all-or-nothing declaration. It can be a lukewarm, tepid yes. It can be a "let’s see if this works" kind of yes. It can be a "you’ve got 30 days to prove yourself" kind of yes. It can be a "perhaps, buddy. Perhaps." It can be a long, molasses-slow "maybe."

Opt for the tepid yes, especially when the big commitments (like kids, marriage, family, and our professional aspirations) deserve most of our energy and commitment.

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Reading Notes

9-11 Minute Read | Laptop or Tablet Recommended

Topics and Themes

Sunk-Cost Bias in rock and roll; The Rise and fall of Sprightly Moans; How to determine if you have a sunk-cost bias

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When you make a purchase through links found on this site, we may earn commissions from Amazon, Perfect Circuit, and other retailers.

Though I hate to admit it, so many of my old dreams of becoming a rock and roll star were probably derailed out of a lack of awareness of a sunk-cost bias. Sunk-cost bias is the tendency to keep on committing to a path based on prior investments, rather than future benefits. Sprightly Moans was one of these casulties.

Sprightly Moans was a band I put together in 2012. It was a guitar and drum duo. Both of us played significantly loud. To new listeners, I often described our music as if The White Stripes, Lightning Bolt, and Jimi Hendrix got into a gigantic knife fight and it didn't end well.

Our music set astonishingly nihilistic lyrics against a bluesy, bit-crunched, distorted guitar. The drummer would play in a blistering blur around the rhythms I threw down. I sang loudly and with a great deal of force. It was a lot of fun!

Sprightly Moans got to the point where we wanted to make a serious go of it. I thought we had great potential to actually make it in the hyper-competitive rock scene in Austin as well as the United States. I began to get our image straight. First, I got my Fender Telecaster re-done with an all white, nitro finish. It looked awesome and it sounded great:

I decided to give an old drumset a monumental makeover. I stripped it of it's cover, sanded it, repainted it, recoated it, put clear drum heads on it, and all of a sudden I had this sharp-looking drumset. It helped that it sounded tremendous!

We got professional promo photos done with a great photographer, Juan Gonzalez of Lime Fly Photography:

We shot a video I'm still proud of:

And then, after all of this progress, the drummer and I parted ways. It knocked the wind right out of me. After the shock wore off, my next thought was how I was going to recoup all the money, time, effort, love, and the many hours of dreaming I put into the project. Obviously, I needed a drummer! I was already so far ahead... how hard could it be to find a drummer?

I printed posters, I posted ads, I asked friends. I auditioned five different drummers. No one really fit… One of them made fun of me, right to my face. Ouch.

Something started to feel a bit off...

Operating from a place where I wanted to recover all the resources that I put into this band ruined the fun of it. And that’s a shitty place to be at. I was trying to capture that feeling again, and it was disappearing quickly. I didn't feel right slogging it out on a project that seemed to no longer have the magic it once had. I acted out of desperation. I doggedly kept pushing forward. I still expected a return.

Eventually, after two years of nursing the dream of getting the band up and running again, I gave up the ghost on Sprightly Moans. In a deep way, I felt relieved. Sprightly Moans was no more, and I accepted that I would not be a rock and roll star after all. Sure, that hurt a little. Growing hurts sometimes. But it was healthy.

After I let it go and I properly grieved, I finally felt ready to tackle the next thing. It wasn't long after that I met Madison Bounds and started collaborating with him on his film Crisp Lips, my first film score. I had such a fun time doing it! The magic returned! I was creating music in that flow-state of musical fun.

Creative Sunk-Cost Bias

My unwillingness to let go of Sprightly Moans and my dogged persistence to reclaim the investment is a perfect example of the sunk cost bias. I was more motivated to make good on all the effort I put into that band (the mini albums, the promo photos, the music video, the time I spent making albums our of paper, and the nursing of my dreams) than I was playing the music and trusting the magic of it. I was more interested in getting a return on the money I spent on the video than I was just having fun and going with the results.

In other words, I was stuck in the past rather than finding a way to be creative.

Sunk cost bias becomes a huge hassle if we're not careful. Without knowing it, we can get pulled into a commitment and stay there even if we're totally unhappy about it. Often, I don't think we're even aware of this bias! And if we are blind to sunk-cost bias, we are similarly blind to newer opportunities, less aware of present realities, and unflexible to take advantage of a good cultural moment.

I know now that if I had given up on Sprightly Moans within a half a year (not the two years it actually took) that I would have had a massive head start on composing music for film.

Determining Sunk-Cost Bias

What can we do to guard ourselves from sunk cost bias? If you suspect it in one of your creative prospects or business doings, or if you're just plain curious, ask these questions of yourself:

1. How worthy is this person/path/option of my commitment? Time? Energy? Money? Other resources altogether?

2. Is there a better-sized commitment for this that's more appropriate and respectful of my resources? Time? Energy?

3. Have I become blind to how shitty it really feels being committed to this?

4. Do I feel a sense of being locked into this commitment?

5. Is there an exit strategy with this commitment?

6. If I weren't already invested in this commitment, how much would I invest right now?

7. If I didn't already have this commitment in my life right now, how much would I work my ass off to get it? How much would I pay for it?

8. What opportunities are getting lost as a result of me commiting to this?

9. What else can I do with my time if I pulled the plug on this commitment?

10. What else can I do with my money if I pulled the plug on this commitment?

11. What else could I do with my energy if I pulled the plug on this commitment?

12. Would I be more effective in reaching my ultimate goals if I pulled the plug?

13. Are past investments in this option getting heavily weighted over future rewards?

14. Are there any patterns with this commitment that are similar where past costs were prioritized over potential future gains?

15. Call up a friend who will tell you the truth, no matter what. Explain the situation. Ask this person: "Am I prioritizing the previous investments more than I am prioritizing what I could get from it?"

16. Are there any strong emotional reactions when I consider uncommiting to this? Name them if so. The more there are, the more likely sunk cost bias is in play.

17. Is it time to implement a "kill criteria"? Meaning, a criteria for discontinuing projects that are not meeting expectations, regardless of past investments.

We don’t need to suffer to create art. Seriously.

I think suffering from sunk-cost bias totally roots us in the past in an unhealthy way. It doesn't feel good being tied to a creative commitment that doesn't quite do it for us anymore. In my case, it felt awful trying so hard to revive Sprightly Moans. I hoped to make that my main breadwinner. I was a little too obsessed with making my money back, with making it in the rock scene altogether. The fun disappeared.

Once I finally let it go, I felt tremendously good about what we did. Looking back made me smile, and blush a little bit too. I began to enjoy those things I invested in as loving artifacts of that period of my life. The drum set, the Telecaster, the photos, the albums, and the video.

As I mentioned before, hindsight is 20/20. Better to look back soberly at these older projects and reinterpret them as these awesome things we did. Better to marvel at the things we accomplished while we were truly in the moment, and then find a new thing that suits us even better, now.

---

This post was inspired and influenced by Essentialism by Greg McKeown. I totally recommend it.

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Reading Notes

1 Minute Read | Laptop or Tablet Recommended

Topics and Themes

A conversation between Kurt Vonnegut and Joseph Heller; More vs enough.

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The well-known American authors Kurt Vonnegut and Joseph Heller once had a remarkable conversation about money. It encapsulated how Americans value growth to the point of idolizing it.

Here’s the story:

Vonnegut and Heller were at a party hosted by a billionaire. When Kurt Vonnegut discovered how much money the billionaire raked in the previous day, he couldn’t resist needling Heller.

Vonnegut peppered Heller with this question: “How does it make you feel to know that our host only yesterday may have made more money than your novel Catch-22 has earned in its entire history?”

Heller smiled and said, "I've got something he can never have."

Kurt Vonnegut was intrigued. “What on earth can that be, Joe?”

Heller responded, "The knowledge that I've got enough."

I’ve heard this story many times, in many forms. I love it. I appreciate the economy and authority of Heller’s reply. His contentment with his own financial situation was clear, and his response also served as a subtle critique of a culture that often equates self-worth with financial success.

Heller’s response also shows how we might be doing ourselves a great disservice by chasing more money at the expense of our time. Don’t get me wrong. We all need money to survive. But there comes a point where we can go too far, where we would willingly trade away the finite resource of time in the relentless pursuit of more and more money that we might not actually need. We don’t have a lot of time in our short lives. It’s important to use it wisely.

Hats off to you Joseph Heller. Thank you for reminding me (us?) of a balanced, kind, and self-compassionate word… A word that brings the importance of conserving our limited time back into sharp focus:

“Enough.”

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Reading Notes

7-9 Minute Read | Laptop or Tablet Recommended

Topics and Themes

Balancing flexibility and structure in work; Time management in the creative realm; Designing a life with both creativity and engagement with the world.

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I originally wanted to teach guitar for a silly reason: I wanted to have a job in-between touring stadiums. I know... reach for the stars, right?

In my mind, I didn't want to be out of a job during the months I wasn't rocking the free world. Thankfully, after my dream of being a rock star died, I learned that teaching offered me a chance to dig into my own happiness in a much deeper way. That, and it made my life a whole lot more fun.

For starters, teaching privately meant that I could teach anytime of the day. When I first began building my teaching practice, I was strict with having a 9-5 schedule. I soon wised up that I could restructure my hours to avoid rush-hour traffic (totally amazing in a city like Austin).

About two years into teaching, my Dad mentioned that if I charged more, I could work fewer hours and the clients would get better. I honestly thought he was full of shit at first. Have you ever heard saying “The older you get, the smarter your father gets?” Of course, Dad was right. I charged more, I worked fewer hours, and the students got way more dedicated. With these changes, I felt like I was getting away with murder in my work-life.

The importance of scheduling out creative time

I had an epiphany after I made a greater number of adjustments like these to my work life: If I can structure my teaching schedule so elegantly, how do I wish to structure my off-hours? How do I wish to structure my time away from teaching to be the most creatively fulfilling? Of course I wanted to create new music, but I found myself stymied by the luxury of having too much unstructure time. It's like Twyla Tharp says in her book The Creative Habit: If you want to ruin creativity, throw as many resources at it as possible.

At that time, I had another massive luxury of a separate office where I taught and recorded music. I wanted work to be totally seperate from my home life. The trouble was that all of my recording equipment was at the office. If I wanted to create music, I had to drive there. Going to that office to "be creative" didn't quite work for me.

I silently chastised myself about this for years. Then, the pandemic happened. Yeah... the separate office had to go. There was no was I was going to pay two rents during one of the worst economic periods of my adult life. I moved all my teaching and recording equipment to a spare room in my house. I had to make it work, somehow.

After some tweaking of the acoustics and adjusting to the idea that students will come to my home, my office began to feel super comfortable. But even after I settled into the new situation, I still felt like I wasn't structuring my creative time as best as I could. I had this annoying suspicion that I could have finished off a bunch of old projects earlier if I were a bit more ruthless with my schedule. After reading Deep Work by Cal Newport, I knew I finally had the answer.

Cal Newport teaches at Georgetown University and is a well-known author who has long offered excellent advice on creative productivity (in other words, how to get our most interesting work done without giving up on our responsibilities in the world). He has long advocated for doing what is most effective in one's life to reach the goals we dream of reaching. In Deep Work, he presents a very compelling case to schedule uninterrupted time to focus on the things most important to us. In his view, the idea of deep work comes to life when we schedule out the time to work, engage, struggle with, and solve hard problems that we want to solve, and without any interruptions.

The AM/PM Creative Routine

Reading Newport's Deep Work inspired me to structure my time outside of teaching. And what came out of it? I call it the AM/PM creative routine. Here it is:

The AM part of the equation is this: I wake up at 5:30 AM. The silence in my neighborhood encourages me to be super creative. I quiet my phone. I refuse to check email. I practice music. I work on finishing albums. I focus on creative projects that I intend to finish.

Once 12 PM hits, I shift. I begin to see the world beyond my head, engage with the people in it, and be completely present in my interactions. I shift to the PM part of my day. That’s why I teach in the afternoons and evenings. I ended up choosing Sundays through Wednesdays, from 2 PM to about 8PM to teach. During this time, I am totally present to the outside world.

In short, the AM/PM creative routine (for me) looks like this: 5:30 AM to 12PM: Create excessively. 2PM to 8PM get my extrovert on. It works for me.

Making your own version of the AM/PM Creative Routine

If you've made it this far in this article, then congrats! Here's where this'll get really applicable, for you. Let's go over how you can make your own version of an AM/PM creative routine. First, you need to ask yourself one simple question:

When am I most creative?

Why start with the creativity, rather than the work-life? I’m assuming you don’t want to have a job forever, right?!? It’s my strong belief that we need to give priority to our most creative moments on our schedules.

If you know when you are most creative, put that time on your calendar. Schedule it out. Block it off. Do not let anything get scheduled during that creative time. It's not time to check email or get engaged with sending messages. It's sure as hell not time to answer to a boss's silly needs. That's your scheduled time to just create. Guard it with your life.

Once you've given that creative time the priority it deserves and scheduled in on your calendar, the next step is to schedule your work-life around it.

If you're annoyed with that last sentence I wrote, I don't blame you. Everyone's situation is different. I recognize that. Keep in mind that that no work situation is final. You are not stuck forever, in exactly the same circumstance and exactly the same job. Chances are good you have far more flexibility to schedule around your creative times than you think you do.

A close friend of mine, an unbelievably creative man, works in the IT department of a major university. He was taken aback by how easy it was to get his employers to accept his proposal to work from home. Now, without a daily two-hour commute, he has far more room to schedule out his many creative pursuits. He has more balance. You probably have more flexibility than you think you do with the "PM" part of the equation. Just tease it out. The solution will come.

Wrapping Up…

There are times for myopic creative exploration. These times need to be spoken for on our schedule and deeply protected. Similarly, there are times for engagement with the forces of the world... times for extroversion and presence with our families, friends, and professional colleagues. That also needs a little bit of structure, too.

I need a well-maintained balance between both mindsets to get to where I'm going (aka, the toppermost of the poppermost, as John Lennon mentioned before the Beatles got to be huge). Clearly, it's my strong belief that the introverted creative exploration and the external engagement with the world need balance for me to have any chance of happiness and success. It’s what I value.

If you value that balance too, then be sure to schedule time to create as well as when to engage with the outside world.

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Reading Notes

11-14 Minute Read | Laptop or Tablet Recommended

Topics and Themes

A humiliating first music theory moment; An effective learning strategy and plan for learning music theory from scratch.

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I promise you I will share the optimal way I’d learn music theory, if I were starting from scratch. Before I get there, I want to share a story where I got destroyed by not knowing it. Like, the carpet was totally and completely yanked out from underneath me. It makes me chuckle to think about it, to this day.

Getting Destroyed By Music Theory, Story #1 (of Thousands)

I didn’t take guitar lessons in high school, but I didn’t mind. I was having a blast learning to play music on my own. I’d find a random guitar tab, learn it, and move on to the next one. If I liked a song that didn't have a tablature online, I’d just jump in and transcribe it. I played guitar for at least two to three hours every day after school.

I learned guitar by ear, with a will to get better and better and better (I compared myself to an ideal, back then). I didn’t know music theory, but that didn't stop me. Learning on my own meant I didn’t have access to a teacher who could teach me the nuts and bolts of why music works the way it does. When I finally got to college, my first act as a college freshman involved approaching the guitar professor, Chris Buzzelli, and begging for guitar lessons.

Here’s the part of the story where the rug got yanked out from under me.

On a chalkboard with four permanently painted music staves, Chris scrawled four notes and asked me to play them. I couldn’t do it. I was mortified. I could transcribe a bunch of solos, play some impressive rock guitar, but I couldn't play four notes? Four simple notes on a treble staff?

Embarrassing.

Chris took pity on me. He recognized my eagerness to learn and my desire to improve. He arranged for me to take lessons with a graduate student, Jason Werkema, who taught me jazz guitar. I explored scales, arpeggios, and all sorts of 7th chords. I even memorized a couple of jazz standards. I was finally able to improvise over jazz, solo in a fairly concise way, and play four measly little notes on a music staff.

With that knowledge, I successfully auditioned for the guitar program at the end of my first semester. And damn, I was stoked to be there! Over the next four years, I basically hunkered down to learn guitar.

Getting curious about how to learn music theory

Since then, I dove deeper into my love of music theory. I uncovered more advanced topics that piqued my interest. I expanded on my foundation and developed a deeper appreciation for the lesser-known but super fun concepts of music theory.

As I began teaching, it also became essential for me to discuss music theory in a meaningful way. Some students had an intense curiosity about it. They would ask really good, insightful questions. This challenged me to provide equally good answers.

Over time, I experienced moments of clarity around music theory and how to teach it even better. I wanted to address the questions students had about learning the concepts with the least amount of intellectual baggage. How could I help them grasp the fundamentals quickly and easily? This led me to consider how I would tackle learning music theory if I had to start over.

I began to pinpoint the most important concepts and arrange them into a coherent, cumulative order. I focused on isolating the music theory concepts that truly made a difference in developing musicianship and artistry.

I’ve since guided many students through this approach to learning music theory, and it works. I want to share this overall path here so you can reap the rewards. This information could save you (or someone you know) a lot of time and prevent quite a few headaches.

Before I jump into it, keep in mind that I don’t talk about how to learn these concepts. There are countless ways to address each of them. And thank goodness for that! No single learning method will work for everyone. This blog post presents a cumulative order that builds upon mastery of the previous topic.

Let’s get started!

If I needed to learn music theory again, this is how I’d do it

Learn to play by ear and learn basic music notation.

I would start by learning how to figure out melodies by ear. This requires transcribing melodies and bringing them to life on any musical instrument. The specific instrument doesn’t matter. I used the guitar, but you could choose a piano, an oboe, or a hammered dulcimer if you’re a non-conformist.

Playing by ear helps you develop pitch recognition, which is essential for playing music. A heightened sense of pitch means your ears connect to your instrument. This connection creates a deeper musicality, and extension of yourself. You’re already learning how to express yourself musically before you know anything about music theory.

During this process of learning by ear, I would also recommend learning basic music notation.

Just as reading a book requires understanding written words, music theory relies on written notes to convey meaning. Learning basic music notation helps you get comfortable with how musicians communicate with each other. This includes understanding notes on a staff, clefs, key signatures, and all sorts of other fundamentals. I highly recommend Music Notation by Mark McGrain for getting familiar with this. I recently took about three months to work through that book. It sharpened my skills quite a bit.

Memorize Major Triads, Minor Triads, and Dominant 7th Chords

Once I feel somewhat comfortable transcribing and have a grasp on basic music notation, here’s my next move:

I would memorize the notes of every single major triad. For example, C-E-G, F-A-C, Eb-G-Bb, and so on. I wouldn’t stop until I can spell out each of these triads quickly and without hesitation.

I would tackle minor triads next by taking the third of the major triad and lowering it by a half step.

I would memorize dominant 7 chords last. I’d do this by taking a major triad, counting down two notes from the root, and calling that note the 7th.

Why do I recommend memorizing triads and dominant 7th chords? These chords form the foundation of harmony. Much of western music builds on major and minor triads, as well as dominant 7th chords. Being able to spell them quickly means you gain a significant advantage in understanding the nuts and bolts of music.

Memorize Key Signatures

Next, I’d flat-out memorize the key signatures.

Why? Key signatures are essential for playing in different keys. You do want to play in different keys, right??

Additionally, they engender greater familiarity with the written notes, enabling you to read music more fluently and perform with confidence.

Memorize Basic rhythm: Metric structure

After that, I’d totally commit basic rhythmic subdivision, often called metric structure, to memory.

Why? While the height position of a note on a staff represents pitch, the horizontal position of the note represents time and thus rhythm. Without understanding how notes are subdivided and how they fit into time horizontally, music wouldn’t be at all rhythmic. Simply put, without an ability to write rhythm, you don’t have a song you can tap your foot to.

Learning rhythmic subdivisions allows you to grasp the system of rhythm. Further, you can leverage it to your advantage when writing music.

Feel Solid With Roman Numeral Analysis

Next, I’d sink all of my focus into learning Roman numeral analysis.

Why Roman numeral analysis?

For starters, you’d unlock the underlying chords of most songs, instantly. You can use it to decipher why some songs sound really cool and why others sound kinda lame. Mastering Roman numeral analysis means you can create chord progressions that sound really good together. You'd get a cheat sheet to write a cool chord progression quickly.

Sight reading

Finally, I’d sight read on a daily basis. This book has served as a lifesaver for me to learn sight reading on the piano, and the author also offers a version for guitar.

Why sight reading? For one, it helps you become comfortable with the notes on the staff, the keys and the key signatures, and rhythmic subdivisions. Additionally, getting really solid at sight reading boosts your ability to perform, collaborate, and adapt to new musical challenges.

The process of learning music theory from start to finish

As a recap, here is the learning process for music theory fundamentals from start to finish:

1. Transcribe melodies by ear and learn music notation

2. Memorize the major triads

3. Memorize the minor triads

4. Memorize the dominant 7th chords

5. Memorize all the key signatures

6. Memorize basic rhythm: Metric structure

7. Get comfortable with Roman numeral analysis

8. Make a daily habit of sight reading

How Long Will This Take?

Okay, you might be wondering how much time this will take. Before you jump to conclusions, I want to remind you that the order I’ve laid out is cumulative. Each concept builds on the previous one. I do not recommend trying to approach all of them at once. Start with the first concept, right from the beginning. Once you feel comfortable and familiar with a concept, move onto the next.

As far as the time commitment, that depends on the amount of space available to work on it. Given my current schedule right now, it would take me a little less than a year to learn if I had to learn it all from scratch. If I had nothing else going on, give me about three months.

If that sounds discouraging, please check out my blog post on bare-minimum practice routines. I firmly believe that small amounts of practice can lead to big results. You should be aware that you can easily practice sustainably.

What do you get after you complete this basic process?

Here’s the great news: Any additional music theory concept you study after mastering these fundamentals will come easily.

For example, if I want to learn about arpeggios, I can easily dive in because I’ve already memorized the triads and dominant 7th chords.

If I want to write music in a specific key, it's straightforward because I have studied Roman numeral analysis, key signatures, and memorized the chords.

If I wanted to learn modes, I can jump right in because I already know the triads and am familiar with Roman numeral analysis. I can spell out the modes because I’m comfortable with the notes on a staff, key signatures, and metric structure.

Are you starting to see how beneficial learning music theory can be? I hope so.

In conclusion

Learning music theory doesn’t have to be difficult. You can approach it in a sustainable way, gradually, over time. Additionally, not all music theory provides the same amount of benefit to you. There’s tons of things I still don’t know (and that makes it fun).

Understanding which parts of music theory to focus on and in what order gives you a significant advantage.

Now, all you gotta do is roll up your sleeves and get on with it.

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3-5 Minute Read (Photos) | Laptop or Tablet Recommended

Topics and Themes

Building a QD-23 by Acoustic Fields

Without a doubt, the most time-intensive project to improve my composing studio has been a DiY build of Acoustic Fields’ QD-23. The QD-23 is a massive acoustic diffuser that evenly diffuses all frequencies from 185 Hz to 3.45 Khz. It was totally worth all the pain and difficulties because it sounds dope in my studio, now.

Why on earth did I attempt to build this damned thing? Three reasons.

Reason #1: Acoustics in recording studios are crucial. Taking care to shape the acoustics of a room allows me to feel reasonably confident that a mix will travel well (meaning, it’ll sound good on a lot of different systems). Proper acoustics also ensures a far better chance at clarity and balance.

Reason #2: Diffusion, in general, helps to scatter sound waves evenly throughout a space. The QD-23 works really well when it’s placed behind the person doing the mixing, like on the back wall. I knew that it would allow a deeper, more 3D richness in sound.

Reason #3: I talked my Uncle into helping me with the build. Seeing as how he’s a far better woodworker than I will ever be, I was both shocked and delighted he agreed to help me out.

The process was intense. I knew that I wanted to remember this for the rest of my life, so I kept a photo diary of the process. I’ve published a couple of blogs about this project already, Day 1 and Day 2, but I’ve condenced the entire project onto this blog post so you can see the entire thing, start to finish.

Let’s go!

Day 1

Goal: Cut all wood to the sizes required by the build plans.

Day 2-4

Goal: Stain the wood. I have fewer photos of this part of the process because getting my phone out to take pictures was incredibly difficult with rubber gloves and stain everywhere. The colors did turn out quite pretty:

Day 5-6

Goal: Mark the wood for the wells. Not sure what a well is? You’ll see later in the post.

Day 7

Goal: Get the wells routed out and ready for the slats. My Uncle managed to create a jig for the router so that we could get the work done quicker.

Day 8

Goal: Get sides and wells glued into place. This was really fun to do:

Day 9-10

Goal: Get tops on.

Day 11

Goal: Configure the well depths. See the hammer? My Uncle called that his “Persuader.”

Day 12

Goal: Start placing the wells. Each of them was configured to go to different depths. Notice the gnarly things we needed to do to each slat to make sure that it stuck together…

Day 13

Goal: Do a little framing, make a stand, install in studio, be happy!

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Reading Notes

7-8 Minute Read | Laptop or Tablet Recommended

Topics and Themes

A love letter to the iPod Shuffle; Digital downloads lack a home; The iPod Shuffle's backwards compatability.

Sometimes, the whole world closes up tight on me. My options seem limited. Progress slows to a trickle. My thoughts flail around like flies in syrup. Stuckness abounds. It happens. It’s a part of the seasons of life.

Eventually, the world opens back up again. Emotions flow easily. Colors burst more vibrantly. Life regains its delectable mystery. This time, the music of Tomasz Bednarczyk, Swartz et, Rival Consoles, and Kin Leonn has all opened up my world again. I find myself grinning more because of them.

Most of the time, I am late to the party in unearthing artists like these. These musicians release their music on small independent record labels who duplicate very limited quantities of vinyl records or CDs. Inevitably, these artists run out of the good stuff before I can nab a physical copy. They are highly prized and valued because they are so limited. This forces me to choose between grabbing a digital download of the record, or streaming it on Spotify. I totally dislike the latter. Unfortunately, the former comes with the annoyance of the music not having a dedicated physical home.

Marc Weidenbaum, author of the excellent This Week In Sound newsletter, also admitted he feels perplexed about where to store digital downloads of records. Clearly, he can store vinyl records and CDs on shelves in his apartment. That’s easy. Let’s also admit that a big vinyl record collection is one hellova humblebrag. What happens if the vinyl isn’t available, if the record is only available digitally? The download doesn’t have a dedicated spot for storage. Digital downloads exist in multiple places at once: a phone, a computer, a tablet, the cloud, in our minds at 3am when we’re trying to sleep (or maybe that’s just me…) and more. In other words, digital downloads exist everywhere and nowhere, simultaneously.

Vinyl Record Love

Vinyl records are different. They are physical, present, and they have weight. I also love the sound of vinyl records. I love big artwork. I love the look of them on my shelf (read: humblebrag). Plus, I appreciate that I don’t need WiFi to listen to any one of them. I come from a generation that had Sony Walkmans and portable CD players. For us, it was exciting to stumble upon a new band by listening to CDs in a listening booth at a record shop. Sure, we missed out on the abundance of music that Spotify offers, but as I’ve mentioned elsewhere on my blog, having millions of options has a significant dark side.

Nowadays, I limit and deliberately curate the records I choose to listen to. It’s the 80/20 principle in action. I want to find the most highly-inspired records that I’ll listen to for weeks on end. Finding these records makes me happy. Such treasures. The trouble is, what do I listen to them on if I’m not in my acoustically-controlled environment at my home studio?

A Quest for the Perfect Listening Device

Recently, I pined for a piece of equipment, both as simple as a Sony Walkman and as hip as a record player, to serve as a storage space that unfussily stores the digital versions of albums I enjoy. I wanted something I could take anywhere. It had to look cool, feel nice, and quickly deliver my music without distraction. It needed to play the music I purchased under any circumstance, even if there’s no WiFi. Finally, the device was not allowed to be my phone.

That’s when I remembered I had an iPod Shuffle gathering dust in a closet. What a perfect, elegant solution!

iPod Shuffle

The Charm of the iPod Shuffle

This beautiful little device weighs just 22 grams. It's smart. It’s appealing. It’s functional. The design is snappy. It feels great when you grasp it. It’s like holding a tiny baby chick in your palm: cute overload. I realize I’m channeling Jerry Seinfeld introducing the cars in Comedians In Cars Getting Coffee, but I think I could channel much worse (and I bet you would agree).

Despite having no screen, the iPod Shuffle is incredibly easy to use. The play button doubles as both play and pause. Volume controls are the + and - signs on the top and bottom of the white circle. You can skip songs on the playlist using the clearly marked buttons on the left and right sides of the white circle. When I long-press the button on top, a voice announces which album I’m listening to. I get a chuckle out of that Web 2.0 robot voice.

The iPod Shuffle has enough capacity for 2 GB of music. To listen to an album I purchased digitally, I create a playlist on my Mac with the music and drag the playlist onto the iPod. I plug in my actual headphones with a cord (remember those?), long-press the button on top to choose the album, and then press play. That’s it.

Best of all, the iPod Shuffle cannot connect to the internet. It's completely neutered from receiving notifications from this person/that company/whomever. I can listen to music for hours in peace and happiness. Uninterrupted musical enjoyment!

A Nostalgic Relic

The iPod shuffle couldn’t be easier to operate, nor could it have been better designed.

And yet, as music shifted from being purchased to getting streamed, the iPod faded in popularity. People gradually forgot about it. Apple retired it altogether in 2017. I understand. The iPod is a relic from a time when we bought music instead of renting it.

Sure, the iPod made sense before Spotify, but now?

Not really, unless you’re like me. Unless you enjoy endlessly searching sites like Bandcamp for something new and interesting to listen to. Unless you love digging into an album for months on end because it completely scratches that itch in just the right way. Unless you want a solid solution for listening to records on the go, from start to finish, sans notifications. Unless you want something that doesn't take up a whole lot of room in your fanny pack.

There's never a bad time to take a nuanced look at how we engage with music. The mediums that music gets delivered on (streaming, vinyl, downloads, CDs, tapes, carrier pigeons) are worthy of consideration. How we own music affects how we value it. Streaming proved that people aren’t willing to value music as much as did before. For those who want the vinyl, we can't always get a copy. More often than not, we have to settle for a digital download (or worse... streaming). In that case, the time is ripe to consider the benefits of a dedicated listening device for the digital albums we've purchased.

The iPod Shuffle combines a genuine simplicity with an early 2010s nostalgia, and it couldn’t get a higher recommendation from me.

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Reading Notes

2 Minute Read | Laptop or Tablet Recommended

Topics and Themes

Evaluating all options; Trade-off consciousness; Making informed decisions

This was me before I considered the trade-offs in every decision:

"I can do anything. Every possible option holds value and significance. The more I work, the better it is. You never know what might turn out to be profitable, so why not do it all?”

This is me after I considered the trade-offs in every decision:

"I will do one thing, and I’ll do it exceptionally well. I accept the sacrifices. I expect that one thing will bring me success.”

The Meaning of Decision

The word "decision" carries a certain sharpness. Just look at the Latin word it comes from: decidere.

“De,” meaning off or away. “Caedere,” meaning to cut.

Decidere means to cut off.

The word "decision" suggests that each time we make a choice, we cut off numerous options.

And there’s the rub… the trade-offs. We can’t do everything, so we need to make do with the best option we’ve got. Unfortunately, there's always trade-offs. Always. Even with easy decisions. We just find it easy to make the easy decisions because we’re already okay with the trade-offs.

The Wisdom of Evaluating Trade-Offs

Here’s the great news:

Considering the trade-offs beforehand allows for spectacularly powerful decisions. Doing so enables us to find the best possible option and fully commit to it.

If we can see that option A is something we actually want, if options B, C, D, E, and F are just stupid, then we can cut them out and simply go for option A. Because we considered the tradeoffs and cut off the hanger-ons, we significantly enhance our well-being, creativity, and professional success. No more harried, “I gotta do everything” moments. Sweet!

Here’s an example:

I wanted more energy to create music, teach more effectively, and write better blogs (Hopefully? Ahem? Maybe?). I decided to sacrifice the immense fun of smoking cigars, eating out, and watching movies during my four-day workweek. I save all this fun stuff for my slothful three-day weekend. During the four-day workweek, though, I make those trade-offs.

I used to get annoyed with myself for having a lack of energy when it came to consistent engagement in my professional life. Now, I can coast though my workweek with a greater ease. I create more music, write more effectively (Again, maybe?), and am more available to my students.

Only time will tell whether I stick to this routine. So far, it’s working out. I’m used to the trade-offs. I made a conscious decision to create more balance, fully aware of the sacrifices. I achieved that balance.

Final Thought

Let’s end this conversation on a bang, why don’t we?

Thomas Sowell wisely pointed out:

“There are no decisions. There are only trade-offs.”

Whoa.

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This post was inspired and influenced by Essentialism by Greg McKeown. I totally recommend it.

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Reading Notes

3-5 Minute Read | Laptop or Tablet Recommended

Topics and Themes

Netflix's pivot to streaming; Most options are trashy; Find the best option and throw the rest out.

Reed Hastings, former head of Netflix, is living proof that only a few things really matter. The story of how Hastings built Netflix into a behemoth is partly a story of how he had numerous options presented to him, but ended up selecting the best possible path for the company. Everyone who loves to create art or music can gain valuable insights from understanding how Netflix became a household name.

How Netflix Crushed It

In the early 2000s, Netflix pretty much obliterated the movie rental market with its strategy to send DVD rentals to customers while waiving late fees. It probably put Blockbuster out of business.

Netflix was prospering. There was no reason to rock the boat. Reed Hastings, however, recognized the potential of the internet to wipe out the business model of renting physical DVDs when people wanted to watch movies at home.

He had a choice. He could maintain the existing business model based on DVD rentals, despite the drawbacks of sending physical items to customers who might not return them. Or, he could gradually leverage the expanding technology of the internet to deliver movies directly to people’s homes, instantly, with no extra effort required to return the DVD.

In other words, he could have chosen the many options that would bolster, defend, and protect Netflix's already successful DVD rental business, or he could slowly invest in a single option that had the potential to rewrite the script on how customers watched movies at home.

We all know the end to this story. Netflix is, well, Netflix. And there’s much we can learn from it as artists by analyzing it. To me, Netflix's pivot serves as an ideal example of how to filter through the thousands of bad options to get to the one option that truly crushes it.

Most Options Are Trashy

Options appear and disappear, freely, easily, and constantly. There’s no shortage of options! And to be super clear: Most of the options we have to choose from are not worth it. Very few of them have any significance at all.

Think of all the social media posts you scrolled through recently (ahem!). Which ones stand out in your mind? How many of them do you remember? I'd be surprised if you remember more than one or two posts (ahem, again!).

You had options. There's no shortage of social media posts. But if you can’t remember much about most of them, were they good options to invest your time in? Maybe doom-scrolling doesn't actually do a whole lot for us after all...

And that’s the thing: Most options are not worthy of your time.

Finding the Best Option Takes Time, Effort, and Courage

Reed Hastings invested time to uncover the internet’s potential for streaming. He invested resources into analytics and monitored the changing landscape of consumer behavior. He observed how technology improved enough to handle streaming. He moved forward because he saw the best possible route to grow Netflix. That kind of decision-making requires time, effort, and a boatload of courage.

But, just because making choices requires so much effort does not excuse us from taking every single option presented to us at face value. Let's not make a friend out of laziness.

As we create, be it music or art or film or whatever, we will encounter thousands of options. They will get delivered to us, constantly, whether we like it or not. Should we use this color? Should we use that chord progression? Should we shape the character’s arc in more ways?

Choosing gets easier when we remember that most of the options don't have any value. Only a few options truly matter. John Maxwell rightfully said: You can not overestimate the unimportance of practically everything.

Perhaps we, as artists, ought to save ourselves for the one extraordinary option that outshines all the others and lean into it. Perhaps we could do better to accept the tradeoffs of cutting away the insignificant in favor of the one brilliant and shining idea.

Reed Hastings certainly had plenty of insignificant options in front of him. He could have bolstered and propped up Netflix’s DVD rental business with all his resources. And yet? He chose the best option after quite a lot of deliberation and gradually invested in it. He made that decision thoughtfully, and now we all know Netflix.

In our work as creatives, let’s do the same. Let’s carefully discard as many trivial (or trashy or insignificant or stupid) options as possible. Let’s instead invest in the best options only, from here on out.

Let's do the art that we really want to do.

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This post was inspired and influenced by Essentialism by Greg McKeown. I totally recommend it.

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Reading Notes

4 Minute Read | Laptop or Tablet Recommended

Topics and Themes

Shifting to manageable, focused routines; Finding a bare minimum routine that works; Showing up.

My First Epic Fail as a Teacher

When I first began teaching, I told the same thing to every student:

“You must practice an hour a day to learn guitar.”

I remember the look on people’s faces… nearly expressionless, stone cold, and with a hint of fatigue. My guess is they were sizing up whether or not they wanted to learn from me.

I have wised-up.

I realized most people have little interest in practicing for an hour each day. They love to play, of course. But practice? Good, hard, deliberate practice? For an hour?

Nope.

People who came to learn guitar from me led full lives. They had families that deserved their attention. They had careers that occupied many hours of their weekdays. They wanted to learn guitar because they knew how awesome it would feel to play it, not because they wanted to become professional musicians.

Perhaps guilting people into practicing an hour a day wasn’t such a smart idea. I began saying this instead:

“If you want the most bang for your buck, practice [insert specific practice suggestion here] for five minutes each day until our next meeting.”

And the crazy thing? It worked. Why?

1. Students could easily carve out five minutes.

2. Students had a clear understanding of what to practice.

The Bare Minimum Routine

Recommending five minutes of practice to my students is an example of a bare minimum routine. A bare minimum routine is a manageable task that we can accomplish every single day regardless of our time, mood, or energy level. The bare minimum routine encourages us to go deep whenever we have the inspiration to stay at that task and play with it for longer. It also forgives us when we just don’t have the time.

Long before I had a catchy name for it, I recognized the importance of daily habits. I loved making investments in my skills. I found my skills grew fastest when I showed up every day to work on them. This included skills like orchestration, synthesizers, score study, and many others. The more I showed up to learn about these subjects, the easier composing became for me. It also became more fun. I felt better, stronger, and more directed.

The Struggle with Rigid Expectations

The problem occurred if I dramatically stated, “I will study orchestration/synths/films for an hour a day, no matter what.”

Inevitably, I had days when I really hated doing this. Like, I really fucking hated every damned second of some of those hours.

Setting aside an hour each day for a single task felt rigid, cumbersome, and frustrating especially on days when I had little time to spare. It didn't matter that I was studying something I loved. I was crushing the energy for learning.

At the same time, I didn’t want to skip practicing altogether. I genuinely cared about improving my musical skills. I struggled to find a reasonable balance.

Now that I have established bare minimum routines, everything has improved so much for the better. I can relax a little bit more.

For example, here’s my bare minimum for composing and piano for each day:

Two notes, each.

I write two notes on a page. I play two notes on the piano. That’s it. That’s my bare minimum routine. No matter what, I always show up and I always do that.

With the task completed, I was left open to write more music or play more piano, if I felt inspired.

On some days, I’d compose an entire page worth of notes. I’d end up playing piano for an hour straight, coming up with ideas that kinda blew my mind. There were moments when I could hardly tear myself away.

What happened on the other days when I wasn't so into it? I showed up and I did just two notes. I completed the bare minimum, and I walked away.

That’s the magic of the bare minimum routine. We select simple yet powerful tasks that we can easily accomplish, knowing they will benefit us in the long run. These tasks get completed quickly on days we don't have a lot of time, and they leave room for inspiration to take root on the days that we can stretch out a bit.

Embracing Daily Engagement

I love my creative routines now, even more. I value that I can make progress with a simple, daily engagement. In my opinion, that’s the very definition of mastery.

No matter what, I show up every day. That’s the point of a bare minimum routine.

You just show up.

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Reading Notes

7-9 Minute Read | Laptop or Tablet Recommended

Topics and Themes

The Artist's Way by Julia Cameron; A journey of a hard-working film producer exploring her creativity; The transformation we can expect from getting in touch with our creativity.

In 9th grade, I permanently borrowed The Artist's Way from my Mom. The title arrested my attention... I had no idea why, but I just needed to liberate it from her bookshelf and keep it for my very own. Sorry, Mom! Only later did I realize how pivotal that act would be for my personal and professional life.

If it weren’t for The Artist's Way, I probably wouldn’t have become a professional musician. It is widely regarded as one of the most influential books on the topic of creativity. In it, author Julia Cameron invites readers to roll up their sleeves and get to work opening the channel to greater creativity. The book does not wax poetic about the wonders of creativity or how the master artists were so creative. Instead it teaches readers how to dig in and become creative themselves through a 12-week program of self-exploration.

The Artist's Way ignited my creativity by teaching me that journaling, often referred to as the morning pages, helps unlock a creative mindset. At first, I struggled getting up before other members of my family, but I got used to it eventually. I began in earnest to write my morning pages. I began to enjoy the feel of the pen in my hand. I needed a place to vent my teenage frustrations anyways... a dual bonus!

I continued writing my morning pages (and going on artist dates) for many years. I still find time for both of them in my busy life, today. I find them indispensible for my creative process. Regardless of whether I'm working on a film score or an album, the common denominator has always been the daily task of the morning pages. They have nourished me for 30 years.

So, when my good friend Mary Beth Minnis asked me if I had ever read The Artist's Way, I couldn’t contain my excitement.

Mary Beth Minnis is an American movie producer known for her work in documentary films. She most recently collaborated on the projects Refuge, Juneteenth: Faith And Freedom, and Jump Shot, each of which addressed lesser-known stories that needed to be told. All of the films are worth watching. She’s currently working with directors Laura Waters Hinson and Claudia Myers on the film The Test, a film about a maintenance man at a Virginia retirement center who dreams of becoming a citizen so he can reunite with his wife and children in Ghana. With his future at stake, he enlists the help of two elderly residents to prepare for the biggest test of his life: the US Citizenship exam. I saw The Test at Austin Film Festival in 2023. It was the only movie from that year that made me cry. I highly recommend it.

Mary Beth’s career as a producer is highly competitive and energetically intense. She once told me she dedicates an average of three years to a single film. It requires a lot of her, but she loves it.

When Mary Beth casually asked me if I had ever read The Artist's Way, I spilled my guts about my absolute love for that book and all it can do for anyone who commits to it. I was also thrilled that my friend, this high-powered, absolutely badass film producer, seemed eager to explore creativity on a deeper level. I couldn’t help but offer to be a guide and accountability partner as she went through the book.

We agreed to meet up each week to discuss the book, chapter by chapter. I’d pester her about doing the morning pages and the artist's dates, and we’d move forward to the next chapter.

At first, Mary Beth had a little trouble fitting the morning pages into her busy life. She also had a little trouble grasping why she needed to do the artist's date. To provide context, the artist's date is a scheduled hour or two full of fun. It’s about doing something interesting to our inner artist in an easy, effortless, playful way. It often feels like we are wasting time doing it. At first, she didn't see the point of doing it.

Yet, she kept on reading the book, doing the morning pages, and going on the artist's dates. She dug in! She had no idea what was going to happen. Me? I was super excited. I knew I was in for a big surprise and I couldn't wait until it revealed itself.

Gradually, moments of spontaneous creativity burst into her life. One day, a recipe for a cake unexpectedly came to her mind. She approached it with a sense of curiosity and playfulness. She explored it without pressure, without needing to complete it immediately. She gave the recipe the space to breathe and become what it wanted to be.

Let’s back up: You need to remember that Mary Beth Minnis does not slack off in her job as a film producer. It was quite a juxtaposition for her to explore a recipe so casually, in such a carefree way.

Instead of saying, “I have to get this cake done or I’m not creating,” Mary Beth allowed herself to have some fun exploring the recipe of that cake. She flowed. She adjusted how much more, or less, of each ingredient she wanted in the cake. Eventually, she found just the right balance. She put almost no efforting into the entire process.

Before she knew it, she had a cake recipe that she liked. She baked the same cake for friends at a potluck and didn’t tell anyone it was hers. The cake vanished in a few minutes. Everyone raved about it. She began to share the recipe with friends who baked it and loved it. She felt like she might be onto something!

Then, even more magic happened: New recipes flowed to her in a remarkably easy way. An ingredient she used in one recipe inspired another. The same thing happened, over and over again. She was thrilled! She was opening up and enjoying the process of creating new recipes just for the sake of creating, and they were pouring out of her imagination.

Again, I want to underscore a really important point: It's super difficult to be a film producer. Film producers are by-and-large responsible for the success (or failure) of a film. They think in hard terms of fiduciary responsibility, management, and business productivity. They corral people together to get a project done on time and under budget. Mary Beth excels at producing films. But, since her involvement was more on the practical side of filmmaking, she doubted her ability to create.

And yet, she ended up completely immersed in the process of creation. It just wasn’t in a way that she expected. Perhaps she thought that creativity was reserved for those with that innate creative gene. Still, she found herself lost in the joy of creating new recipes. I didn’t expect it either! And that’s the point. We never know what we'll create until we are open and carefree enough to try.

I can’t help but marvel at her transformation. What a joy to witness!

If Mary Beth's journey resonated with you, I humbly recommend The Artist's Way. This book will teach you how to embrace your creativity if you commit to it for the 12 weeks it asks of you.

It’s worth it for the joy, alone.

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Reading Notes

1 Minute Read | Laptop or Tablet Recommended

Topics and Themes

Set the intension; Ask for what you want

Can you handle disappointment if you don’t get what you want, even after asking for it?

Even after setting a New Years Intention and checking on it's progress?

I say go ahead and ask for it, no matter how ambitious, no matter the outcome.

Why?

If you don’t ask, the answer is likely no.

Plus if you don’t ask, how can you expect to get it?

More so, how do you know if you really want it if you’re not willing to say it and own it?

Stating your intention is powerful. It means what you want has been stated. It means there’s energy behind what you want.

It means it's out there, man.

It’s not all bad news if you don’t get what you want…

If you don’t get what you want, it might just not be the right time. You never know: Something better could even be on the way.

It’s okay to feel disappointed if you don't get what you want, but remember those feelings won’t last forever.

When you get through that, set the same intention again.

It’s better to be an honest dreamer than a bitter cynic.

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I recently stumbled upon a couple of Christmas songs in my back catalog. They’re quite slow and reminiscent of "The Red House Painters," of the most incredible slowcore bands ever.

For subscribers of Fire, Fire, Red Star Down only.

Reading Notes

6-8 Minute Read | Laptop or Tablet Recommended

Topics and Themes

Context in Marketing; Behind-the-scenes of Archive Volume Three; Fixing audio with Izotope RX; Stories overpower recording quality

I have to be mindful to avoid falling into a common musician self-promotion pitfall. You know the one, especially if you have a friend who's a musician:

“You should check out my music. I’m on Spotify, Apple Music, and all the streaming services. Tell me what you think.”

I'll admit, I've done this to many friends! The last time I complained about how promotion like this doesn't really work (because it doesn't), a friend of mine patiently reminded me that context is everything in marketing. Paraphrased:

"If I met a musician on the street and he said, 'Hey check out my music,' I wouldn't do it. But if he spoke more generally about the ideas surrounding music that he likes, if he talks about things about music that he gets fired up about, and then told me how his music fits into that context, I'm far more likely to check it out.”

It was so simple that I forgot it for a moment: Context means everything.

I recently began these Behind-The-Scenes articles to give some context (the first one was for Lodern by Wicked Cities From A Distance). They’re similar to the commentary you used to get with DVD releases: You learn about how the music was crafted and hopefully gain some insight into what inspired it. And of course, if you dig the music, it's great for both of us. If you’re not into the music, you might be interested to see how it all came together, and what inspired the album in the first place.

Today, I want to do a behind-the-scenes look about Grande Valley Auction Incident's new album Archive Volume Three:

The origin story of Archive Volume Three

As I mentioned before on this blog, I recently unearthed some old tapes in the closet of my studio. My curiosity got the better of me. I had to know what was on them. I dusted off my old cassette tape player and popped one of those tapes in. I was horrified by what came out of the speakers.

The horror gave way to a little bit of shock, which led quickly to annoyance. Couldn't I have done better than that?!?

After a couple of days of mental back-and-forth, I became curious about the songs. Isn't there a curious force, a weird magic behind these recordings? Couldn't I possibly fix them up? Couldn't I use it as a chance to get better at audio engineering? I was willing to try. Besides, things were far getting too serious and I needed a chance to poke fun at myself a little bit. What better way to have a little fun than to publish some excessively personal, depressing songs recorded almost twenty years ago on a terrible cassette recorder?!?

The process of repairing the audio

The first problem I ran into was fixing the audio because the songs were recorded on a subpar cassette recorder using an internal microphone. It would be generous to say that the sound quality was... rough. I needed to eliminate the hum of the gears and the grinding sounds picked up by the internal microphone. It took some experimentation to figure out how to get rid the audio of the nasty artifacts, but Izotope RX10 ended up the winner:

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Izotope RX10 DeNoising Plugins

Since both the voice and guitar were recorded in one take with just one microphone, I couldn’t adjust the vocal volume seperately afterwords. I had to grab the Master Rebalance plugin for Ozone 9 to boost the vocals back up:

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Master Rebalance plugin for Izotope Ozone 9

Finally, I needed to control the “ss” sound in the vocals, often called sibilance. If sibilence gets out of control, any "ss" I sang would sound harsh, piercing, jarring, and downright bad. I relied upon Ozone’s Dynamic EQ module and Soothe2 by Oeksound for "De-Essing," and it sounded passable:

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Ozone’s Dynamic EQ module and Soothe2 by Oeksound

When I approached each track individually, I needed to surgically remove offensive frequencies lest they take over the mix. Neutron’s EQ module allowed me to do just that. For example, on the third song, Generational Fails, I made these adjustments:

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Neutron’s EQ module on Generational Fails

Overall, the changes I made up to this point accounted for 80% of the results. The remaining processing involved addressing smaller issues on each track and adding light touches to the master track. I enjoyed figuring out how to make this sound as appealing as possible. To be brutally honest, I don’t think I achieved much. Lo-Fi music is still lo-fi music, and you can't really polish a turd.

The origin story makes the music interesting (hopefully)

Still, despite the white-hot emotional mess I was in when I recorded these songs, I feel a tiny bit proud of them. I try to remember that it isn’t really the recording quality that matters. I mean, sure, we musicians all want our music to sound really dope. Yet, throughout the history of recorded music, there have been a great number of songs that told such great stories that listeners looked past the poor recording quality and loved them anyway.

Not like that’s gonna happen with Archive Volume Three! Let’s be realistic here!

Putting my bias aside, perhaps the story of these songs transcends the bad quality of the recordings... that sincerity about what is true, open, unembellished, and raw in life. Maybe the strangeness of my life filters through the music. Maybe the isolation I felt echoes around after a listen or two. Maybe there's something endearing about watching a train wreck happen in real time. I highly doubt it, though. I can only be certain that these songs are proof that I used to wear my entire heart on my sleeve, and damn, it was pretty heavy.

I could barely conceal my feelings from anyone during that time. I was in a dark place. These songs documented that time of my life almost too perfectly, and maybe that's why I was so embarrassed about them at first. I don’t mind sharing them now. I guess I have enough distance! It’s fun to look back and shudder at the dumbass I used to be, and I’m sure that when I’m 60, I’ll feel the same way about who I am now.

Spotify | Apple Music | Bandcamp | Amazon

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Spotify | Apple Music | Bandcamp | Amazon