I don’t mean your reasoned, logical, “take every option and weigh each up rationally” judgement.

I’m talking about your animal, gut, in the heat of the moment judgement.

Because there’s 2 ways of making music.

One is to make your musical choices according to logic.

Reasoning. Cooly and rationally deciding between your available options.

Making sure you are making the “right” decisions.

The other is to trust your gut.

Go with your animal intuition. Let your unconscious mind run wild and go with it’s choices.

Do you have the courage to do that?

Because I want you to think about your audience. Your listeners.

Think about the way they will listen to your music.

Where they will be, what they will be doing when they hear your music. The state they will be in when they are listening to it.

What effect you want your music to have on them?

So let’s assume you are making music [mainly] for the dancefloor.

The state your listener is going to be in is highly unlikely to be analytical, rational and reasoning.

It’ll be much closer to the animal, emotional, visceral…

Unless you’re making music simply to impress other music producers.

Or chin strokers.

(Which is a perfectly valid source of motivation – for sure.

Although a sure way to impress both other music producers and chin strokers is to write something that they can’t help but lose their shizz to.)

So – if the vast majority of your listeners are (hopefully) going to be in quite a “froth” when enjoying your music…

…which method of making music is more likely to achieve this?

Which is more likely to affect and excite the animal, visceral, “in the moment” part of your audience’s brain?

By exclusively using your logical, rational mind?

“Thinking through” every single tiny decision?

Or by trusting your gut?

(I know which I’m putting my money on.)

How to Put Intuition Front & Centre

There’s a whole module in my full program dedicated to these 2 different methods of making creative decisions.

Because for sure – both have their place.

But I’ve noticed that most music producers almost exclusively rely on just one.

(and which you rely on will largely depend on what you do day to day in your job – of you have one. But that’s a whole other can of worms I’ll get into another time.) 🙂

Which do you tend to use?

By learning and practising how to use both, will mean you make much more music – much more often.

(Because when you get stuck with one you’ll know how to use another effectively.)

And it also leads to making more powerful music.

(Because you’re more likely to get those darned chin strokers off their asses!) 😉

But for now – here’s a ridiculously simple technique I used a heap to unlock my gut intuition.

Particularly when I found myself getting stuck in “analysis paralysis”.

The “Just Go With Your Gut” Method

This is the closest I could get to “free writing” when making music.

(Where you just write words completely freely on paper without allowing your conscious questioning mind to get in the way.)

So for an entire studio session I’d simply go with the first idea, sound, part or decision that popped into my head.

Never second guess myself.

Never try another option.

Just go with it and see where it lead.

The result? The process was much quicker. It was more fun.

And yes – the music was (usually) MUCH better!

Try it. It’s very simple. But it’s also a blast.

(This works a treat when DJing too. Every single time – always put on next the first track that comes into your head. Scary. But awesome. Cue crowd going potty.)

There is a problem though…

Using this method sometimes means getting a little carried away “in the moment”.

Letting your imagination and “animal brain” run free can lead to putting way too much into the track and getting confused.

Not the point.

Because when this happens, you can’t help but get that rational logical brain in to take over and make sense of the mess.

So to avoid the mess – use a framework.

Write your parts “in” an arrangement template you’ve made already.

Because then you’re much less likely to go off on a creative flight of fancy.

And here’s a fantastic little tool to do just that.

With it – you’ll create the structure of the music first, before you create any parts.

You’ll then write your parts within that structure.

These boundaries will (ironically) give you the freedom to let your imagination and creativity run free.

Without disappearing down that dreaded music production rabbit hole.

So what’s your preferred method of making music?

Do you cooly and rationally weigh the options? Or splurge the contents of your brain into the DAW?

Do you use analysis or insight?

How would it help you to develop the skill of using the other more often?

Here’s the one piece of advice I wish someone had told me early in my 17 year solo music production career…

I figured it out about 10 years in! (Yep I’m a tad slow.)

And it would have saved me a TON of studio time and heartache…

First, think about a song which took you AGES to finish. The track you’ve worked on for the longest. Maybe even something you’ve still not finished.

Now, make a rough guess for each of these questions:

1. Over how long have you listened to this track?

A week? A month? Longer?

2. How many times did you listen to it from beginning to end?

100s? 1000s?? More?

3. How many hours you spent listening to tiny sections of it looping on repeat?

10s? 100s?? More?

4. How long have you spent listening to your track feeling:

• uncertain
• confused
• overwhelmed
• frustrated
• anxious
• angry
• scared
• bored

Got your answers? Great.

Now, think of one of your favourite pieces of music (not by you.)

A song that changed your life. A track that couldn’t be any better. A piece of music you LOVE.

Now imagine listening to this “perfect” piece of music:

1. For as long as you listened to your track…

2. As many times as you listened to your track…

3. For as many hours looping tiny sections as you did your track…

4. Feeling uncertain / confused / overwhelmed / frustrated / anxious / angry / scared / bored of or about it.

Really imagine the emotions you felt while making your track (and so started to associate with it) linked to your favourite piece of music.

Done all that? 🙂

Now answer this:

If you’d listened to your favourite piece of music for as long, as many times, in as much detail and in the same mental state as your track…

What would you think of it? How would you feel about it? Would you still love it?

No way! You’d probably hate it. Maybe even loathe it. You might never want to listen to it again!

Would you still be 100% sure it’s one of the best pieces of music ever written? In fact, would you have any clue about it’s objective quality?

You’d have virtually no idea.

Despite the fact that now – you objectively know it is a brilliant piece of music.

So let’s think about this for a second…

How does this VERY popular assumption:

“more time spent always leads to higher quality”

..fit with what I’ve asked you to think about?

After going through an extended, hellish, tortuous creative process, how can you know how good it is?

Is going around in circles, banging your head against a brick wall, forcing it out likely to result in a quality piece of music?

Or are you more likely to ruin it?

Why put yourself through that pain? Because one thing’s for darn sure.

If you’re a solo producer – it is a TERRIBLE way to make quality music.

(I know. I tried the long, painful, tortured method. A LOT. Until I figured this out.) 😉

So here’s a great way to think about it…

To make great music you’re in a race – to the DEATH.

This race is against BOREDOM.

Boredom with the track you’re working on.

Thing is about boredom – he’s patient. Committed. He’s got stamina and won’t give up!

He’s always there, just waiting for his moment to pounce. No matter how great the music, no matter how excited you are, no matter the 1000s of ideas you have now. If you keep in the race too long…

HE WILL WIN.

And you already know, once boredom’s winning? It’s so much harder to finish! Most often you’ve either got to ditch it or wait for months to get some distance from it.

(Although – if boredom has won already? You could try this…)

Bottom line: you’ve got to do everything you can to BEAT BOREDOM.

Here’s My 5 Boredom Beating Rules

1. DO finish it as FAST as possible.

I’m not suggesting you become careless.

My number 1 mission is to help you finish much better music, not make bad music.

But you’ve got to ask yourself – what is the best way to achieve that aim? It probably isn’t tweaking that track into the grave!

So certainly when you’re working alone – after a certain point you are extremely likely to be making it worse.

(This “point” is usually later when you’re collaborating – because then there’s someone else who has another perspective.)

2. DO take regular breaks.

Many people (for years – myself included) have this idea that they have to “get into the vibe” and stay there for hour upon hour. Sure, you can make great music this way (and if you’re totally vibing – keep at it), but as human beings this isn’t how we best work.

If you can – work more regularly (daily is best) for shorter sessions. And certainly:

STOP your session while you’re still excited!

(Not when your eyes are on stalks…)

NOTE: If you’ve been big on mammoth sessions, this might take some getting used to!

3. DO NOT try every possible sound & part “in case there’s a better one”.

Yep – sometimes you’ve just got to go with what’s “good enough” FOR NOW.

Put your creative momentum over and above every single element having to be earth shatteringly brilliant at every moment during your process.

Remember – you’re in A RACE.

Don’t force it. Just let it come out as it does.

(You can always come back to it.) 🙂

4. DO NOT listen to it looping on repeat in the background for no reason.

When you’re making a cup of tea, checking Facebook (in fact – turn off the internet while creating), flicking through sounds, even editing parts (unless you have to hear it in context).

STOP IT PLAYING!

Obviously sometimes it has to be playing, but you’ll be amazed HOW OFTEN IT DOESN’T.

So stop it. Do what needs to be done. Then press play to check what you have done.

(Just this rule alone can give you a big head start against the boredom.)

5. DO use proven methods and strategies to cut down your options and keep up your momentum.

There are loads of ways of doing this.

You could decide what you need to do to the track outside your studio, at a different time in a different place…

You could use this process to avoid the endless loop, and have a ready made arrangement to write your parts into…

You could limit yourself to a certain number of plugins or synths…

Just remember – the human brain has a very limited and constantly depleting daily capacity to make good decisions. The more tired it gets, the longer each decision will take (and greater chance it’s a bad decision!)

So the more decisions you can make beforehand, the more you can limit your options – the quicker (and better) your creative decisions will tend to be.

And the more progress you will make in those short sessions – so you leave boredom in the dust! 🙂

But even if you follow these rules…

I get it. Sometimes you’re still gonna lose the race. Sometimes the sheer volume of stuff you’ve gotta do means boredom beats you.

So then you have 2 choices…

1. Call in the undertakers. Put it down to experience and bury it on your “graveyard” hard drive – along with all those other unfinished tracks…
2. JUST GET IT DONE. Remember you loved it once and do what needs to be done to finish it.

Remember – precisely no one will listen to your track for as long, in the same way, with the same perspective as you. In fact the majority of listeners (by far) will be listening to it for the first time!

So you have to do everything you can to finish your track using “ears which haven’t listened”…

But this is very hard to do…

Because once you’ve lost this race – you’ll never get back that delicious excitement you felt when you first started the track.

Once boredom has won – you can’t rely on that initial momentum to get it done. But that doesn’t mean all is lost!

You’ve simply got to get more systematic about it. Which is why I started using this simple method for finishing those tracks you’re stuck on…