A Tale of a Failed Multitasker
It’s 7am in Times Square and I’m just waking up in the B Room at Penthouse Studios. The faint smell of old wood, weed coming in from the rooftop, and the subtle sounds of honking cars are coming in through the window. J DVNL, an artist I’ve been developing, is cuddle up next to his bag fast asleep while Rivers who engineered the session has also fallen at the desk. My phone is buzzing from all the notifications from my project management tool along with my calendar. “Aight, y’all I am out!” I rush downstairs to catch the D train hoping to catch a couple more Z’s and then it hits me. “Damn, I still gotta send four emails worth of reference tracks, I’ve got a meeting for a sync opportunity, and I told my wife we’d be going to the mall today.” Ladies and gentlemen, this is about the time I failed to multitask and how I learned to become better at it.
Either Super Fast or Not at All: Life is full of oxymorons and being a producer is one in of itself. While working on a two pop singles, a spoken word album, and a rap single I learned very quickly that I can’t pace myself at all. For me, the best option was to press the gas all the way. Now, I am in no way saying that you should push yourself to exhaustion everyday. If you’re going hard January 1st you better find a way to keep that same pace at least until Thanksgiving. Plenty of people give up toward the end of January hoping for some motivation to keep going. It never works. If you’re going to crank it up why not live by a schedule. Things turned around for me when I scheduled time to work on these multiple projects and not cram them together. When I’m there, I only focus on that one thing but I push myself to get it done as soon as possible. I do make mistakes but the quick turn around time and being able to take feedback is what has allowed me take on more projects. You want to be a professional artist/producer? Then learn how to solve problems quickly and learn from your mistakes.
Plan Ahead: You don’t have to release every single record you’ve ever created all at the same time. It’s okay to space them out. In fact, DSP’s like Spotify prefer it that way with their new algorithm. If you’re the type of person that’s always working on different singles and albums you should create a release strategy that will allow you to load up on songs. If you’re reading this now on November 30th, 2021 then you should already have music you’ll be releasing December 2022. Working on multiple ideas allows you to flow freely and make adjustments when needed. Found a new melody that would work perfect on song 8 on project four that won’t come out for another five months? You can do it. Want to add three more songs to that collaboration EP you’ve been working on that’ll come out next September? No problem. Trying to manage all of this at the same time would be extremely stressful and I wouldn’t recommend it. Write down your ideas, record demos, plan out what will be released when, and start knocking out each idea until they are ready. We’re professionals, and we’re going to act like it.
If It’s Not Great, Scrap It: Your brand is based on the quality of music you release. If your vocals aren’t up to par, the mix is trash, or the beat is too loud you’re going to be judged by it. Let me tell it to you straight. If someone hears your music and they are turned off by it, you’ve pretty much lost them as a fan. At least for a very long time. Don’t believe me? Remember back in high school, or college, when one of your fellow students sent you a link to their mixtape/SoundCloud and it didn’t even sound good? What did you do, honestly? You politely moved onto the next artist and never mentioned it to the person that sent you their music. Now every time you see their content on your timeline you swipe up. You don’t even give the audio time to play because you’ve already made your judgement. It’s okay, just know that everyone who feels the same about your music do it also.
Work on creating systems that will allow you to create at a high level. You should have a pretty good barometer on what’s good and great. If you’re looking to create fans, create great. Whatever you did that night in the studio you’re going to need to do it again. Now, I am not condoning some of the vices people may make take to create that level of music. I could give a long speech on how it was never the substance that allowed you to create that record in the first place but it was your ability to trust your gut. Set the bar, and anything that falls below it can sit nicely in a hard drive that’ll never see the light of day.
These three tips should get you going as the purpose of this blog is to always give you actionable steps. Move fast, plan ahead, and set the bar of what you think is excellent. Everything else will fall into place. You’re going to make mistakes and the faster you make them the faster you can correct them.
Fall forward.
