When you are singer, songwriter, producer, sound engineer and play all the parts there’s an awful lot of hats to wear. There’s a lot of tasks where you will be lacking. Jack of all trades, master at none. That’s ok. Yet, the real problem I think is when you need to be your A&R, label boss, manager and maybe even booking agent too.

You really are bound to fail, aren’t you. So, in some ways there is no reason to beat myself up for not being able to bring all my projects to completion. Very few in the history of recorded music would have been able to wear all those hats and get something done (while keeping a dayjob and being a present parent).

Most had a team to help them out, many had outside pressure that forced them to commit to deadlines etc.

In my case, I think the external pressure is what I’m lacking the most. When there’s a deadline, there’s no choice, you have to ship your work, finished or not. The other day I heard of some independent artist that booked mastering services to be done on specific dates and payed for it in advance. That way there was a deadline that meant losing money if he didn’t send his mixes over.

I’m not familiar with the play by George Bernhard Shaw, but I often think about the quote “‘Those who can, do; those who can’t, teach.” Not the least, when it comes to all the different podcasts I keep listening too. Frankly, a lot of them are made by musicians that haven taken up some kind of teaching to free themselves from writer’s block by staying busy with something else.

And in a way, writing a blog entry here isn’t that different. Pondering some creative inability instead of writing a lyric.

Just as I wrote a beat/jam a day I think I need to give myself some lyric writing challenge. It’s really a bottleneck for me. A later challenge might be some every other day activity. Creating 15 jams a month with some recorded vocal.

Happy Midsummer, dear reader.