do, or do not.

-yoda

I began holding off on this email because I had some pretty cool things that I’ve been working on that I was excited to show you But, as these things tend to go, sometimes the things you make get axed, they get postponed, or they get put in slapped into purgatory forever.

That’s kind of the way this line of work goes, though. And if you’re in a creative role, you know it. Get hired for the job, get paid for the job, never see the fruit of the job again.

I’ve met dudes who got hired to write entire drafts of feature films—multiple drafts, revisions and all—and that script is just….sitting there. Yeah they got a paycheck, but that’s all.

It’s discouraging without the right perspective. We tend to tie ourselves so personally to the things that we make, so when it doesn’t get played or it gets returned with a thousand notes, that feels like a slight against us.

It isn’t a slight against you. You get paid to make the piece, not play the piece.

You get paid to write the script, not usher it into production.

You get paid to compose the score, not see it to theatrical release.

You get paid to light the shot, not color it in post.

The second the thing you make leaves your hands, it’s not yours any longer. It is now the client’s, and if they want to shape it into something that isn’t what you want it to be, or they want to ball it up and throw it into the trash, that’s fine. So long as the check clears.

You have to adopt this kind of mentality, or else you will find yourself a bitter little mess. It’s the part about making for a living that nobody told me.

It is a wonder that I get to make, and that making is what earns me a living. I will never, never take it for granted. And I will never stop encouraging those like me, or those who want to be like me, to keep going.

But just know that this is part of it. You’ll have pieces trashed the night before. They’ll scrap your cut. They’ll want you to make all of the greens red. You’ll fight some of it, you’ll have no choice for the rest.

And that’s okay. You aren’t paid to play the piece. You’re just paid to make it.

The playing may feed you, but let the making fill you.

I released a little sketch this week? Last week? You can listen here.

I called it Mas Blue because that’s the color this one feels like to me. Haha that’s why I call any of these sketches what they’re called.

I started this sketch like two years ago because I was trying out a bunch of background pad ideas, and ended up sort of bouncing all of them together and making a little mishmash of looped sounds in the background.

Every now and then I’d come back and add a thing here or try a melody there, and then this week I decided “oh whatever, let’s just make a draft.”

I didn’t labor much over the melody. Just played in Mas Blue.

After our busy season every summer, at work we take a whole week off. Some people go on vacation, some people stay home; I rest by making.

I’ve had this EP brewing in the back of my brain for like 15 years at this point. I’ve written and tossed out and rewritten and ignored songs from this project for about as long as I’ve been making things, and it’s just never felt correct.

So I figured I’d take the week that was gifted to me and see if I could just bang it out.

I got four songs to places I was happy with and demoed 2 of them out.

I’ve been updating this little landing page as the sort of creative hub of the project.

As it goes, the moment life began again after the week off, I haven’t had enough time to even breathe, so I haven’t made THAT much more progress on them, but I am happy with where things are, and I feel confident moving forward.

I can’t wait to finish out demos and then schedule studio time with all of my friends to make the EP come to life.

(that said, if you’re looking to swap something I do with some graphic design work, I’d love to chat haha)

I have never really been the type to play the guitar on the internet, but a bit ago, I snarked on Underoath and showed off one of my favorite riffs on Instagram, and some people liked it.

Anyway, that’s how Kitchen Riffs was born. The entire point is that I’m covering or riffing on or jamming through songs that I like, and doing it all live in my kitchen.

I don’t pretend to be awesome at guitar, and I don’t pretend to be awesome at production, and I don’t know the first thing about content creation, but I’m having the time of my life with it.

I already have friends ready to rip keyboard solos in their kitchen for it, to come over and play the violin for me, etc. I can’t wait to cram as much noise as I can into my little apartment kitchen.

And this is the only takeaway I want someone to have from them: “If this total idiot can cook up bangers in his kitchen, so can I.”

That’s the only thing I want anyone to take away from anything I do. If I can do this, so can you, and you can do it better. You might just need the motivation to start.

So start.

Anyway, that’s the end of this.

I hope you have a splendid week, and I hope you continue to make things. It’s worth it.