This current lockdown has highlighted just how much I procrastinate! If you go online to any social media platform (Facebook/Twitter/Instagram/Youtube) at the moment, you are likely to see a massive surge of musical content whether it be drum covers, DJ livestreams or online lessons.
This situation is the perfect time for any creative person, especially musicians, to commit a large portion of any given day in to their craft, yet I have found myself, for the most part, sinking numerous hours every day in to the best game of all time: Football Manager (FM).
Right now, as I write this, I can hear Mr Nic Holson shouting at his laptop telling me to be more productive and get on with some proper work. God knows the rest of the band have been very productive writing new songs, adding/finishing off ideas for current songs we have and planning content for the foreseeable future since we cannot perform live due to the current situation.
It all boils down to self discipline, and unfortunately, I have very little! Yes, I have done some work over the past week and a half that is music related such as a couple of online drum lessons, recording rough drum videos and helping Nic on a project that needed drums to be recorded, but it’s difficult to resist the call of FM when you know you’re sitting in the champions league semi-final with Dunfermline, as reigning champions, selling Brazilian regens left, right and centre for multi-million pounds worth of profit.
After a rough calculation, in the past 10 days, I reckon I’ve been awake for 120-130 hours and I have played Football Manager for 60 of those hours. I think I have maybe spent about 30-40 hours sat in front of my iMac working on music content and after a quick look through what I’ve actually achieved, it’s bewildering to see where that amount of time has gone!
A quick look back over some texts to Mr Holson does show that I spent a good 4 or 5 of those hours working on those two drum tracks for his project, most of which was used to edit the tracks, and had I been using a swear jar next to me, I’d have more than enough money put aside for next month’s rent!
I do have my electronic drum kit (Roland TD25KV) set up in my bedroom at the moment so I would like to think that the amount of work I will achieve over the next week or two, lockdown dependant, will increase because I have been saying for literally years that I would like to get back in to music production like I used to do at university.
Those who know me well know that I am easily distracted and quite often will go out my way to do as little work as possible… sorry Sages! I regularly find that it boils down to a lack of patience, especially when it comes to using my DAW (Digital Audio Workstation) of choice: Logic. It is a fantastic piece of music software but it drives me up the wall!
One of my biggest issues is that I will have an idea in my head, and when I can’t replicate that to the standard of a professional song, I lose motivation. I know for a fact that I am not the only musician to suffer from this, but it can be soul destroying! For example, I have seen myself spend a good afternoon sitting on Logic creating a rolling baseline for a Trance track and then spending the next two or more hours trying to create the perfect lead synth patch for my idea. Soon I get frustrated to the point of wanting to give up and go listen to some professionally produced Trance music and question why I can’t replicate work of that quality.
Now, I know for a fact that this issue could be solved by watching some tutorials, trying to implement those lessons and dedicating the time to actually getting better at song writing and production, and believe me, I have spent more hours than I could tally up in the past 5 years since I left university trying to do so. It’s just damn difficult!
Procrastinating 101.
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