Life it's weird. It's probably our main inspiration for music creation And yet ironically it's the main thing that gets in the way of it. Hi folks. I'm Mike and I hope you well I reckon there are three main aspects of life which make music creation a real challenge Now I'm gonna leave the most significant of those until last because I feel like the other two really feed into it Now talking about the realities of life I have to say this video would not be possible if it weren't for our sponsored distro kid There's a VIP discount link for them in the description down below in case you want to release your music to the world Now let's talk about our first challenge This is something that I think we all have issues with at some point in our life and that is Money have you ever noticed when people say I'm broke they may mean one of two different things on one hand They may mean I've got zero or just a few dollars in my bank account I won't be getting any more money anytime soon and when I do it's all gonna go on Bills, etc. On the other hand and you may have friends like this when people say I'm broke They may mean I just got back from vacation I just bought a new car and cash flows a little bit tight until next month when I get paid again I'd like to focus more on the first end of the spectrum because it's a place where I'm afraid musicians find themselves Quite often and it's not helped by people like me Music youtubers who surround themselves with gear Implying that you need all of this to create great music. Let's get this straight. That is not True most of the gear we have is there for workflow reasons Just makes things a little bit quicker and doesn't improve audio quality at all And if it does improve audio quality is just by a tiny teensy little bit Okay, so having no money doesn't mean you can't create great quality Music now if you've really got no money You may want to reconsider Something that you may be watching this video on or may have in your pocket and that's a thing you normally call a Phone, but in fact, this is usually a pretty powerful touch screen computer Which happens to have a phone app on it now if you look in the stores for these devices whether it's Android or iOS you're gonna find either some free or some pretty cheap apps from music creation now Especially if you're creating electronic music or music, which is only gonna use virtual instruments Maybe soundtrack music you can go a long way with these devices Where they do for sure is on audio quality, especially when recording the built-in mics Pretty horrible and the converters are pretty horrible So when you do get a little bit of money if you want to record some actual audio, there's two things I think you really kind of need and I'm gonna suggest some things on a budget The first thing is an audio interface a lot of people don't realize that with many modern audio interfaces You can plug them into things like phones or tablets as well as laptop and desktop computers Okay, when you do that with one of these devices you Significantly improve the recording quality. Okay, so I would recommend something like the focus right scarlet 2i 2 for example Proven great audio interface and great if you're on a bit of a budget now If you actually want to record some sound though, you're gonna need a microphone I won't be around the bush on a low budget. I'd recommend the Audio Technica 80 2020 a large diaphragm condense microphone great for recording vocals and also things like you know acoustic guitars and things like that those two things are gonna have a Significant impact on the quality of your music if you follow the links in the description down below You're gonna find I think they're gonna come in it certainly like less than around about $250. Okay now you want to be able to hear what you're doing And I think just for the time being you can get by on the headphones that you're already using But when you do get a little bit more money, it's probably best to get some Studio what we call studio headphones and on a budget. I'd recommend the Sennheiser HD to 80 pros Okay, now once you've got those three pieces of equipment You can create an awful lot of music and rather than invest more money into your studio There's another thing which is gonna help you much much more and it leads us to our second challenge and that is Time now although money is not technically Infinite there is an awful lot of it out there me and you just don't have it at the moment But there is a sense that you can always get some more money time is very different. It's very Finite it's limited. You can't get any more which means you have to manage What you've got now a big chunk of it is taken up with survival stuff So sleeping eating and doing things that you normally do in the restroom Okay, another chunk of it is things which are a little bit more flexible, but basically things like school Work and things like that and then the other chunk of it Usually you can find some flexibility in it, but you're probably gonna need to ask yourself some tough Questions, okay, things like did I really need to binge watch that whole series on Netflix last night? Or maybe it's um, you've been spent a lot of time on the sofa just Flicking, okay, maybe it's tiktok or Facebook or maybe it's that computer game which took up all Saturday and Sunday last weekend. I'm not meaning to judge you at all I do all of those things at different times But I think we have to ask ourselves. Honestly. What do we want? Do we really want to create music? Well, that means that we have to manage that time now I'd actually recommend to figure out some time slot that you've got regularly in your week Perhaps it's two hours on a Friday evening or something like that Wall it off and put a sign on it, which is do not disturb What that means is if you get invited out for a coffee with a friend and they say hi I can either do Wednesday or Friday you say I'll do Wednesday because Friday is my music creation night or my music Recording night. Okay, so you just want to make it a little bit inflexible and Actually prioritise except of course for things like to weddings or funerals I mean weddings you can leave out probably you should go to most funerals I guess one thing that doesn't take a lot of time or money is using distro kid to release your music for less than $23 per year you can upload and distribute an unlimited amount of Original music. Okay, and if you follow the link in the description down below You're gonna get a further 7% off of that amazing price now amongst all of the thousands of stories I've heard from you guys over the years. There's one common theme and that is Musicians who have set aside music for years or even decades for one particular thing and that is Family and if we're gonna be specific about this kids kids take up a lot of the first two things we've talked about money and Time so it's really Understandable that you didn't get to make much music during that period of your life I just want to quickly get this out of the way because I sometimes think there may be a Negative connotation to this that somehow people might think that you made a rather mundane choice and gave up on your dreams I don't think that at all to be honest with you. I want to give you a round of applause You prioritise your children over your own Desires I think it's an honorable thing to do and those children will be super glad that you made that choice Okay, so with that said I do think there are some choices Amongst that that maybe I may have made a little bit differently And let me know in the comments down below if you may have made a slightly different choice after you've heard my advice Now I give this kind of parenting advice Really really cautiously first of all your parenting choices are very personal They're influenced by all kinds of situations and even cultural Things etc. So look, I don't want the last thing I want you to feel is that if my advice is different to what you've been doing That I'm criticising your choices I am not last thing I want to do is make anyone feel bad about their choices. Okay, but here's a Possibility I'd like to put to you because I feel this is a personal opinion That sometimes we can over give to our children. I'm not talking about babies or toddlers They're very much in need of our protection and our care fairly intensively, but let's say from Let's say from five years Upwards where they can be left alone perhaps for an hour or something at a time reasonably safely, okay, and I'd like you to consider that it may be a healthy choice Perhaps just once a day or maybe just a couple of times a week again to wall off a little bit of time and say This is mine. Okay. I've known some parents who do this They go off to a room Perhaps they're going to work out and they literally put a post that note on the door and they say do not disturb except for You know fire or another health emergency. Okay Personally, I think that's a pretty healthy choice for both Parties involved the parents and the kids. I think the parents get to still Maintain being a person apart from just being a mum or a dad And also the children get to learn to respect other people's time a little bit Okay, children are great, but they can be quite egocentric. Okay, so Look again, this is just my personal opinion if you disagree with it If you feel offended in any way you feel like I'm criticizing your choices, please that's not what I mean at all and and I just think it's a possibility worth considering and and You know, you're not going to be able to create an awful lot of music and there may be noise if you're recording coming from other rooms Etc, but you can just kind of you know exercise that muscle a little bit throughout those years and and keep it going on a fairly Regular basis. Hey, you may have noticed that recently I've been making a few more of these kinds of videos Let's say they're about the non-technical aspects of a music creators life I'd love to get your feedback on them Would you like to see more or are they just a big turn off and if they are a turn off How on earth did you get to this stage of the video? We're almost at the end curious Anyway, I'd love your feedback. It's really helpful for me Now another one of these kinds of videos was where I was asking the question, you know With all of the difficulties we have with music creation. Why do we even bother at all? You can watch that video right here. Thanks so much for watching today, and I'll see you in the next video or in this video