I tried to make an electronic music album in 3 Months. Here’s what I learned.

Setting the Scene

It’s probably good to offer some context. I’m 27 now and have been producing electronic music, mainly house, since I was about 14. I’d always dreamt of overnight success whilst simultaneously doubting my talent. The ego of a creative, right?

In late January, I convinced myself I could genuinely have an album’s worth of material ready for mastering and distribution.

The catalyst — why set myself this kind of challenge?

Since 2014, I’ve seriously wanted to make music to be heard. It’s no longer a passion where I can hide it away for myself. I feel like I’ve genuinely got something to offer people now after years of crippling self doubt, so that feels amazing. Getting good feedback from listeners gives me a buzz that I can’t really replicate elsewhere in my life.

In Jan 2018, I was at a meeting for the local digital community. The speaker, a friend of mine and extremely talented coach, Lizzie, talked about goal setting. In a nutshell, a year is a long time. Three months is still quite a while too, but ample time to achieve a goal, or at least move in the right direction. Lizzie told us that accountability was a big part of achieving goals. Long story short, I was feeling mad inspired. So I put out an Instagram post telling the world what I was up to.

First lesson: accountability is really powerful

I am from a small(ish) city in England, so I’m lucky to already know a bunch of creative and digital people in the city who just ‘get it’. I told everyone my goal. I told my boss to take £500 out of my pay cheque if I failed my goal. I made a point of telling someone every day how I was getting on. Once the thought of failure became utterly painful, I then knew I couldn’t fail.

Second lesson: my self-discipline has improved

With that, I had to set a schedule and stick to it. No excuses. I thought ‘fuck it’ and decided to go to the gym every weekday too. Both have worked and show no signs of slowing up so far. Ongoing practice does become a habit.

Third lesson: the practice pays dividends

I’d probably only ever produced 7 songs from start to finish before my challenge. Three months later, it became 18. I’m learning more about my craft all of the time. The second half of my album had a noticeable spike in production quality, so I had to go back and rework the first six tracks. That’s great though, because it shows progress in action.

Fourth lesson: stay positive

Some time in March I was feeling low and couldn’t finish a track. I got writer’s block in a big way.

I walked to my favourite pub, Puzzles(go there if you ever find yourself in Peterborough), even though it was snowing heavily outside. There was nobody else in the pub. I thought “I must be mad to be drinking beer alone in a pub making music on my laptop”.

I was then hit with the dawning realisation that I was working through my penultimate track and trekking in the snow to get it done. So, it must’ve meant I cared about making this happen, right? I took five minutes out to reflect on what I was doing and finished that beer. It tasted good. I ordered another beer before committing 13 solid hours to that track on that Saturday afternoon and finished it off.

Fifth lesson: even if the plan changes a bit, stay the course

Making this thing was the most exciting and lonely thing I’d ever done. I finished the album about 9 days before my deadline, ready for mastering and ready to send to labels, as I vowed to do.

I sent it to a bunch of influential people and didn’t get a single piece of feedback. No responses. I was devastated. I’d worked so hard for no recognition. So, was this the ego-crushing knockback I had always feared? Yeah, I was genuinely in tatters. Did I then realise it was an opportunity to learn something new? Yes. These people are busy and owe me nothing, but I owed it to myself to move forward.

Sixth lesson: strategy is everything

I tried to work out why I needed a mastering engineer or a label anyway. I learned to produce music all by myself, didn’t I? I’d worked to the absolute bone for three months, every night after work, through exhaustion and busy schedules. Never missing a day. I just thought I’d learn how to do it all by myself.

I did. After learning a hell of a lot more about mastering, distribution and selling music, I now have three EPs out to listen to and buy. I decided not to release the 11 tracks in an album format. I thought a bunch of more closely-themed EPs would work better, and I’d actually started a whole load of other tracks that suddenly seemed relevant to a bigger project.

The EPs have had a few listeners so far, a very humble amount, but some people are listening. Even if it’s only a small bunch of dedicated listeners so far, I am overwhelmed and have got that buzz I mentioned earlier.