Realms of Wonder

@KingCrimson Thank you for making the time to write out such a reply. Here is the context: My life purpose as it stands, is to.. "Create beautiful music that connects people to their authentic self." I am, and want to be, an independent artist, releasing and performing my own music, informed by the divine, infusing wisdom and perspective built through life experience, contemplation, meditation and so on. 10 years from now I see myself touring, as a solo artist or with musicians I hire, almost like a ministry of authenticity, radiating love into the audience, giving people a vision of what their self is, AND leading them to actually EXPERIENCING WHO AND WHAT THEY ARE. To play my part in evolving humanity. I am drawn to electronic music, pop, and indie, think Enya meets Tame Impala meets Coldplay. Another reason I want to master the basics, is so I can transcend them, creating truly unique and innovative sounds and melodies no human has ever heard before. I grew up taking lessons and practicing classical, fiddle, and Celtic violin, I took weekly lessons and practiced 45-90 minutes a day from ages 5-14, in highschool was concertmaster of the school orchestra and in band for two years (I was homeschool up until 11th grade.) Post highschool I completely ditched music, with lots of resentment, feeling I had been forced into it by my parents. Until two years later when---after working my way through the Life Purpose course---during a 4-ACO-DMT trip, it hit me out of the blue. "MUSIC! of course! its been staring me in the face my whole life!" Since then it has been a slow process of building basic habits in my life, and retaking the course, getting sidetracked, falling off course, coming back... over and over haha. (I was still a complete newbie at this point.) Until right before Covid hit, I told myself "I cant have a life purpose in music unless I am actually creating music." So I started producing music in Ableton. During that year I invested 800 hours in just learning HOW to use Ableton, create sounds, and so on, not deliberate practice, more focusing on getting music back into my life. I continued on, starting to release music on SoundCloud, then Spotify, even building an audience on Instagram. BUT... I started seeing that to make the best music possible, I need to go away and practice the fundamentals of the craft for a few years, then come back and share this new (more valuable) skillset with the world. And that is where I am now. the practice I am doing is Synth practice, researching, but mostly intentionally learning HOW to create sounds with a synthesizer, pads, leads, percussion, strings, etc.. daily, most of it is crap, but that's normal. Here is a list of skills I have define as important for me to actualize my life purpose. (there may be more, but these are the core) - Melody - Music theory (need a solid refresher) - Synths (be able to create any sound needed) - Song structure (What is the most addicting song structure possible?) - Piano/keys (to a level where I can express without hinderance) - Singing - Mixing - Mastering - Song writing/storytelling - recording - Music industry understanding I am in agreement with what you said about the amount of work necessary to become truly world class, in his book "So Good They Can't Ignore You" Cal Newport really stresses the difference between "Playing" and "Deliberate practice." I have been playing for years, now its time to PRACTICE. The amount of work ahead is difficult for me to stomach, but thanks for putting it so starkly. how do I work from 30 minutes a day, to 3-4? (I work full time so any more than that and the rest of my life wouldn't function.) Taking lessons is something I have been avoiding, because I know you're right, I really need guidance to grow in some of these skills, someone much more experience then I am, who socializes in that skill/domain.\ Thank you

Fascinating, thank you for documenting and sharing your journey

@Tboy Howdy! One way of looking at this can be as such. Your music, can be centered around timeless principles and wisdom of reality, your personal perspective on it. to create groundbreaking music means digging where others haven't, or where others have given up, but what you dig up is your life purpose, not you. if you are 80, and still creating music that is based in truth, there will always be an audience for it. I keep stumbling on songs from the 70'sto early 2000's and because of the content of the song, I resonate with it. Not sure if this helps, good luck!