Brought me to tears how relatable this is! Thank you for being so authentic and honest about your journey. I’m starting out as an artist (releasing under ’Spacious’) on the side of my day job, and I’ve pondered every day about what all of the realities of jumping into music full time would be financially. Super inspiring to hear the other side of it from your honest perspective and makes me feel less scared :)
aw thankyou so much for taking the time to respond.. and so cool you’ve started a project! would love to hear more about your journey. i think it’s so cool and very responsible to have a day job when being an artist… cause then you don’t fall into the trap of making decisions based on € and also i think that brings about a certain authenticity to the things you create
Of course and thanks!! That's a great perspective on having other sources of income to not make artist decisions based on money. Background about my Spacious project - I have a few singles and remixes out and have been releasing independently over the past couple of years, learning as I go. I also do design, so I combine that in by making my own visuals and prints for each release. In my most recent track, my wife and I collaborated together and I recorded her vocals - super inspired by how you and Tom also collaborate on music! Stoked to be joining this Substack community and hear more of your tips and advice on growing as an artist :)
oh wow that’s quite similar to tom and i! tom used to be a graphic designer so he would do all the art direction and design… then when we started to get really busy and were able to sustain ourselves off music he stopped design all together. it’s so cool that you and your partner are working together!! how do you find it? i personally think it can work really well when you know your collaborator so deeply..
Wow yeah that’s super similar that he did the design and art direction and awesome that you can sustain off just music now!! So inspiring. Yeah it was fun to work together on the track...she’s a great photographer so we’ve been collaborating on visual art projects through the years, along with some DJ sets together. It’s taken some practice to both grow patient of each other's constructive criticism haha but you’re right, it’s super unique and cool to work with someone you know so deeply and makes it that much more special!!
Given your twinned, entwined themes of music and mental health, I think your perspective here is great advice for both areas, because people aspiring to success in either one can fall prey to the same trap.
It's tempting to look at the *ceiling* of each of these - I'll become rich/famous! Good mental health means I'll do all these new, exciting things! But the approach with more structural integrity is to fix the *floor* on both. Is my art expressing what I need to express? Is my mental health helping me recover from setbacks? A lot of my mental health improvements aren't leading to these amazing days of ultimate productivity and adventure - they're getting back to regular me a day or two quicker than I used to. That still gives me literal days back in my life! But it's from fixing the floor more than the ceiling.
I'm pursuing music from a steady job that I love and that pays for most things, including collaborators. I hope making music can pay for itself one day. But the real goal was to make friends and other healthy relationships - and I'm doing that amazingly well.
i couldn’t agree more! and thankyou so much for sharing! i really do believe that success is so subjective and no shade on people who are striving for fame and wealth.. but for me it feels like a trap. there’s so much at stake when you have those as your goals. i love how you spoke about getting time/days back. time is so precious and a very important part of life and wealth
Brought me to tears how relatable this is! Thank you for being so authentic and honest about your journey. I’m starting out as an artist (releasing under ’Spacious’) on the side of my day job, and I’ve pondered every day about what all of the realities of jumping into music full time would be financially. Super inspiring to hear the other side of it from your honest perspective and makes me feel less scared :)
aw thankyou so much for taking the time to respond.. and so cool you’ve started a project! would love to hear more about your journey. i think it’s so cool and very responsible to have a day job when being an artist… cause then you don’t fall into the trap of making decisions based on € and also i think that brings about a certain authenticity to the things you create
Of course and thanks!! That's a great perspective on having other sources of income to not make artist decisions based on money. Background about my Spacious project - I have a few singles and remixes out and have been releasing independently over the past couple of years, learning as I go. I also do design, so I combine that in by making my own visuals and prints for each release. In my most recent track, my wife and I collaborated together and I recorded her vocals - super inspired by how you and Tom also collaborate on music! Stoked to be joining this Substack community and hear more of your tips and advice on growing as an artist :)
oh wow that’s quite similar to tom and i! tom used to be a graphic designer so he would do all the art direction and design… then when we started to get really busy and were able to sustain ourselves off music he stopped design all together. it’s so cool that you and your partner are working together!! how do you find it? i personally think it can work really well when you know your collaborator so deeply..
Wow yeah that’s super similar that he did the design and art direction and awesome that you can sustain off just music now!! So inspiring. Yeah it was fun to work together on the track...she’s a great photographer so we’ve been collaborating on visual art projects through the years, along with some DJ sets together. It’s taken some practice to both grow patient of each other's constructive criticism haha but you’re right, it’s super unique and cool to work with someone you know so deeply and makes it that much more special!!
Given your twinned, entwined themes of music and mental health, I think your perspective here is great advice for both areas, because people aspiring to success in either one can fall prey to the same trap.
It's tempting to look at the *ceiling* of each of these - I'll become rich/famous! Good mental health means I'll do all these new, exciting things! But the approach with more structural integrity is to fix the *floor* on both. Is my art expressing what I need to express? Is my mental health helping me recover from setbacks? A lot of my mental health improvements aren't leading to these amazing days of ultimate productivity and adventure - they're getting back to regular me a day or two quicker than I used to. That still gives me literal days back in my life! But it's from fixing the floor more than the ceiling.
I'm pursuing music from a steady job that I love and that pays for most things, including collaborators. I hope making music can pay for itself one day. But the real goal was to make friends and other healthy relationships - and I'm doing that amazingly well.
i couldn’t agree more! and thankyou so much for sharing! i really do believe that success is so subjective and no shade on people who are striving for fame and wealth.. but for me it feels like a trap. there’s so much at stake when you have those as your goals. i love how you spoke about getting time/days back. time is so precious and a very important part of life and wealth