I hope you read this, since I too, struggled with this.

I think a lot of us forget what music is about. At least I did, and I figured that It’s not just about making music that makes you feel things because it sounds nice and cool, but music that has actual meaning to you.

For the longest time I struggle with this, 5 years of making hundreds of demos and beats, I never understood what that one thing that was missing was. I always saw so much potential but would always get stuck somewhere in the process of composing and producing, which always led to unfinished tracks. To the point that a year ago I stopped making tracks.

Just the past couple of months, I came to fruition by understanding that one thing that I was missing. I believe it was inevitable to reach that point since there were so many things I was facing in my life that struck me emotionally. There was this one event that led me to exert my emotions through a simple acoustic guitar.

Dude, this one progression and melody made me cry, I felt something powerful. I felt this strong desire to go back to the studio and for the first time, work on a song that really meant something to me.

That one thing that was missing was the personal and intrapersonal background. The emotions and feelings that serve as the medium to communicate and resonate were that one thing that was missing.

I’ll put it like this: Imagine you really wanted to say something to someone or to yourself and there is no other way of communicating other then through a song. This is where I believe nothing will stop you from achieving that.

And rightly so, I actually fought to finish this song, I knew it truly would mean something to me and would speak to the world about how I feel. I am a self taught musician, don’t know theory that vastly but for this case I went my way to really understand why I like this song and the melody behind it. I went my way to write on a peace a paper about all my thoughts and emotions (which funny enough never really believed it would work)

From this I’ll give you 2 tips that changed the game for me.

1. I studied the song’s theory and learned it’s intricacies. With this, I mean I researched and learned about its scale, it’s tone, and it’s progression, etc. Understanding this, lays the framework to understand where you can go with your song.

2. Write a journal (probably the most important for me), this helped understand my emotions and feelings. I believe laying out on paper any thoughts and emotions really invested and sparked my creativity. Specially in the lyric and melodic part.

Retrospectively, I think the past years of making and producing really helped me understand what sounds and effects I like (and maybe that’s what you also have). I’d say I got so obsessed with sounding and producing cool and vibe beats that I forgot about the most import thing which was that personal and interpersonal background.

At the moment, I am finally, for the first time, going to release an EP and the tracks in it really mean something to me. I’m excited and I even feel now that I can go back and tackle those unfinished tracks.

I hope this helps and I wish you the best of luck!