This article has no universal ambition. I am not here to say that my situation is a typical one that all “artists” face, this is simply an introspection of sorts.  

When I was around 10 years old my brother introduced me to a music making software and taught me the basics to using it. After playing around with it for a few years, I started taking it a bit more seriously and tried writing actual songs. I now have 11 songs, that I am very proud of, published on music streaming platforms. However, I haven’t really gone back to making music since my last project finished around a year and a half ago. I’ve thought about it and most of my conclusion is that nothing made me stop but certain aspects stopped motivating me to continue.  

I remember when I decided I would make my first song I was completely lost but the idea of discovering everything this new world had to offer made it fun. It was like starting a video game eager to explore the rest of the map and I was enjoying the process of learning by doing. I looked forward to the feeling of finishing the project and feeling proud of what I had achieved. Growing up, I worked on new projects and started building a reputation of being “the music guy”, a reputation that I cherished and held close to my heart. These things that once pushed me to keep going have kind of dissipated over time.  

I know that there are still many ways for me to grow in music production, but I no longer enjoy pursuing that growth. Despite all the progress I had made, I still found myself jealous of others, their songs that made me feel ways that my own music couldn’t. Other people were succeeding in doing what I wanted to do, and I had trouble seeing the worth in continuing to learn, so I stopped.  

The feeling of completing a project is incredibly satisfying but there is a disconnect between how you expect others to react and how they actually do. I thought that this thing that was important to me would be of some interest to the people close to me but that wasn’t often the case. My daily listens would reach 100 on release day but quickly go back down to 1 or 0 a few days later. I was proud but others tended not to care which made me wonder if I had really accomplished anything. 

Finally, I had grown attached to this reputation of “the music guy” I had built for myself. Slowly, it became increasingly common for people around me to have a similar talent and I felt like I was losing something. I know it might be foolish to want to feel unique in this world with over 8 billion people but it’s a very satisfying thought. The other side of the coin was the painful realisation that I was just another music guy. 

To conclude, even as an artist who was making music for myself, I still felt preoccupied by what others thought of me. And even as an artist who has developed his technical abilities, I still fell prey to doubts. I’m not saying that I stopped forever, however this is how things are now.