Programming Yourself To Be A Music Producer (Newsletter 03)

Originally sent on August 30, 2024.

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This is the third weekly newsletter from Fox Music Production. I hope you've enjoyed the previous two (you can find them here if you haven't read them already).

It's freeing to write longer form newsletters and share what I'm learning along the way. As you may know, I'm interested in psychology, and how it ties in with living a musical and creative life.

So today I'm writing to you about programming your mind to become a better music producer (or a music producter at all). More specifically, I'll be sharing what I've learned and practiced in regard to the process of manifestation—and how it ties in with our goal of producing better music.

Mind you, I'm sharing this process because it has helped me. If it's interesting and helpful to you, that's great! If not, feel free to disregard what I'm writing. No hard feelings 😉 As always, it's my goal to help you live a musical and creative life, which benefits greatly from open-mindedness.

The Process Of Manifestation

Results demand action. If you want to produce all the great music you hear in your head/feel in your soul, you'll have to perform the act of producing properly and efficiently.

Note: you can always outsource the production and technical aspects. However, it you're reading this newsletter, I'm assuming you're deeply interested in these aspects!

This is obvious, but often overlooked. We can wait for inspiration, rely on will power, or we can program ourselves to live a musical and creative life that takes care of itself.

I've tried waiting on inspiration that never came.

I've tried locking myself in my room for 8+ hour days to produce music that lacked any inspiration.

Now, as I'm learning more about the mind, my production sessions flow easier, and my results are closer to my ideal.

I'm by no means an expert on this—though I've experienced firsthand how the process of manifestation works in both my creative world and in many other aspects of my life.

The mind is a powerful tool. And it's critical we learn to use this tool properly.

I'm a big fan of T Harv Eker's take on the Process of Manifestation. I read about this in his book “Secrets Of The Millionaire Mind,” but it applies to pretty much everything in life.

As far as I'm concerned, if you have a goal (want a result), then this framework is a great way to create an environment/personality to help you achieve that goal automatically.

Again, I'm framing this idea through the lens of music production, but you can apply this to anything.

Here's a simple series of letters and their meaning:

[P] > [F] > [T] > [A] = [R]

Programming leads to feelings.

Feelings lead to thoughts.

Thoughts lead to actions.

Actions lead to results.

Thoughts are part of the internal world. Results are part of the external world. Action bridges the gap.

As we'll see, the direction or flow of these parts isn't only linear or in one direction. It's also cyclical, in reverse order, and we can skip steps.

In other words, everything's connected.

The order presented is a framework to achieve your music production goals “automatically”. By becoming the type of person to produce great music, you will produce great music.

Getting this right will reduce friction, the need for “inspiration”, and the reliance on our conscious mind to always be making the right decisions (because our subconscious mind will do it for us).

I've used this framework to get to a point where I can produce music to a level I'm happy with (though I'm still set on improving).

I'm currently using it to put my music out there for others to enjoy. I invite you to follow along as I build my audience 🙂

I believe you'd get massive benefits by simply contemplating [P] > [F] > [T] > [A] = [R] on your own. But for the sake of deeper understanding, let's consider each of the letters in reverse order, starting with results.

Results

[P] > [F] > [T] > [A] = [R]

Results are tangible outcomes of our actions. Whether we have a clearly defined goal or not, we have results. Through the lens of music production, they could be anything from:

• Having a Billboard #1 hit.
• Producer credits on a record from your favourite artist.
• Earning money from your music.
• Earning a fortune from your music.
• Not earning money from your music.
• Having records you've produced that you love listening to.
• Records you've produced that you're not proud of.
• No music to show for yourself at all.

Remember that you have results, by default, in everything. The list goes on and on and on.

If you want different results, you have to change your actions. Your programming, feelings and thoughts are what influence your actions. Keep this simple truth in mind.

Goals are often results-based. I'm a big fan of writing my goals down regularly. They can always change, but have a goal in mind will align my actions toward reaching it.

In fact, Dr. Gail Matthews’ research at the Dominican University of California discovered you're “You are 42% more likely to achieve your goals just by writing them down”.

Actions steps:

• Look at your results now. Consider how you may want your future results to be different.
• Write down your music production goals. Be specific. Is it learning specific techniques or software, writing a full album, developing a unique sound, or something else?
• Do not judge your work too harshly. You cannot change your past results but you can change your future results.

Actions

[P] > [F] > [T] > [A] = [R]

Actions refer to process of doing something in order to achieve a result. This is true whether we're conscious of the result and/or action or unconscious of the result and/or action.

Ultimately, this is the most important piece of the puzzle. Our programming, feelings and thought lead to action but cannot produce results on their own.

Working backward through the Process of Manifestation, we can act more consciously by focusing on our goal.

This is also where habit formation comes into play. Building habits is easier said than done, but doing so will help to automate your actions so you, again, don't have to rely on inspiration or will power.

This is all about making things automatic for you.

A few daily habits I've been putting into place include:

• 5 minutes of guitar practice—this often expands, but a 5-minute goal is easy to achieve and gets the guitar in my hand.
• 30 minutes of producing music, even if it's uninspired
• 45-minute walk to listen to educational material on my interests while I take notes in my Notion app
• 1-2 hours of writing—this helps tremendously in clearing my mind. If you're a creative person, I HIGHLY RECOMMEND developing a writing habit to get your ideas out of your mind and organized on paper (virtually)

By the way, I just started using the Notion app and I'm absolutely blown away by its functionality and ability to organize my thoughts and actions steps.

Action steps:

• Make a to-do list based on the results you want and get things done.
• Be conscious about your actions. Which actions are leading to your desired results and which actions are distracting you?
• Act toward your music production goals every day. Learn, practice with a project, rest, repeat.

Thoughts

[P] > [F] > [T] > [A] = [R]

Thoughts are our ideas, opinions, and beliefs about ourselves and the world around us.

Our thoughts, as creatives, play a massive role in our music production efforts.

There's something to be said about transcending thought and simply feeling the music we're producing. But in most cases, we're going to be thinking about what we're doing as we're doing it.

Of course, we have the power of conscious thinking. Focusing our mind on specific ideas in the present.

However, the majority of our thoughts stem from the subconscious mind. At the same time, our thoughts are consistently programming the subconscious mind. This is going back to idea that none of this is linear—it all works together.

My advice is to practice being conscious of your thoughts outside of and during your music production sessions. What comes up? Write them down for enhanced clarity.

Action steps:

• Write down your thoughts. I use physical notebooks (graph paper preferred) and the Notion app on desktop and mobile to jot down anything interesting and worth pursuing.
• Become aware. You have the power to change your conscious thinking on the spot. If you catch yourself having disempowering thoughts, switch to more empowering ones.

Feelings

[P] > [F] > [T] > [A] = [R]

Feelings are our subjective responses to people, things and situations.

Though discipline, successful people act toward their goal whether they feel like it or not. Discipline has been programmed and their habits reflect that.

But wouldn't it be easier if you felt like producing great music regularly? Becoming obsessed and programming your mind will help with this issue.

Either way, to get the results we want, it's important to:

1. Have interest in our artistic work.

2. Act in spite of not feeling like working.

My advice is to produce music for at least 5 minutes every day. If you're really not feeling it, you can quit at any time—just get started. Chances are, though, that 5 will turn to 10 will turn to 30 and longer (if you're truly into music production).

Inertia is often our biggest obstacle.

Many beginners also face the obstacle of limited knowledge and technical ability in their DAW. It takes time to develop an efficient workflow to get the ideas from your head/heart/soul recorded.

Feelings of frustration can ramp up quickly. I've been there—we've all been there.

Try thinking of it all as a game—understand you're at a certain level with certain abilities, and that you must continue levelling up as you move forward.

There's plenty of free information online (including at my website). There's also paid information (including my products) to help you along the way.

Start a session and work until you hit a roadblock, then learn what to do via a YouTube tutorial (there's plenty of hyperspecific tutorials on processes within popular DAWs).

One of the best feelings in the world is getting into the flow state.

• If a task is too challenging, we become anxious.
• If a task is not challenging enough, we become bored.
• When the demands of the task meet our skill level, we may find the feeling of flow.

Action steps:

• Develop your skills to the point that you can flow in your production sessions.
• Keep yourself inspired by listening to great music.
• Take notes on ideas/concepts you'd like to try out in your production sessions.
• Practice “gamifying” the learning process.
• Notice how you feel, and replace non-empowering thoughts with empowering ones to influence your feelings whenever you become conscious of them.
• Aim for getting into the flow state.

Programming

[P] > [F] > [T] > [A] = [R]

Programming is the set of unconscious conditions in our subconscious mind. This happens beneath the surface of the conscious mind and affects/limits our perception of the world.

Our subconscious programming leads to pretty much everything else in our reality.

Sigmund Freud argued the unconscious mind is the primary source of human behaviour. Like an iceberg, the most important part of the mind is the part you cannot see.

One interesting point is that programming doesn't happen overnight. It took a long time to become who you are, and so it's going to take time to reprogram yourself. Patience is key.

In the cyclical nature of it all, our programming is shaped by our thoughts and actions. Your music will benefit to the extent that you're aware of this.

Action steps:

• Write down your music production goals every morning. Be specific.
• Reference your written music production goals each evening.
• Consider what you did and what you didn't do to help achieve those goals during the day.
• Work on music production every day.
• Visualize working on music production every day.

A note on visualization: visualizing doing the action that will lead to achieving your goals is much more powerful than visualizing achieving your goals.

The former gives us clarity on the most important part, which is action. The latter is a one-way ticket to feeling unmotivated, overwhelmed and discouraged.

Manifesting isn’t about the end. It’s about the bridge to get you from where you are to where you want to be!

Trying This Out For Yourself

I'll admit, when I first read about all this stuff, I thought it was a bit “out there”. However, since becoming aware and testing out actions involved with the Process of Manifestion, I'm a believer in its legitimacy.

It's simple:

When I'm practicing this process, my life improves. When I'm not practicing this process, my life stagnates or worsens.

So try this out for yourself via the action steps I shared. Develop your own philosophy on these ideas.

Do some research of your own if it sounds enticing. There are plenty of people smarter than me discussing this stuff 🙂

I can only share so much and this newsletter is already long as it is.

As always, you can check out my courses here. I've also been posting a new reel every day on my Instagram, which you can check out here.

Until next week,

-Art