When I started coaching music producers 10 years ago, a video went viral where Ira Glass (a radio producer) introduced "The Gap".
The Gap is the distance between your musical taste and your current ability to make music.
For musicians and music producers, The Gap is tough to overcome. We've been surrounded by music since we were little babies, so our taste is WAY MORE developed than our ability to produce.
Ira Glass' advice was simple:
Keep going until you close The Gap.
Which is excellent advice. But only as far as it goes...
Of course, you have to keep going no matter what.
But HOW when everything you try does not make the difference? When you're struggling to stay motivated? When your ideas are good but your results lacking?
Believe it or not, a couple of years ago, I found the solution...
From a Quantum Physicist!
In his revolutionary book "The Beginning of Infinity" (which I'm now reading for the 5th time), David Deutsch introduces a process way more helpful than just:
Keep going and grind on until you close that gap!
This is a shift you can make today, which makes closing the gap fun and energising. The distance between you and your aspirations becomes a BURNING FIRE of motivation, not a wildfire destroying your music.
This shift is so powerful that I've embedded it in the team processes at Make Music Your Life. It's the North Star of my entire life. It's the foundation of the Music Machine System and Magic Music Machine training.
Can I have a drum roll, please? :)
Practice Error Correction, not Error Avoidance.
Error Avoidance is what we are taught at school. Inevitable in a system built to churn out willing factory workers, it's deeply embedded within our culture. So deep, we don't notice.
But Error Avoidance is the ultimate error.
Don't get me wrong. I WANT you to make better music. And have far more fun doing it.
It's my mission to help you make the quality you KNOW you could.
But ask yourself, is your current strategy yielding the kind of progress you need? Is it creating the level of music you aspire to?
If not, now is the time to try something else.
In Error Correction, you WILL improve individual pieces of music.
(The hint is in the word "correction".)
You improve your music with a different approach.
Instead of comparing your track with THE PERFECT piece of music...
Instead of treating every mistake as a signal you've failed...
Instead of expecting a fictional future where you'll experience ZERO problems...
ACCEPT errors.
Be ok with making errors.
More than that, APPRECIATE your errors.
"Eh? WTF are you going on about now Mike Monday? You want me to make errors on purpose?"
No, that's not what I said.
Appreciating your errors is not trying to make them.
It's seeing them for what they are:
A smorgasbord of possible next steps.
Problems to unpick.
Puzzles to solve.
When you practice Error Correction, all problems, mistakes and imperfections become a glimmer of curiosity. A spark of motivation. Even - a doorway to wonder!
Your errors are a roadmap giving you every next step.
And you'll fast realise...there is always going to be the next step.
You see, the moment you "close that gap", you'll stop growing. The moment you believe you've reached THE destination, you can't progress. There will be nowhere left to go.
There will always be a gap.
This is GOOD.
Because when you use the problems, errors, and imperfections to chart a way forward?
There is NOTHING left to stop you.
When you listen to that track, it's not half as good as you thought it was?
All you'll hear are exciting opportunities to improve, to grow.
Practice Error Correction.
Leave Error Avoidance for the perfectionists.
This is how to overcome The Gap for good...be grateful to live within it.
Onwards and upwards,
Mike
"Success is guessing what to do next."
P.S. If you’d like to have far more fun making much better music - with a system which ensures you practice Error Correction?
I’m working with a new group of music producers to double the quality and quantity of your music over the Summer.
We’ll start next weekend and if you’d like to join us hit reply and I’ll get you all the details...
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Avoid At All Costs