I shot a
2020 Challenge Video Update. In trying to learn how to make music in 2020 and forcing myself to release 1 song / month, I got to witness all the painful (I mean fun...) steps of learning. Or at least the first 2 or 3 steps. It all started in 2019 when I decided to undergo this challenge. I was full ofÂ
unconscious incompetence. Not knowing what I didn't know.
The benefit of this stage is the unbridled optimism that accompanies naivety (i.e.
Strength in Innocence). Then reality struck in January 2020 when The Challenge commenced. I was hurled into
conscious incompetence. The clouds parted and it became clear how naive I was, how much goes into making a song, how much I didn't know. I spent well over 100 hours trying to make
thatÂ
first song. I was singing so out of tune I had to pitch correct my vocals over half an octave. The beat, well, let's just say I couldn't feel it. But it's the song I'm most proud of (probably always will be). Getting that 1st song out the door was brutal. Fighting through the earliest stages of conscious incompetence usually is. But throughout the year I took many online
courses in the hope of lifting me out of conscious incompetence and finding some semblance of
conscious competence, for the sake of my ears and anyone else who dared listen. Often these courses served the role of revealing (making conscious...) further areas of where I was unconsciously incompetent. Part of the process. But I gradually started to figure out how to write a song and how to decode the complexities of digital audio workstations and music
production (which became my favorite part of the music-making process). I still have a long way to go before fully standing on this 3rd step of the learning journey, but that's what the plan is moving forward. I'm going to continue releasing 1 song / month to gradually add some more conscious competence and maybe even get a glance of the ultimate goal,
unconscious competence.