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Boost Your Confidence As An Artist NOW in 4 Steps

Four Steps To Boost Your Confidence As An Artist NOW

What is confidence really? It feels mystical and something people are just “Born with”. I was NOT born with confidence, it feels like I was born far from it if that’s a thing. But the truth is that confidence can be learned and developed just like any other trait or skill… and it’s a lot easier to develop than you might initially believe. So, in this article, I want to share four steps to boost your confidence as an artist now.

 

What are the four steps to boost your confidence?

What are the four steps to boost your confidence as an artist?

  1. Practice the “I am” phrase
  2. Social Media Cleanse (Don’t Compare)
  3. Comfort doing the uncomfortable
  4. Repetition

These steps have been CRITICAL in my continued growth as an artist/business owner. So let’s break these points down now.

1. Practice the “I am” Identity Phrase

The “I am” identity phrase is a simple yet extremely powerful self-identity builder. This tactic can quickly change your emotional, mental, and even physical states to some extent. You might have figured out how it works just by reading the title. Here’s what to do. Simply tell yourself WHO you want to be. For example, If you want to be a powerful singer just say “I am a powerful singer” or if you want to be an EDM producer, say ” I am a great EDM producer”.

Here’s the identity phrase formula. “I am a” + (uplifting or positive word) + (WHO you want to be).

All three elements are critical for building identity. And you need to say these OUT LOUD. The louder the better really. Speaking this into existence helps your mind, body, and soul (identity) each participate. “I am” identity phrases are a powerful way to boost inner confidence. By repeating your identity internally and audibly you are reinforcing who you want to be and how you want to act.

P.S. You can also practice emotional “I am” phrases… just change the formula to “I am feeling” + (Positive word).

 

2. Social Media Cleanse (Don’t Compare)

This sounds like a tough one in today’s age where value seemingly comes from others. That right there is the core issue with Social Media. Our value and appeal are essentially dictated by the number of followers, likes, and 🔥🔥🔥’s resulting in major spikes and valleys in our confidence. Here’s the crazy part, no matter how many likes you get your confidence will never reach its full potential when being dictated by others. 

Now let’s fix that. Turn off social media for about 2 weeks. Completely. Say “Hey everybody I’m going to take a short mental break from social media.” Then delete your apps. Just 2 weeks. People might notice. If you really don’t want to delete then simply turn off all notifications and hide the apps in a subfolder way in the distance of your phone so they are more difficult to access.

Part two of this is to now revel in the fact that your art is yours and nobody else’s. Without the noise of social media, it begins to come clear just how much you care about your projects and how original your work is. You’ve stopped comparing and started enjoying. That enjoyment is confidence.

Obviously, your two weeks will end and you will return to social media. BUT DO NOT COMPARE YOURSELF TO ANYTHING YOU SEE. This is the quickest way to undo the feeling of confidence you’ve built over your two-week cleanse. Additionally, once your two weeks are up, limit social media to POSTING and DMing. Scrolling is the fastest way to compare yourself, even initially. So continue to cut it off at the source at often as possible.

 

3. Comfort doing the uncomfortable

The previous points are all about UNCOVERING your confidence that exists yet is hidden. But becoming comfortable doing the uncomfortable is the ultimate way to GROW your confidence. Why? Because some of the uncomfortable areas of being an artist are generally the areas we know need help with. For example, posting to social media. Becoming comfortable doing the uncomfortable is of course going to be a tough topic. If you are serious about growing and reaching your full potential then somewhere internally you’ll feel the necessity to challenge yourself.

Where to start though? Well, uncomfortable situations are different for everybody. But here are a few common ones. Cold Calls. Cold Outreach (DMing somebody who has not met you yet). Small talk in the elevator. Posting your music or art to social media. Even saying Happy Birthday can feel uncomfortable (that’s me, I’m a massive introvert).

Here’s the ONE tip to begin facing the uncomfortable. Create a template interaction.

For example, (Cold Outreach) – Hey! I heard your song XXXX on my favorite playlist XXXXX. I really enjoyed it! What was your favorite part about making that track? or (Elevator talk) Good Morning, How are you today? or (Birthday text/ card) Happy Birthday! Enjoy your day! – NAME.

It might feel robotic and weird to have pre-set words ready to go. Maybe it is, but the point is NOT to be the best public speaker or close a 10,000 sale. The point is to start SMALL and breakthrough that outermost layer of fear and doubt. The outer layer is always the toughest to break.  With time (and our next point repetition), the uncomfortable will become comfortable allowing you to expand your questions, connection, and ability to share your art. That is the ultimate goal, to share your art confidently.

4. Repetition

To wrap this up, let’s talk about repetition. As a musician, repetition is the foundation of progress. We practice our measures, re-create patches, or sing the same line over and over again. Repetition is also vital in boosting self-confidence because it challenges us to practice being and feeling confident. Simply repeat the steps above Monthly, Weekly, and even Daily to feel the results.

Creating good habits by scheduling regular blocks of time to achieve is a great method for building positive repetition. For example, I write these blog posts for one hour every Thursday. Knowing WHEN I’m going to do something without even thinking about it helps me create more, experience zero stress, and feel great about it. All the little benefits that help one to feel confident.

Four Steps To Boost Your Confidence As An Artist: Conclusion

So what are the four steps?

  1. Practice the “I am” phrase
  2. Social Media Cleanse (Don’t Compare)
  3. Comfort doing the uncomfortable
  4. Repetition

By practicing these positive confidence-building habits you’ll start to feel a change when discussing or showing your music/art to others. It takes time. So don’t think that one week of the I am phrase is going to change anything overnight. If it does, let me know cause that is dope as heck!

Anyways, thanks for reading my little blog. As always, I hope you got a bit of good info from here.

Thanks!

– Kye

If you are interested in getting a free mix consultation click HERE to book a live 10-minute session with me. All you need is your current mix in mp3 format. This is great if you’ve still hit a wall with your mix even after meditating. 

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    Reignite Musical Motivation Using 5 Simple Tips

    5 Tips To Reignite Musical Motivation

     

    5 Tips To Reignite Musical Motivation From Somebody Who Has Been Precisely Where You Are.

    I’ve been a musician for a long time… about 15 years now. People are always amazed when they find out because sticking with what most consider a “Hobby” is hard. and that is very true. There have been SO many moments where the motivation needed to crank out one more hour of practicing, make one more beat, or just open up Logic was just not available. Period. Anything music related (generally) has delayed gratification. So getting started is ALWAYS going to be the most difficult part. We feel tired before even picking up the guitar because it’s some form of work for our nonconscious mind. So what are the 5 tips to reignite musical motivation?

    1. Get inspiration from loops

    If you aren’t using loops yet, this might be all you need. Loops are like fire starters. Grab your fire starter, throw it into your EMPTY session, grab ONE other instrument to play around with, and 9/10 times creativity will start flowing. I use this trick extremely often because I’m personally pretty lazy. I don’t like making drum grooves, or toppers. I can find AMAZING ones pre-created on SPLICE to just drag and drop into my tracks.

    Once the new loop is in, I just go ham on my piano or guitar. I can tell you that most of the songs I’ve written follow this process. Some of my BEST work has even occurred when I didn’t feel the creative juices that day. Just get enough strength to grab that first loop.

    2. Re-listen to the favorite song, progression, or lyrics you’ve made/learned

    There’s nothing more appealing than a bit of self-love to get you out of a rut. Listening to your old music in a POSITIVE way or playing your FAVORITE song on your instrument is a great way to feel motivated because it links happiness with your ability to produce or play.

    For example, whenever I’m REALLY not wanting to practice my guitar I’ll play Fransico Tarregas Adelita. This song has a lot of meaning and importance in my life, so going back and playing it reinvigorates those feelings of excellence, hard work, and excitement. It’s also just a straight-up beautiful little song.

    So go ahead, give that motivation tool a try if your feeling unable to practice or get in the zone.

    3. Watch some tutorials

    Okay, so tutorials are a bit of a dangerous slope for a couple of reasons. When used in an effective way, they can be a tool to set you on a path for growth… and growth tends to be an intrinsic motivational tool. But what’s the dangerous side of tutorials? There are two in my mind.

    The first – Don’t let somebody else’s success drive your motivation further away. You have no clue about the amount of work they put in to make that tutorial. In fact, I’m sure they have been in a very similar position of feeling a lack of motivation.

    The second – Don’t think that just watching is enough. You need to take action and perform whatever is in the tutorial. I’ll often slow down the tutorials to .25 speed and really take my time learning something new and ingraining it in my process.

    The GOOD from tutorials comes from WANTING to learn a VERY specific new tool or technique. This FOCUS will help your creativity bubble up again. It’s important t

    o limit yourself to ONE topic and really dive deep. A few of my favorites would be sound design – making a super saw, guitar chords – learning ONE amazing progression or mixing related – learning how to use delay in a creative way. There are millions of more things to learn… but these are decent things for thought.

    4. Start small

    You can feel motivated to create music by taking baby steps. I often find myself trying to take these large bigfoot sized steps that are just impossible to reach. This is an INSTANT motivation buzzkill. So instead, flip that feeling around and you begin to ACHIEVE small amounts of momentum or internal success. Momentum and success are amazing motivators.

    For example, instead of saying ” I will produce one song this week”  say “I will write an 8-bar piano progression this week” – an 8-bar piano progression can be achieved much more easily than an entire song. If you’re trying to practice more change “I will practice my entire song” to “I will practice 12 bars from my song” – just be sure it’s a meaningful 12 bars that you know you need to review a bit more because that growth and progress is motivation.

    5. Just do it

    Finally – in the words of the great Shia LaBeouf (or Nike I guess…) “Just do it!”. You can’t argue with this philosophy. Sometimes motivation WON’T be there in ANY capacity. And at the end of the day, the hard truth is that the most successful people still TRY when they aren’t feeling motivated in any way. With an emphasis on trying. Give it shot, a genuine try to get into the zone. The above tools list great to help receive that motivation. But if nothing else you can feel motivated that you tried and just started. Even if your session only lasted 10 minutes.

    5 tips to reignite musical motivation: Conclusion

    It can be difficult to feel motivated to create. Even the greatest artists struggle with motivation. So take control instead of hoping motivation will strike. Use loops, play your favorite songs, watch some tutorials, start with small steps, and finally just do it. You will become a better musician, producer, or artist by bettering yourself. If you’ve made it this far then I think you’ve bettered yourself :).  So take it easy now and go make some dope music!!!

    Also, all my new subscribers are getting 5 beats absolutely free when signing up. Maybe this is the motivation you need to write a new hit track?!?

    So sign up below 🙂

    I provide monthly newsletters with great content, ideas, mixing discounts, and beats.

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      How to Create EDM Bass – Sound Design Skills

      EDM Bass Sound Design

      How to Create EDM Bass – Sound Design Skills

      Sound design is one of the most important aspects of music production because of how much influence it possesses over the final product of the music. The sound design will determine how musical and appealing your song will be. Sound design is important to understand for basically every genre at this point, however, in this piece, we will be focusing on EDM Bass sound design. Think Steve Akoi, Marshmallow, and any similar artists (the list goes on here!). We will be covering 5 key points about EDM bass sound design that will help make your music sound alive, rich, and just plain good. 

      What is Sound Design, and Why Does it Matter?

      Sound design is simply the process of creating a sound or track for a variety of needs, Film, podcasts, music, animations. We are focusing on musical sound design. Within musical sound design, there are many different ways to create an appealing sound – It would be difficult to list them all here but here are some main examples: Additive synthesis, subtractive synthesis, sample-based synthesis, manipulation of pre-recorded instruments, and to add FX, completely changing any sound. For EDM Bass the most common type of Sound design is Subtractive synthesis usually seen from a Virtual instrument such as Xfer Records Serum or Native Instruments Massive. 

      How to Create EDM Bass EDM Bass Sound Design

      1. Determine the function of your bass – The first step is to understand why you need a bass sound in the first place and how this bass will function in your music. Ask yourself this. What do I need the bass for in this song? Is the bass working as a lead instrument? Is the bass used for harmonic stability? Is the bass for a verse or a big drop section of the song? Depending on your answer, you should be given better direction when selecting your basic sound and building from there.
      2. Develop your basic sound – developing the basis of the sound is usually pretty straightforward after determining the purpose of your bass. 
        • First, find a waveform that is clear and sounds full. A couple go to are Sine, Triangle, Juno, and Saw Waveforms as a basic starting point but really anything with rich lower harmonics will work. Using a wavetable synthesizer will lead to bass that evolves over time for added character. 
        • Second, and depending on what you choose, applying a low pass filter will be useful for warming up the tone and removing higher frequencies above 2.5k that will not be needed in most cases.
        • Third, the basic sound will also need some adjustments for voicing. Bass is generally direct center nowadays but still carries useful stereo information to make a mix more appealing. As a tip, more voices will be useful for a subtle and wider bass while using fewer voices for bass is useful for a powerful and ‘in your face’ type bass. 
        • Lastly, the ADSR envelop of the bass should be specified. Again, this will change depending on the function of your bass. Strong bass will be a bit brighter have more punch using the ADSR tools in a synth to craft dynamics. The ADSR of a more relaxed bass will likely be slower overall. Attack times around 60ms upward and with a release of longer than 90ms.
      3. Add character to the sound – This is when the bass truly becomes full and rich. Character depends on the function and type of song, but for the most part, there are two main categories. Strong bass and relaxed bass. 
        • Strong bass will be a bit brighter have more punch using the ADSR tools in a synth to craft those dynamics. Adding some type of more aggressive distortion will also help in this stage to create a strong bass that living more forward. 
        • A more relaxed bass will likely use a sound with less upper harmonics. The ADSR of a more relaxed bass will likely be slower overall. Use a slower attack around 60 ms and with a release of longer than 150ms. This bass could also benefit from FX such as chorus, phaser, or even reverb. I still recommend using some type of distortion to fill out the sound and create more warmth. 
        • Additionally, the character can come from varying velocities of the bass. Synthyzisiers are velocity-sensitive and the bass should be no exception here. Velocity is handy for controlling the volume and the filter of the sound, so maybe a higher velocity opens the filter up and makes the bass a bit louder whereas a lower velocity does the opposite. 
        • Character can also be developed by inserting plugins after the initial sound design within the synthesizer. I tend to use dedicated distortion plugins to make the bass feel full. 
      4. MIDI Programming – EDM bass is usually written via midi giving a lot of room for precise via automation controls. Using the pitch bend control is a fantastic way to make the bass feel more alive. Pitch bend is great for ending phrases, sliding into nearby notes, and to create dramatic drops or cuts within the song. It is worth your time to use automation and pitch bending on the bass to liven up a track. Distortion, chorus mix, and even the reverb mix are all good parameters to change via automation to increase excitement and change over time. 

      EDM Bass - MIDI

      1. Separate the Sub from the bass – Separating the sub from the bass will help when mixing and when trying to make a truly powerful song. It’s important to note that sub frequencies are anywhere from 20hz up to 80hz. Bass frequencies are from about 80hz up to 300hz. 

      3 Tips and Reminders for making an EDM Bass

      • EDM bass doesn’t often benefit from complex synthesis techniques. Keep things simple when making your bass.
      • Low amounts of distortion and chorus are great for making an EDM bass that sits well in the mix. This creates warmth and width for your music.
      • Be very deliberate when working with MIDI and programming bass automation. A lot of the character will ultimately come from how the MIDI and automation is written. 

      Final thoughts

      Creating a good EDM bass does not need to be a complex process and can be achieved with any synthesizer and set of plugins. Remember to determine the function of your bass, use simple and warm sonic elements, add character via a rich plug-in chain, be precise with your midi, and finally, consider separating the sub from the bass for ultimate control. We will be posting a video tutorial outlining these key points and helping to create various rich basses using different synthesizers. 

      Let us know if you have any questions about the information or need clarification! Additionally, If you are needing expert help creating your new song and need a trusted partner, simply send us a quick message via one of our forms. We are happy to discuss your song needs and get your project sounding as good as possible.

      Welcome to KSPMixandMaster

      Welcome to KSPMixandMaster.com, our goal is to help artists by providing exceptional and high-end studio-quality music without ever having to pay the high price that comes with commercial type recording. Nowadays it is normal to record radio-ready music in a household setting. There are no more limitations in making good music. We offer a selection of services to meet your needs.

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        About the Author

        Kye Saunders is a mixing and mastering engineer with over 12 years of music experience. He is dedicated to sharing his knowledge and experience with the world.