Welcome to Why Make Music, a podcast where we dive into the world of creativity and inspiration.
Hosted by ThinkTimm, we're broadcasting from planet Earth.
Now, without further ado, let's get back on a journey to think, to talk, and to explore.
Why Make Music...
Hello, hello, hello.
Welcome to Why Make Music...
I am your host, ThinkTimm
I am the creator, curator, host, the collector of musical things.
When I say musical things, I'm talking about creative knowledge, a set of production skills, and some ideas.
Thank you for tuning in.
I want to start this episode by reintroducing myself.
I am ThinkTimm
I am a hobbyist musician.
I am a producer, independent.
I am a creative artist when it comes to music.
I have a bit of artistic talent also.
I write.
I attempt to do some vocals from time to time.
But I am the one who is curating and creating this journey into why make music.
For those of you who have tuned in before, I've said it many times that why make music is the title of this podcast.
And the reason why it's the title is because I do believe that if you were to ask a creative person, one question it would be,
Why do you do what it is that you do?
I say that because I find nothing greater in this world other than family to be creating music.
Like I said, I'm a hobbyist, not a professional.
I'm doing this just for fun.
There is no income.
There's no pay.
I am working on avenues.
That's why this one is called cracking the code.
Why make music episode six, cracking the code.
Every episode so far, I started off with a little story, a throwback tale of an interesting musical thing.
And I'm going to take you guys back this little story today.
And I'm sure tons and tons of people can relate to this one here.
So here we go.
So since I said I am not a trained, I never took a musical lesson.
I grew up in a household where music was being played, where there were instruments and there are musical people in my family who play.
And they, uncles, fathers, people I look up to, of course, they and their time growing up may have taken lessons, but I did not.
So I do recall a time back in high school where I was trying to, you know, get in where I fit in with the musical talent of my school.
I did not go to a musically strong school, but you know, we had school plays, we had school bands, we had school orchestra, we had school choir.
And I took a few musical lessons myself as far as like just regular scheduled.
You know, you had music and you have music appreciation and so forth and so on.
And I enjoyed myself.
So in one of my years when I finally broke out of my shydom, I do mean shydom because I was a very introvert child.
And it took me a while to want to share my personality and share my things with people.
But there was a time that I figured, OK, I'm feeling kind of good about this at home.
Music thing. Let's take this to school and see if I could do something a little special.
But so the school orchestra was having auditions at the time.
I was feeling kind of good about my skills on the piano.
So I signed up to audition and play the piano and I was basically told that, oh, the piece of music that I played, which was an original piece.
Now, mind you, I cannot read music, nor do I transcribe or write anything down like that.
It was good.
But guess what?
The musical director guy told me, hey,
you need to learn how to read music.
And even though what you did was musically cool, musically sound, of course, I am paraphrasing what he said because he did not say it that way.
No, you cannot be on the school band because even though you are a teenager and we are in school technically and you do seem as though you have talent.
I cannot take the time to instruct you.
So I'm not saying it was a letdown, but I'll say it was like a reality check because I was thinking like, hey,
here I am trying to break out my shell, trying to do something different.
And don't get me wrong, I think I could have burned the said material.
And I think that might have been a reason for me to, at that time,
to dive deeper into music theory and learn a little bit more than what I knew at the time.
But I took that as almost like a slight rejection, saying that he was not interested in what I was doing.
And all it made me do was do more things on my own.
And shout out to Gadoop and no hard feelings.
Life is life. It is what it is. So be it.
But I share these stories with you guys just to say that no matter who you are, no matter what you're doing,
no matter what age you're at, no matter what level of skill you have,
you should always feel confident enough to go out there and try to share your talent, your ideas, your creativity,
your hidden skill, your hidden inner glowing thing that you have inside of you with people.
Because you will never know where it will get you and you will never know the person that you might come across
that will then be the person to not necessarily lift you up or not necessarily open any doors for you.
But you have to eventually come out your shell.
That being said, once again, let me tell you that I am so happy to be six episodes and to Why Make Music...
This podcast was something that I thought about and I have been wanting to do for a long time.
But just like I said, comfort levels. You must find your own comfort level.
And when the time is right, you can do things.
So right now, I feel as though the time is right and my comfort level is at a good place.
And I don't mind sharing and creating and being who I can be, what I can be for you.
And right now, I'm going to be your personal coach for cracking the code.
So when I say cracking the code, I think a lot of people understand what I'm saying.
It's not like a spy thing or a puzzling, solving thing.
It's basically just kind of like slang, just saying like, yo, we got to figure out how to get this thing done here.
So cracking the code in relation to music production is basically the importance of planning.
Now, don't get me wrong. Most musicians are very, very good at improvising.
Improvisation, I guess the word is.
I told you once before, maybe episode one that hang in with me. My English is good.
It's not like it's not my first language and only language, but, yo, I'm human.
I will trip up and stumble over some words.
I am learning to pace myself for this audio podcast communication thing I'm doing here.
So the importance of planning when it comes to making music, as you can hear in the background, there are a drum.
There's a drum track playing right now.
This is a track that I did. All the music you hear in the background are snippets or drum tracks or instrumental tracks from projects that I've done, things I was working on.
And I felt as though since this podcast is called Why Make Music, one of the more important things that we do in this whole Why Make Music thing is to share with you my creation.
Share with you the fact that, OK, music can be done.
I am telling you that I am not a professional at this, but if I could do this, then while I'm doing this, I could basically have something playing in the background that I created.
And as I'm telling you this, maybe this can inspire you to pick up an instrument, get some software, start making music of your own, because I believe that everybody, if you have an idea, you can follow through with it.
And you too can always make music and be a creative person.
Awesome. So, normally what I do, I start with the idea of what am I doing today? How do I feel musically? What do I feel like coming up with? What do I feel like making?
Now, a lot of times when putting together a track, in today's world, depending on what type of music you listen to, so you have to be realistic, so I recently have been going on social media and keeping other people's things.
And there's a ton of people who make great music, and I'm not going to lie to you, I'm slightly intimidated because some of these people seem as though they're asking for advice about what to do.
They're stopping, not asking me per se, but they post statements saying, oh, take a listen to this and tell me what you think about it, tell me your opinion.
I sometimes will comment and say, oh yeah, well, thanks for posting and I'm happy that you posted something and I feel your whole introduction thing and I'm not going to criticize what they do, by no means, I'm not even here to criticize.
And then I play there, I go to the link of wherever their music is, whatever streaming platform or introductory platform such as like SoundCloud or whatever have you, and I play it and some of the coolest stuff I've ever heard in my entire life.
And these folks now are like, oh my god, these are professional musicians that have such a level of modesty of, I don't know if this is good, I don't think this is good.
And I believe, I'm a firm believer that all music is good.
I'm like, so I don't know if that's a ploy that they're putting out there like saying, oh, listen to this, tell me if my stuff is good, because listen to me, I'm the idiot guy over here who has put out 52 songs in the last month and a half.
I didn't ask anybody any opinion about if they thought it was good or if they think they think they think it's going to be good or whatever and I'm not really too concerned about other people's opinions of stuff.
I just think that music is good and it should be shared and so forth.
But, so, like I said, I started off with a drum track, I might throw a bass or some strings. Here's another track right here, going into a little bit of it.
So you see like there's a deep 808 going, and then there's a little melody riding over top of it.
Didn't write it down, planned it, no. You feel it, you create something, you feel how things are going, and you create a melody.
Fortunately, musically, things come to me kind of in a good way.
And music comes really fast.
You know when something sounds okay, something sounds passable, and you build on it.
So my way of creating is normally I get a foundation of where I'm going, a groove more or less going on, and from there I take it and I build the layers onto it.
And you sit back and you think, where is this going to go and what are you going to do with it?
So I tend to want to start a project and pretty much put the project to bed, not the project itself, but the track to bed in a complete form by the time that I move on to the next thing.
So this way I will have a complete thought of at least having say drums, a rhythm section together as far as drums, bass, a melody, a few changes in there.
The times I end up doing vocals, the vocals sometimes come in the middle of the song because you'll have a little groove and if you let it play for some time, you can come off a hook.
Because you know how things go.
You hear a song and you'll imagine lyrics over top of it.
So if you're creating and you're writing, you'll sit back.
I'm like, in all honesty, this is how all music is created.
I'm like on every level, it's not any different than writing in your room, your office, in your car, than writing in a studio that you're paying by the hour for or writing with a great writing team that's won awards.
That's one thing I think that all creative people share.
It's a level of birth of an idea of an idea of music and it can come at any point and it can come at any level.
So it's funny when you see someone on TV, that's how old I am, when you see somebody on TV and they're talking and they're doing that interview thing.
So when you come across someone, any type of media, and basically they're explaining to you their process of making music and how they tend to create and how they tend to do things.
You tend to want to be like, oh wow, whatever, they ditched it and such. Everyone does it. Everyone gets to that point where they're like, yeah, this is the hottest thing right here.
This is really cool, you know, and I'm really feeling it and this lyric goes well with that song or whatever.
That's how creativity works. The thing is that they have a platform that when they put the song out, they know where it's going and you hear it and it becomes catchy and then you tend to want to listen to it over and over again.
The biggest situation of creating music is the fact that everyone can create something, but the question is, what do you do when you create it? What are you going to do with it?
You understand that? So it's like I'm trying to think like, so when you're planning as a creative, and I've been asking people to comment and hit me back and let me know because I want to have a conversation about this.
So when you're writing a song or you're writing anything you're doing, what is your plan for it? What is your intent? How good are you trying to make it? Are you trying to make it that is, I'm just getting this idea out of my head, and I'm going to come back and revisit this idea of whether it be a day later, a year later, a decade later.
Are you writing your material for other people? When I say for other people, I mean like are you writing material for a hire where, okay, you're just responsible for the musical part of it and you're not necessarily responsible for the, you're not really the person who's putting in the, how do I want to say, you're not the person putting in the lyrics or whatever.
You know, like it's all levels. I'm just completely curious as to what you do in your process.
Because I told you my process is pretty much, I put the track down, I work with it. A lot of these tracks, I kid you not, they do have ideas and lyrics that go along with it, and I know where the songs are going, but my thing is that I am not necessarily satisfied with the commercial, lyrical content.
I'm not satisfied with the lyrical content of a lot of music nowadays.
The last thing I want to do is maybe take a track because my biggest thing is that I really, really dig the production quality that a lot of songs have. And then sometimes, because like I said, I'm old, the people's lyrics get a little too fresh for me.
And I do not want to listen to them that way. And I'll be wishing everything's instrumental. So when I say that, I say that thinking like, maybe perhaps if I feel some gibberish over top of the track, and I might ruin my track myself by putting my thoughts or my words on top of itself.
I have decided that, hey, and I feel like I'm slow to the game with this one, because not until recently have I discovered there's a thing called beat leasing, and with the beat leasing, oh wow, you hear that guitar right there?
That's fly.
I'm renowning and I astound myself by being here.
Beat leasing.
So basically what it is, there's services out here where a producer can go on to a site, such as BeatStars or AirBits or Track Train.
And there are several other ones. I do know that my distribution company, United Masters, has one where you as a producer can put your tracks up there, and you can lease them to other artists, such as an up and coming person or someone who's fully established.
So the thing is, the whole premise behind that is basically, you put a track together. You can do a full song if you want to, you can do it with a hook, and then you can, a hook is a chorus, and you could then take that and then put that out on your site, and then a person, a creative, a artist, a rapper, a singer, a poet, a wordsmith, someone who has lyrics to his song.
Someone who has lyrics, but maybe not necessarily have access to making music.
You can lease it for a price.
So for like, for a wave form or an mp3, it might be under $10, and the person in this digital age will download the mp3, and then for the next level up, it might be a couple dollars more, and you'll get the mp3 and the wave, which will be a higher level of the mp3, but then there's also a platform above that where you can get the stems.
And for people who, who's not familiar with the term stems when it comes to digital music nowadays or making music nowadays, that's the individual track outs that you might have.
You'll have the drum track, like right now currently, like I'm playing drum stems and obviously there's a guitar track with us, too.
Right there. You got a guitar?
Oh my god, I killed it.
Anywho, I digress. I don't want to get distracted by music.
This is what I'm talking about. So if I was, the song, I was singing something on top of this, would you really want to hear me or do you want to hear the guitar?
Me personally, I don't want to hear the guitar.
Me anyway. So this beatleasing thing, so you'll release the stems and then the person will have the stems for their project and then it's just a split as far as if something were to happen and it would have blow up.
I will get my producer credit and they will be able to get financial credit for writing the lyrics and so forth and so on. It's a good way to get your music out there and share it in a way.
So like I said, beatleasing is a very cool thing, but just as I said that my goal is to over saturate people with music because I am trying to do something to find a place for my songs.
The market is so crowded because you do recall, this is an ongoing process and this is an ongoing learning experience.
And as I said before, shockingly, there are a large amount of people who are releasing and creating music on the daily.
And by that, I do mean a large amount. I do believe the crazy number that I came up with on the internet was that there are basically almost 120,000 songs released daily.
So the reality of that being said, you have to really think about.
So you have those songs, those are songs that are basically really getting airplay and getting maybe some type of distribution.
And as I say that I am an independent person doing this, that means that there's no large marketing team behind me.
This is what you hear is what you get. This is it.
So hats off once again to those who are doing it. But you have to find a way to navigate and crack the code and find out what your plan is and what's going to work for you.
So what I've discovered is that along with doing music, which could, and honestly, take up a lot of your time, because if you really think about it, that not everyone.
I think I'm rather fortunate because I can tell you that I can technically put together a full thought of a song in the course of a couple of hours.
I never tend to run out of musical ideas as far as composing and writing and arranging, which is a weird thing.
It's a cool thing. But like I said, it's not paying any bills. So it's a useless talent at this point.
It's like a party trick. Oh, you like music. Yeah, music. That's what I make music. Oh, how much do you what do you what type of music you make?
I don't listen to me. Tell me something. Someone let me know what type of music is this that I'm making. I don't even know.
And the thing is that as a person that's putting together music and I'm attempting to navigate the social media scenario and I'm attempting to put my songs on the sites, there's a thing.
That metadata that they ask you to put all this information about your track as far as what type of song is it, what type of category, what genre music it goes into.
And a lot of times I don't know because the thing is that like I said, I listen to all types of music and I think all types of music is good. So it could be anything from traditional, everyday pop, R&B, hip hop, pop, country, anything.
I don't necessarily really know what category something falls into because I'm not necessarily listening to something for the sake of a category.
And I do prefer artists that tend to cross all types of different lines. You know what I'm saying? So like in all honesty, I would love an artist that doesn't necessarily have to be R&B, pop, hip hop, so forth, whatever it's going to be.
It is what it is. So I don't know. I really don't know. I don't know. So a lot of times I'm like alternative hip hop, I put pop, I put the new one on EDM. I guess that's electronic digital music.
That sounds good, EDM. That's what I do. As far as planning to do things, like I said, as a songwriter, you'll write a song and sometimes my takeaway is that my goal of getting my music out there is that there's music behind everything.
There is music in everything that we do. And you have to realize that every aspect of our lives, our lives are soundtracked by something, by some song, some melody, some track.
And when you get into media, you realize that when you're watching television in the background of those TV shows, in the background of commercials, that's music.
That aspect of the music business is called sync licensing. And from what I understand, it's a situation where they basically pay you for music. And the thing is that it's so astounding because I think there's so many people that are doing this.
And it's so hard to find the avenues to get more material. And that is the reason why I do believe that so many people are taking advantage of social media.
And so many people are taking advantage of YouTube. So many people are doing things and they are basically recording podcasts as I'm recording a podcast as I'm talking to you right now.
And we record these things and we attempt to share who we are in a crazy attempt to market ourselves.
So this way you will see who we are, what we are, and what we're doing to get our music out there.
So not only do you need to come correct when you're coming to these companies, you also should also be able to somewhat learn that time is moving forward.
And as time moves forward, we have to move with it. And by moving with it, that means, peppy, transforming yourself and going slow and being part of the change and being positive and being creative as much as you can.
And you have to realize that people have a very, very short attention span. So you have to do something to keep their attention.
And I do believe that even goes with companies who want to deal with a person that they want to find an entity to represent their product.
But at the same point, that entity has to be something that people can relate to. Because I can't tell you how many times the image, the person, the creative, the talent, and everything paints a whole picture.
And sometimes I really think that maybe perhaps the two should not go together. Like if you really dig somebody's music, why do you need to know everything about this person?
It's weird, it's crazy, but this is the world that we live in and I can't correct it and I can't change it. But you have to find a way. Like I said, this episode is episode six. Why make music crack the code?
There are so many different things that an artist has to do nowadays to be relevant other than make music.
I say that because like I said, I'm a musician or an independent musician. I am a person who does this like a hobby. And I know that the stuff that I'm doing is possible, possibly.
I can be kept up with. I can keep up with other marketable musicians. So with that being my statement for the time, I want to talk to you about, you need to think about what's your goal? What are you going after?
I laugh and I joke and I say all the time, I'm here and I am trying to oversaturate the market. I am trying to carve out a situation that if you can't sit back and say, oh, I don't know about that thing, Timm... cat.
He put out a track and I like that track. Well, guess what, home? There's 25 more tracks on that same piece of digital MP3 album that you listen to. So listen to all 26 tracks on that one and tell me that something didn't catch your ear.
You'd be like, sorry, I'll tell you that one. So how about if I tell you, okay, and 26 days later, I release another 26 tracks and you're going to still tell me that, oh, something I did at that time didn't catch your ear.
You didn't like. So now we got 52 tracks out and nothing. All right. So in this day and time, 2024, that we have to basically now make videos.
We have to do TikToks. We got to come up with dances. We got to make music. We got to be witty, but we got to tell jokes. We got to animate cartoons. We got to illustrate all of our images, our dreams.
And then we have to then figure out a way to market everything that we're doing.
And still be one of hundreds of thousands of people who's doing this.
And like I said, I may not be the prettiest.
There's someone prettier than me out here that's only younger than me that's doing this and may not be doing it as well as I am.
And when that person's doing it, you guys are listening because it depends on what you want to hear. It's not what I want to hear.
You know, that's the thing. I'm trying to be respectful. I'm trying to be honest. It's not about me.
It's not about what Timm wants. It's about what the audience wants.
So the thing is like, how do you make yourself marketable in this day and time? How do you crack the code to get your material that might sound just like someone else's material that's popular,
but the average listener isn't buying into the fact that all these songs sound alike. I listen to music and when I listen to music, a lot of the songs I hear, they all sound alike.
I'm not saying my music sounds any different. I'm not saying that by any means.
All I'm saying is that if you have a top 10 list and seven of the top 10 songs sound alike, what are we doing?
I say that because when I was entering into this beat leasing situation, trying to figure out what it is that people do,
there's a thing that I came across that's called beat type, type beat. It's a phrase that is used to search and find a beat. So they encourage music creators to basically find and tell what their beat is like.
So that means like, okay, if you listen to seven such artists, label your beat this, listen to their music, and you try to make a track that sounds like their song.
And then hopefully people who want to rap like that artist or sing like that artist will get your music because it sounds like that artist. And we can all pretend that we're that artist.
How does that sound to you?
I want to live that type of life. I want a type of life. I want a life that's, you know, upper 5% of the world, you know, tax breaks and great health care and all that good stuff.
Yeah, that's the type of life I want. I want to listen to that type of music that's, you know, that's popular and I'm going to sing those songs that are that type of song, you know, but it is what it is.
It's forever. I'm like, if you think back to the early versions of the earlier hits of pop music or certain eras of music through the 60s, 70s, 50s, 40s, 30s, 70s, 80s, 90s, 2000s.
We always have trends of music. This is nothing new. So don't let me say anything crazy to make you think that I don't understand how things work.
All I'm saying is that there is so much music out there.
Where do you fit in? Where will you get in? Where will you find your niche?
Where would you find the reason that you make music?
How will you figure out a way to technically crack the code?
What do you think will be the thing that will get you over the hump? What will be the thing to make you better or garner attention?
If you are a creative person, I'm like, if this was a regular nine to five job, what do you do? You're at your place of business and you're technically only really competing with who?
The people who work in your department, wherever you work at, people who work in your office building.
You're not competing with some unknown people across the world who are doing your type of work and you're being judged on a grand scale of someone who figured out how to crack the code to be you.
It's the craziest thing in the world if you really ask me. And I know my opinion does not matter. And I am not here to be judgmental and I'm not judgmental.
I always tell you props to everyone who makes music in any way, shape or form. There's nothing greater than being creative and sharing your music with the world.
I'm just here trying to tell you that it is hard work to want to be something that will get the attention of other people.
Most people do not live their life trying to get likes or trying to get views or keeping track of numbers of how many people listen to what they're doing or what they're saying.
It's enough to make you a little crazy. There's some cool good books out here that talk about society and how society is misled and needs to be redirected because people tend to
flock and follow a lot of things that they don't necessarily have the full information about.
And I'm not saying things are good for them and they don't understand or things are bad for them and they don't take heed.
I just believe that we're living in a generation. We're living in a world right now where information is at our fingertips.
Just the way that you are listening to me and you may not know me.
You may know nothing about me other than what I tell you.
You may not know anything about me other than what you find on my social media accounts.
But if I tell you that I come with no ill will towards anything that anyone's doing because nothing that anything nothing that anyone is doing is affecting me directly.
Nothing that I do should affect anyone directly.
My greatest goal in life is to be me and to guide and influence my family and the people I come in direct contact with face to face, hand to hand.
The people I sit and I break bread with and they influence me and I influence them.
And we can have conversations and I can talk to them and find out how they how their day is going.
How are things in their life? What makes them tick?
I can ask my their version of why make music.
The reason why I say I ask that version of why I make music because not only do creative people like to be asked about what's going on in their lives.
I believe everyone likes to know that you're interested in what they're doing and not everyone gets that interaction and not everyone gets that chance.
So in the grand scheme of things, when we talk about cracking the code, cracking the code could be a thing of communicating more.
You know, I'm saying, how do you communicate more with people?
How do you learn to talk to people and share and find what's the key elements of saying things that inspire saying things that trigger positivity and
influence people for the better and not for the worse?
We live in very interesting times, folks. Very, very interesting times.
Music is the one thing that can bring people together.
It's often overlooked and people don't realize how much they find comfort and just listening to music, all types of music, music that I may not even understand,
lyrics that I may not even get. And I'm being honest with you. Some things are wonderful.
They're so wonderful that we cannot comprehend them.
That's music and art. Music has been around for so long.
Music has probably been around longer than written word, longer than thought patterns.
Music at one point was used to communicate from village to village.
I mean, not at all.
I'm not an equated with my things. You know, the dinosaurs used to play drums, the stegosaurus, the hell of a guitar, the raptor, and the float.
Yeah.
You heard of Lincoln Park, right? What about Jurassic Park?
Anywho. But I don't know.
What do you like to do? What is your thing that makes you who you are?
Do you enjoy what you do?
And I say that because I'm sure everyone who listens to why make music isn't a musician.
I'm sure everyone doesn't know what it's like to hear your voice on a recording and think, oh my God, I sound like I'm insane.
Not everyone can do what you do.
And I say that because that is a statement across the board that everybody can't do everything I can't do what the next person can do.
The next person can't do what that person can't do.
That's why we need to build a society, a community of people together.
We need to come together and communicate and to share.
Trust me, people, the world is a good place.
You know, if I told you that there's no place like Earth, would you believe me?
Think about it. I'm telling you for a fact that there is no place like this round blue planet that we live on.
No matter how much we take it for granted, if you go anywhere else, it ain't like here.
Nothing like this. The music is different. The food is different. The air is funny.
You understand? I'm like, technically, how many thoughts can be floored in? That's the big question right there.
Well, I'm getting to the end of my room right now.
I have a little tickle in my throat. Excuse me.
I want to give a shout out to everyone who stuck in and listened, everyone who continues to come back for my not since every four weeks.
I'm going to continue doing this. I think I am one step closer to cracking that code.
And that code might be something as simple as making a new friend, touching a person, making a person laugh.
Like I told you, I was told this week, I love it, that million dollar check ain't ever coming.
So you need to stop looking for it.
The reason why I say that is because you have to live your life. That's all you have to do.
Be happy. Be you. And you're going to be OK. So when you see somebody that does something talented, you ask them why they do it.
You see somebody salute them for putting their stuff out there and tell them like, yo, keep doing you. Be happy.
Why make music... Why make music... Because you love it. Why do what you do? Because you love it.
When you go to work every day, you may not be completely happy about what you're doing, but you do technically love and appreciate what you do.
The things you do in your life allow you to be you. So keep living. Keep doing it.
Check me out on my social media platforms. ThinkTimm. Peace. Why make music? Episode 6. Tell me. Did I hurt the code? Did I?