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 embark on a journey to think, to talk, and to explore Why Make Music...
Welcome to Why Make Music…, the podcast that is hosted by ThinkTimm, and I am ThinkTimm,
and welcome. Welcome to the podcast where we discuss the journey into entering the world
of independent musicianship, music production, and artistry. In this podcast, we take a journey
through the creative process of me, ThinkTimm. That's T-H-I-N-K-T-I-M-M. I want to welcome you all
to episode 12, the dozen, the dirty dozen, we did 12 episodes so far. You think that's one a week
or three months then, and I am loving it. I am enjoying it. In this episode, I actually had some
comments finally or questions that came through the DM, and I'm quite excited to want to answer
them. So I figured I gathered a few and I figured I'll make an episode out of it. And this will be
not necessarily a rehash, but I realized some of the questions that came then over the period of time
were questions that reiterated some of the subjects that we're talking about. So I want to venture
into attempting to answer. So this is kind of cool because it's not really outlined. It's not really scripted.
I did cut and paste and copy the questions. So this way I will have a list that could be used as an
audio prompt to let you know what the questions were basically. So as I do always, I just want to do
the quick introduction of myself, and I am ThinkTim. I am a independent producer, meaning that I'm
basically nobody. I'm not a famous. I am just a person who is putting out music and trying to reach
the audience and build a community and perhaps be an inspiration to people who are creative in a figure.
Hey, how do I get in? How do I find a spot to fit in? So my thing is I do music. I was brought up in a musical environment,
household, neighborhood. I grew up in the 80s, born in the 70s. I've been influenced by a range of things.
And basically now in the year 2024, I am utilizing the technology that we have at hand that is allowing me to get my sound,
my vision, and my thoughts across to the people. The people, the people, the people. Let me first and foremost thank you for listening,
tuning in, following the social media, hooking up with the podcasts, listening to the music. My music is all streaming platforms under ThinkTimm.
The type of music I do is basically instrumentals right now. Eventually I will start doing some vocals over top.
I don't want to go into too much because we have a bunch of questions and we're going to try to get into those and we will see if these questions will kind of prompt us to answer
and explain more about what it is that I do. So without further ado, let's hop into these questions. So here we go.
One, creative process. What does your typical creative process look like when you start a new project? So my typical creative process is, like I said,
I'm utilizing technology right now. So there are a lot of digital audio workstations available on your PC, laptops, and tablets. Two of my favorite workstations,
digital audio workstations referred to as DAWs, are FL Studios, which I like that very much so because programming a sequence drum pattern is quite easy.
The stock sounds that they come with are rather good. They come from a wide variety of stock sounds and if you were to want to modify those sounds,
make your kicks a little thicker, the effects are all great. I think it's very user friendly and I see that from a point of view of a person who,
I find a lot of things to be easy. But it's very easy to write, play, hook up your MIDI controller, your keyboards, and it has a good quality of sound.
My other one that I would say basically is a tie between the two I use. I use Apple's Logic Pro and I like that because some of their sounds are really good and really crisp.
I love messing around with their drum program patterns. The sounds are good. Their instrumentation is cool. A lot of times on a lot of the bases that they use,
the instrument that they sample is so crisp, sometimes you can actually hear a finger rub on a bass string which kind of gives you the illusion that it's really a bass when you listen to it.
Plus their automation controls as well with FL Studios are really good. So what I mean by the automation controls are that when you go in after you record your instrument,
you put it down, you can go back in and tweak it with different effects and panning instruction volume up and down and it's very very cool to capture a little bit more of a subtle change in a track as opposed to just having a track play completely through from beginning to end.
Also both devices, when you go to quantize which is basically pulling the note closer to the actual note, like say if it's off, just like a hair, you could quantize a whole pattern and pull it in and make it a little tighter or you can even hit a button that says humanize
and it kind of throws things a little bit off kilter which makes it seem a little bit more like it is human. But both of those software packages aren't expensive.
Both Apple Logic I do believe was under $200 plus it comes with a free update and finally Apple Logic 10 has moved on to Apple Logic 11 after a long long time.
And FL Studios, I think is that FL Studios 24. And the first one I got was 8, I'm not saying that there are 16 between, but there are quite a few and there are a few limitations with the older ones I know that
since I tend to operate on a Apple Mac system. At one point I did lose some of the earlier cooler instruments on FL Studios but I have adapted and I have figured things out thanks to stem splitting where I can take an older track and basically pull out something
I did in the past and reuse it again currently. So, the creative process to me is basically like you hear the music playing in the background, those are drum tracks from projects that are either in the process of being gone over or set to be put on something else
but everything is a complete thought and I have few fragmented ideas that are left unchecked. I tend to finish a project upon starting it so, like I said, 24 hours in a day.
Where are you going to do a few 24 hours? Some days I can kick out one or two songs, sometimes three. And I'm trying to make the best of my time. And my creative process is basically just being true to myself and making what I want to make and I am satisfied with sharing that.
And I thank you very much for your questions and that is my creative process. Let's move on to question number two.
Two, independent distribution. How do you navigate the challenges of distributing your music independently?
So, like I said, independent distribution. I have several different things that I do. The main way to get my music onto the streaming platforms because shockingly as easy as it is to stream music, you have to have
a liaison company that can go between you and yourself in the streaming situation. So there are plenty of distribution scenarios that are out there. Some of the more popular ones are I think it's called DistroKid.
And then you have SoundCloud, which is offering a new package that you can upload music and they will distribute it to streaming platforms as well as place it on their streaming platform.
I went with United Masters. The reason why I went with United Masters is that at the time when I was looking, A, the price was considerably nice.
Not saying Kid Destro's price or DistroKid wasn't as good, but they were touting the fact that they tended to make your songs available for sync licensing.
And that is something I'm very interested in. And I'm sure there's a question that probably goes into that. So I will elaborate that on, elaborate more on that as that question comes up.
But the distribution system is basically what you do is you take your finished song, your finished product, you mix it and master it. Or a lot of these distribution, digital distribution companies offer a mastering for a small fee per song or they give you credits or tokens.
It's some odd situation. But then they give you a master version basically saying that a master version is that it's leveling all your music up to a presentable equal audience now.
Where if your song came on behind another song, everything will fall in place. You don't want to all of a sudden have a decrease in volume while your song follows behind another song or another track.
So mastering is always good. Also, I know a lot of people may frown on this, but as far as mastering is concerned on the digital audio workstations at all, both FL Studios and Apple Logic Pro offers mastering, which I do take advantage of.
That's because I mix my tracks and you tell you, you should always use a reference track. And by a reference track, I mean basically I pull in another song that has the sound that I'm trying to reach as far as the audio levels, not necessarily the same type of music.
But every time they're my own songs, I pull them in and I try to EQ the highs, the mids, the lows to be equivalent to that. And then I tweak it, tweak it, tweak it.
I actually uploaded a bit into the FL Studios or the Apple Logic Mastering and it kind of polished it off. It just gives the little extra boost and it gives you a little more range of categories or genres that you may want to attempt to have your music sound like.
So the distribution thing, I pay for the distribution, I upload a song or upload basically an album. They tell me that you should do it several weeks ahead of time of your release date. So this way you can work on the hype of getting your song noticed by other people as far as consumers and what have you.
And that theory works well if you are doing it in the traditional way of releasing a single and then following it up by another single or an album. But what I've been doing is that maybe once a month for the last three months and I plan to do five projects back to back every month.
So you're in November now, so I am gearing up to release another 26 song volume to go with the first three. This would be the fourth one.
First one being “Demotional… Caught Feelings”. The second one being “Beatanical… Booming Bouquet”.
The third one being “SuperlaBass… Reality Affect”.
And the fourth one is coming in November.
I do believe I know the name, I'm not going to throw it out there as of yet but I do think it's going to be the
“LoFication… Sonic Civilization”. I think that's what it's called. “LoFication… Sonic Civilization”. Yeah, that sounds cool. But no, that's actually the name of it. But that's going to be our project for November.
And when I say our project, I mean my project. So basically you upload the tracks, you do a little bit of public relations posted on social media, and you try to give as many listens as you can and try to get on playlists and so forth and so on.
But since I told you my goal is to possibly try out for sync licensing, my scenario is that the more tracks I have available that are already cleared by a PRO organization like ASCAP or BMI,
indicating that I am the sole owner of the song, it makes me more likely to be an easy placement for an entity to use me or use my track because there's no samples, there's no one else to have a business transaction with besides myself.
And from what I'm understanding is that a lot of times this transaction can happen within a course of 10 to 12 hours more or less so the less amount of people the least amount of people involved in the transaction from these sync agents and music supervisors that are looking for the songs just to feel one person could be a plus and I'm all about the ease of things.
All right, so with that, thank you once again for the question about distribution. Let's move on to the next guy, which is going to be three work habits.
Can you share some of your personal work habits that have helped you stay productive?
So three work habits that allow me to stay productive. I basically have actual regular real life responsibilities.
And fortunately and unfortunately I also have a little amount of time on my hands. So with that, I tend to be able to take care of my responsibilities which still leaves me with a good amount of hours of my day that I get my fitness routine and I get my daily
activities and I run my errands and then I also have time to come sit and do music.
My routines are basically very basic. I queue up tracks, I review what I did, I review what I might have in the quote unquote vault that I want to maybe dust off and revisit.
And then I get to work. Most times I'm starting a track from scratch and like I said, I tend to start with more like the bottom the foundation, the drums, the
bass lines, and then I move on from there to the melodies of the track and I keep it rocking like that.
There is no wrong way in my opinion of creating music.
Music and art, like I say at all times is very very subjective to people's opinions. And what you tend to want to do is steer clear of people's opinions and don't make music to make other people happy.
You should make music to make yourself happy and your sounds are your sounds and eventually if you are to find an audience or find a community that embraces you, it's going to work.
And truthfully and honestly I think a lot of music itself is kind of not say background noise but it is. I like the thing is the key is if it doesn't sound very
off key.
And you're playing everything that goes together cohesively.
And you're not overdoing it by putting too many different sounds, voices, timbers on a track.
You can tend to do something. Sometimes music can be a very minimalistic approach to creating sounds, or sometimes it could be a ton of sounds. I'm like sometimes it could be a one man band or sometimes it could be an orchestra, you know,
a piano playing by itself sounds just as good as a hundred piece orchestra playing so to each their own sound is good music is great.
All you have to do is create create and do something and put your stuff out there. The thing is that a lot of people from my understanding, make music and then the comparison factor is what sometimes, I guess, gets a person down because you have to
realize that I know this sounds crazy but there's only so many notes I'm like, there's only so many core progressions that go together and sometimes you're going to play something that sounds similar to someone else.
And you have to realize, there are millions of songs that sound alike, but that does not make them unoriginal.
Certain chords go together like you always hear people tell you that oh playing a guitar or playing a piano you learn, you just know maybe about five or six chords. You can play thousands of songs. That is very much so true.
Because five or six chords have been used in thousands and thousands of songs and certain chords, there's chord structure like no, no, listen to me. I've never taken a music theory class.
I just know that certain things sound good and certain chords follow by or proceeding other chords work out and sometimes you might play a chord that or play some notes that remind you of something else that has already been created.
But since I am not necessarily a sampler nor am I competing with anyone, and nor do I necessarily get discouraged. Every now and again I might hear something in one of my original songs that might sound like something and then I think back to when I was creating the song.
Maybe that song in my recreational life might have been a little bit prevalent in the brain and I unconsciously use something that was similar to.
And it doesn't really become an issue because like I said, I am not a professional person out there competing so I don't feel it. I don't feel as though there will be any type of problem, but that's just a rare occasion for the most part.
My music doesn't sound too much like anybody else's stuff and I'm not borrowing or stealing chords or progression thing going on to it or so forth and so on.
I did hear a story a while ago while listening to a podcast or an interview, whatever, and it was Alicia Keys speaking about a song that she wrote, and she basically borrowed some chords from Prince who is a great influencer of mine.
And when she played the song for him, he basically told her, yo, you got to change those chords because those record executives are not sending their kids to college on my chords.
And truthfully, they're not going to care one way or the other if you change them or keep them, but he knew those were the chord's progression that he used and she was aware that there was a chord progression she used.
And they made it clear she changed the song, still became a hit, and everybody was happy and there was a lesson learned in that. But yeah, that was pretty much it. But work habits, work hard, work every day like it should last.
Try to put out some type of creativity as much as you can. Don't worry about other people's opinion. You do you, you be happy, you make the music you want to make, and make the music for yourself.
If other people like it, so be it. But if you like it, that's cool. I'm not gonna lie. A lot of times when I'm out running errands and I'm in the vehicle driving around, I'm listening to my own tracks.
I'm not necessarily listening to what's going on in the world. Like I said, I've been there, I did that. I was a fan of a lot of people and I think all those influence got poured into me.
So therefore, when I make stuff that I won't listen to, I feel like it's a tribute to those who influenced me and I feel satisfied with just basically being able to make music and have it playing and it's cool.
So work hard, work habits, work routine. Carve out some time that you can get your time in. Make sure you play, make sure you practice, make sure you work on your craft.
Thank you very much for that question about work habits. Let's go on to number four.
Social media navigation. What strategies do you find most effective when promoting music on social media?
Social media navigation. That is my thorn in my side. Being older and basically realizing that there was a world and a life before social media, before Twitter, X, Instagram, Snapchat,
TikTok and any other platform, YouTube that I am
skipping out on as far as speaking. Social media to me is a very useful tool and that is, in my opinion, where I land at.
Lately, within the last week, I have been incorporating some of my graphic art images of things that I'm a fan of. Star Wars, Marvel, so forth and so on. Digital artwork that I do along with my music tracks in the background.
Because I have to figure out a way to reach a larger audience because no one knows who ThinkTimm is. T-H-I-N-K-T-I-M-M means nothing to the masses.
But if you put the ThinkTimm track behind a picture of Darth Vader or behind a graphic digital image of Iron Man or something that is way so marketable than me, people tend to like a little bit more so because they can relate to it.
I am not a household name. I don't know how to become a household name and social media, just like this podcast, is something I'm doing and I am attempting to get it out there and get my music out there.
The funny thing is that even when you sign up for, it's almost like your electronic portfolio.
They want your social media names, your at ThinkTimm, your whatever it may be, ThinkTimm.com. I have all those things, the Gmail address, the Hotmail address, the live address, the ThinkTimm at Twitter, at Instagram, at Twitter.
The YouTube scenario going on under ThinkTimm under Why Make Music… is a Why Make Music… Instagram page.
There's a WDMNation which is like my self-created parent umbrella company that handles the art stuff and the music falls under and you'll hear me call it out like WDMN.
Damnation. Like we're a radio station. I learned that from George Clinton and Prince.
But listen, social media is a powerful tool and I am trying to learn how to navigate it and I am doing my best and I can do better.
I can learn to try to remember to post every single day, several times a day, but I'm not gonna lie, I don't do it all the time.
And the worst thing I want to do is for those who have taken the time to follow my accounts, I don't want to flood your timeline with my nonsense.
I'm just being respectful because if you listen to it, you listen to it when you get around to doing it and if you don't, you don't. But like I said, the streaming situation, the streaming game is very, very fickle as far as money is concerned.
And in order to see some real change, you gotta get like a million streams and I don't see myself getting a million streams unless something else I'm planning, that I'm planning succeeds and then by chance I get a million streams.
And at that point, everything goes hand in hand, but I don't think I'm gonna have a viral video or a viral song that's gonna all of a sudden catapult me into the upper echelon of social media.
So you try, you try hard, you work hard and you put your stuff out there. And then the other underlining thing is that I'm kind of a private person, so therefore there's only so much I'm gonna put on social media.
So a day in my life is like, oh, he posted a picture, oh, look at that, he put some cool writing underneath it, like old caption. And there's some music playing in the background.
And if you follow a handful of accounts I get, you might get it five times, that's pretty much it. And then I move on to the next day and I just keep it going and eventually, hopefully, if it's meant to happen, something will stick.
All right, let's see. Thank you once again for the question for the streaming platform. What is our next guy?
Streaming platforms. Have you had any success getting your music placed on playlists? And what was that experience like? Six musicals.
Have I had my stuff placed on any streaming platforms and playlists? Streaming platforms, yes. I covered that in the distribution situation. That's basically paying the middle person a small fee of, I think it's like $59 a year, which is no problem, which is very minimal.
But it puts your music on all the major platforms and some platforms I've never even heard of. Figures, Apple, Spotify, iHeartRadio, I think titles still out there, Amazon Music, YouTube, and anything else that plays music, Instagram, TikTok, social media, things, Twitter.
So if you want to put music in the background of one of your videos and you're a video creator, you're an influencer, you could type in T-H-I-N-K-T-I-M-M and currently 76 songs will pop up and you will be able to pick one of those songs and maybe we can both go viral together.
You know what I'm saying? I don't know. I really don't know. But yeah, as far as the playlist is concerned, I created a playlist and I think that it's out there.
And then my thing is that from my understanding and my research on this playlist scenario thing is that you got to have a team. You got to have a team of people. My team of people is me, myself, and this guy, I.
And I can't. I'm pushing. I'm putting it out there and until something catches, it's whatever. And like I said, I'm trying and it's hard.
But the good thing about the playlist, playlist, no less than I am on is that it made me feel cool because I was placed on a playlist that they put a good amount of my tracks on there.
But no one was really listening to it. And there's other songs that sound like mine, which I don't know. That's a good thing or a bad thing. But I don't think anyone's listening to any of those songs.
I emailed the playlist out. I direct DM people with it and I put it on social media. And like I said, folks, a million streams gets you $3,500.
I don't think a million people are listening to my playlist. So it is what it is. And we are happy with how things are going. And we're just keeping it real.
And it's going to be what it's going to be. And eventually one day, perhaps I will crack the code and something else will happen. But until then, I don't know.
Do you like the songs? Play the songs for three, four days at a time. You know, I can't do it because that's cheating. So I can't play my music through streaming platforms.
So basically when I say that I drive around, I'm listening to my music. I'm listening to my music that I uploaded onto my own device and it's not being tracked or traced. So I'm not messing around with the ends and outs of how music is tracked.
Next question. Let's see. I hit the button here and here we go.
Influences.
A month ago I had an episode or the two part episode that I went into about influences. The biggest influence musically in my life has been Prince. Reason being, he did everything and he did everything well.
He influenced basically many a generation. He was underrated in his talent because of the visual appearance that he put out there. Sometimes I'm going to be honest with you. I had no problem with it. I'm very much secure for myself.
And I think that people should do whatever they want to do. But I do find it funny that people will categorize him or pigeonhole him into a era that might have lasted three years.
And my man was constantly changing his appearance. But people love that purple rain era so much that purple raincoats and ruffles are what they attribute to him.
Other than the fact that this dude was putting out more music than anybody at any given time as far as producing, writing, arranging, performing, forming bands and doing things.
And I thought that was a great inspiration. When I was younger, it was basically the catalyst that got me focused and saying that, oh, you can do this. You can be proficient on several different instruments.
You could be proficient at wanting to write songs that made you happy that didn't sound like the average person. It made me want to listen to more than one genre of music because I realized that the music that I was listening to could go from one thing to another.
But it didn't have to just be R&B, funk, hip hop. It could be rock. It could be pop. It could be gospel. It could be country. It could be reggae. It could be anything.
Music is something that's out there that everybody should embrace and everyone does. But the thing is that not everyone converses about their influences. You know, Chicago, Phil Collins, The Rolling Stones, Sly and the Family Stone, George Clinton, Curtis Mayfield, Dionne Warwick, The Whispers.
That's the R&B lineup right there. If you go to rock, you have Rush ACVC. You have The Who, Pete Townsend, Robert Plant, Eric Clapton, The Beatles, Elvis Presley, Chuck Berry, Billy Holly.
Billy Holly. The dude that did La Bamba. I'm like, there are tons of songs that are etched in our minds that have been influences in everything that we've ever done.
The women, Madonna, Sheryl Crow, Stevie Nicks. Man, I'm like, stuff goes on and on and on. Journey.
If you sit back and you listen to Elton John, Billy Joel, there are so many influences of people who made music and made a good living off of the music. And you just kept rolling with it, you know what I'm saying? So it's endless.
My influence on music is endless, but my gateway to music was a dude named Prince because it made me appreciate every aspect of music and every aspect of the creative process.
And shout out to the great Quincy Jones, RIP. He passed away this week. And he is the architect behind the Michael Jackson great hits, you know what I'm saying? So he's the guy who got the team of people together that put together MJ's.
And if you notice, no shade, but I said Prince is my favorite and Quincy Jones was the architect behind the Michael Jackson hits. So take it as you take it. Real talk.
Next one up is, let's see, thank you once again for the musical influence question. Next group is what we got here.
Seven personal stories. How has your upbringing shaped your approach to music production?
My upbringing, like I said, I'm a hobbyist musician.
I never really thought until I guess the 80s and 90s that music was something you could do as a career because I grew up in a household where basically
my father's stepfather had a band.
We had instruments in the house. People came over during the weekday during the weekends and they played and they rehearsed and we did music. And that was it.
We had conversation. We had time. Sometimes when we were role with him to go do things, we were role with him and we would go to rehearsals of other people's houses. So I thought it was a normal thing that people did.
My uncle, my father, I mean my mother's brother, like I said, when I was two, three years old living with my grandmother and my mother, my uncle would have a full band in the living room.
He was in bands when I was a kid and I thought that was normal. I thought those were the normal things that older people did.
It was a great influence because I never thought it was anything indifferent than what normal people did.
As far as making a living,
you have to understand education is the key.
I saw recently a YouTube video about a gentleman who said he went to Berkeley and he studied and he had a degree in music and the whole bit.
He went to a retirement party for one of his professors who taught him who he thought was a great person, which he is a great person, but he looked at what he had.
He looked at what he achieved.
And basically what it was is that he realized that he had to do something else besides think that he was going to be a musician because the dude didn't necessarily have a huge influx of cash coming in.
And without that influx of cash, he thought that maybe perhaps I can't necessarily make it as a musician by myself that I might have to do something else other than be a musician.
So that's real talk because you've got to sit back and think that if you're going to be a musician, if you're going to want to be a musician, you have bills and you have responsibilities and things that you have to pay for.
And if you can't pay for them and you can't make a living doing that, that's going to be kind of hard.
So my thing is that it's a great hobby until it's not a hobby until it pays some bills.
It's a hobby that you're doing and nothing more than a hobby, you know, like I hate this. I'm like, I'm not trying to sound super realistic or whatever, but right now what I'm doing is that I am trying to create a hobby, I am trying to make what I'm doing
possible to be done for some type of you ever hear the phrase doing too much.
That's what I'm currently doing.
I am doing too much.
I am attempting to edit this in a live time while I am recording and I'm not sure where I am. Oh, I see. I'm back on track now.
So, anywho, what I was saying is that
there's a
thing that we want to reach and my personal story is that, once again, it comes back to what you want to do with your music. What are you trying to do?
And what are you trying to reach? You know, because everyone's not going to reach that quote unquote pinnacle level that you can live off of your creative ideas.
So,
am I doing this for fame or fortune? No.
I'm doing this because we live in a generation that fortunately, we have technology that allows us to share our ideas, share all of our thoughts and share our creativity.
Like I said, I'm very grateful that I even have people who listen enough to say, oh, I want to submit a question. They hit me up on the DM and the social media and they had a few things and I had enough information that I could put something together.
And I'm greatly impressed by it because
maybe
I could be an influence to them the way someone or anything else has been an influence to me.
And
I don't know who all listens to this podcast because you never know your audience is not like, oh, I'm sitting in a room and there's an audience in front of me. I'm talking in an empty room and
I put this together. It goes out and
if you like it, you like it. If you find something that's cool and you'll listen, maybe you'll come back. Maybe you'll tell a friend.
And that's how it goes. So as far as my personal
stories, I say, keep it up. Just do what you got to do. Do you and make the best of your time and make the best music or the best art or write the best book. If you're a baker, bake the best cake. Whatever you do, just try to be good at it.
I'm like somebody somewhere will appreciate it. I'm shocked every day when I look at the analytics and I see that people around the world,
places I've never thought of going have listened to my music.
People in other countries have listened to this podcast.
It's a cool thing. I'm like, I don't take it for granted. By no means. I am completely 100% humbled by all of it.
Never do I take it to granted. So I thank you and please continue doing what you're doing.
Let's go into the next question.
Managing finances.
That's pretty much where it goes. Paper electricity. And I try not to do anything that requires paying for anything else. There are a few services out there that want you to pay for at time on social media sites to try to get your
ideas, your product, your posts viewed. No, none of that stuff is guaranteed. If I was younger, would I attempt to do live shows, perhaps DJ, maybe perhaps even try to
maybe do like a tape where I include maybe vocals of modern people rapping or singing over top of my tracks. Yeah, I would do all that stuff.
Like I said, I have been doing this the majority of my life has been a hobby. I never thought it would be something that could really pay bills. But the thing is, if ever it reaches that point, I will have the work prepared for it.
So basically, what did they say? They're the same success is reached when preparation and hard work eats the proper thing. I know I just butchered that phrase. But basically, that's the situation.
So I feel as though that if I keep creating a good product of music, and I try to network and put the music out there, eventually I will come across someone that would appreciate it. And if it will be a financial
positive situation for myself, I will but at the same point, I will not tell you that if you have other responsibilities besides being a musician, take care of your responsibilities, don't let your human everyday responsibilities fall to the wayside for something
where early episodes I threw out a crazy number and I'm throwing out to you again because it was mind boggling to me that they say that over 110,000 songs are released daily. So you have a greater chance of winning the lottery that all of a sudden as an independent
person without a major company pushing you or a product line or something utilizing you that you just put a song into that out into the cosmos of internet world being universe, that all of a sudden, it works for you like I've heard stories and listen, I think a couple
weeks ago I told you if I said something about the Billy Eilish and Phineas scenario. And I think I misspoke and said that they put that song Ocean Eyes on the wrong platform but I think that the platform was SoundCloud and the song took off and obviously
the rest is history. So that was the that was the lottery moment as far as I was concerned. So hats off to those who strike it and do it and it becomes something that's greater than everything that you've ever imagined because I do believe that's the dream and that's the goal. But at the same point, all you have to do is keep doing what you're doing until
that dream or goal is realized or the opportunity realizes. So yes, take care of your responsibilities. Don't overspend and go crazy with equipment because from my understanding nowadays, these digital workstations are driving
the music industry because it has basically leveled the playing field and we are all able to make quality music at a very low cost. And if I'm not mistaken based upon the way things go in the music industry.
They realize that the next big thing may not be something that they're looking for it might be just be brought to them and then you never know it might be a hit it may not be a hit but the same point listen.
You can get a hit that might be able to change your world or change your family for generations and you could be a one hit wonder and there's nothing nothing wrong with that. Next question.
Resources, can you recommend any resources or tools that have been particularly helpful in your music journey.
Musicians. I think I just answered that with that other one saying about, oh, just work hard and do your thing. I'm not going to keep burning. Thanks.
So 10 was the psychology of music musicians see, see, how do you maintain a positive mindset against the challenges of being an independent musician.
How do I maintain a positive mindset. Easy. I'm not stressed out about music.
Why am I stressed out about music I have no deadlines I'm not doing this for anybody other than myself.
No one cares what I'm doing no one's checking on me.
Life is good. What can I say is bad. It's not bad at all.
You know like I don't. I don't have any I need to stop clicking on this screen because I'm clicking on the screen like I'm crazy and I'm losing my recording.
But I'm not stressed. I don't I don't have I have no stress whatsoever. None whatsoever when it comes to music music is something that comes very easy and very naturally to me and I enjoy doing it.
Like I said there are no deadlines as far as what I'm doing because no one knows I'm doing this no one cares.
So the psychology of it is that whatever happens happens and whatever doesn't doesn't and I just continue to make music and I will be making music whether you listen to it whether I listen to it.
I don't know how not to make music. That's how long I've been messing around with this music thing like oh this has always been my go to relaxation situation.
So I have thousands of ideas and almost a thousand of them are recorded if not more and I record almost every day and I feel guilty on the days that I don't.
I don't know is that a psychological issue or a psychological concern when I feel guilty that I don't do music in that day.
But the same point I don't have a deadline. I don't have to do it. I don't have to do any of this but I enjoy doing it and I enjoy sharing it and it's a good time consumer.
Some people play golf some people go out there and some people play basketball some people just troll people people on the internet.
You got to find where you get in and right now I feel as though that I purely get in and I enjoy doing music no more no less nothing more nothing less. This is my enjoyment. This is what I like to do.
I don't judge anybody for making music. I always think all the people around me who can do it who like it.
I think everyone should try to make music is something that is very very enlightening and it's a cool feeling when you have the opportunity to create something that is strictly yours.
Yes, I'm saying it's yours. You make it you record it on your smartphone you have the ability to make music.
You have the ability to download an app to make songs you have everything at your fingertips so there should never be a reason why you don't do it.
Never never ever ever should there be a reason why you can't do what you want to do. Be creative and be free. That's the best way to be.
And I think that sums up my psychology of it is that you just have to be you be happy.
Next question.
Goal setting. What techniques do you use to set up achieve your music related goals.
Once again, I probably jumped the gun.
I tried the playlist thing I'm doing everything I can do, I am corresponding with music supervisors and sync libraries and I don't bother them much because the thing is, these are professionals they have jobs.
You get their information you email them you package your material you show them the links where they go, and you hope they listen.
And, like I said, art is something arts not like health care, you know, you don't take care of a person you don't prescribe medication you don't do certain things someone dies, it's a job, it's a cause and effect music.
If I send music out if you listen to it you like it you might like it for that moment and forget about it there's plenty of songs I heard that I love that I never went back to listen to again.
You have to be polite when you're sending your music out to the sync libraries and music agents producers so forth and so on. You don't want to be the bugger that's bugging them and annoying person.
This industry for understand is rather small even though everyone in their mother is submitting songs everyone has an idea so you have to respect that oh if they like it, they'll get to you and just hope that like I said, opportunity and preparation
meets that's what it is when opportunity and preparation meets. That's when you have success. So that's what I'm doing, I'm prepared, and hopefully when the opportunity comes around.
I will be ready to get it going without a problem.
Next question. Thank you for that one.
12, volume and material. How do you balance quality and quantity when it comes to the volume of music you create.
How do I, how do I balance it. I don't balance it obviously I don't, because, like I said, over the last three months I put out 76 tracks.
No one is looking for me. No one is working for me.
My thing is that I know for a fact that if one of my ideas.
One catches fire and catches on.
We all know how it works. If somebody does one amazing thing in this day and time, the opportunities for all of his other things to financially pay off is very very great.
So my opinion is that if you could buy one lottery ticket and have one chance to win, or you could buy 300 lottery tickets and have 300 chances to win. What would you do. So my thing is that if my goal is to try to win the lottery as far as placement sync placement,
I am getting noticed by a person that could change my financial scenario when it comes to being a music, music creative person.
I'm putting it all in all the time so I have no chill when it comes to making music. If I could, I will put out 10 songs a day. And I think that's a little monotonous and probably a little overachieving and I think 26 a month is good.
And that's basically because of my labeling system. So if ever you looked at an album or collection, you realize that oh, there's 26 things on here because there's 26 letters in the alphabet.
And each song is basically just a through Z. So therefore, that's why there's 26. It's easy for me to keep track of these things, even though those were not the original names, but those are the names I'm using for right now.
So that's what works for me.
But no, I have no problem with
over saturating the market.
Question.
What are your main sources of inspiration when writing and producing music.
I'm inspired by everything.
Short answer.
Anything, everything, and nothing.
I've never had writer's block I've never sat down and not created something.
It's worth hearing. Maybe not. But I had no problem sitting down and doing it and making it happen and coming up with something.
I'm like I said, there's only so many musical notes and you can make millions and millions of songs from that small grouping of notes that you have.
And I have no qualm about sitting back playing, whether it be a drum track in a minimal baseline, which I hate to say a lot of music nowadays does not have a lot of musical things going on in it.
So sometimes I find myself making songs that tend to have too much music involved in it too much going on because the music that we listen to nowadays does not have a lot of musicality to it.
Sometimes it's basically just a drum track drum machine programming and a baseline and a light synth line of a melody over top of it and layered and layered and layered vocals.
So yeah, you can you can you can be as creative as you want to or as minimal as you want to.
Like I said, sometimes a piano sounds just as good as an orchestra.
And you never know the difference, you know, so it is what it is and you just keep doing what you're doing.
There is no lack of inspiration.
Okay, so let's see what the next guy next question we got going on here is.
14 pros and cons. What do you see as the biggest pros and cons of being an independent producer slash artist.
I would say the fact is that you tend to do everything.
So why is that a pro and a con?
The reason being is that, say, for example, I'm going to slip you really into my head of how I think about things.
And this is what I this is how I approach a lot of things, especially when it comes to things that I'm doing.
So when I have the opportunity to hear something new that happened, a new phenomenon as far as music is concerned,
and musically it's OK.
Vocally, it's OK.
And it's out there and it's being pushed by a company, a small or independent company or anything.
So as a person that basically now, like I said, if ever I were to meet or exceed my goals personally,
I really believe that is going to be on my own my own terms, meaning that I am not actually going to be able to do that.
I'm not going to be able to do that in terms of meaning that I am not actively pursuing anything that does not involve me being the only person that you deal with.
The biggest pro and con is in being an independent person is that if I were to sign to a larger group of independent people,
would I still have all the autonomy that I have to do whatever I want to do without having the answer to anybody?
Would I be able to say that, oh, there's no psychological mental strain or stress that I have because I'm doing it just for me?
Am I crazy enough to think that eventually this will happen and pay off?
Yeah, I'm not a pessimist and I'm not even the glass is half and half.
I believe that I have just as much of a great chance as anyone else that's submitting their music and and I'm sure that there are other people.
I'm not the only one that's the sole person that is doing everything on their project.
You know, if you see the artwork, they go along with the covers. I made it. If you see the wording of something that's written in a bio, I did it.
If you go to the website, think Tim dot com and you read the blogs, I wrote the blogs.
If you listen to the music, every bit of everything on here is something that I played programs and I put out there.
So I think that is the pro and I think that is the con.
The reason I say that is because most situations, no matter how independent they are, there is a team of some sort behind the person making it happen.
There is a team somewhere that's even selecting the font being used on the album cover that may not be the person.
There is a team of people who might have said, oh, well, let's change this production up a little bit and do something different here.
And I know whole honestly with my heart that I'm the only person doing this. So therefore, like, no, don't get me wrong. Now, I do bounce the ideas off my family and they do whatever, but they're not hands on.
They're more moral support than anything else, which is great because when something ever pops, they're the ones that are going to benefit and I'll give them everything I have.
So that's the pro and cons of doing it independently by yourself that it might take longer because you are the only person doing it.
And sometimes that could be a bother.
15 visual arts.
Visual elements into your music production process.
Let's do both long term goals and how do I enter?
I try to relate to everybody across the board.
So therefore, that means that if I have to create imagery to go along with the music, something to catch your eye, then you hear the sound.
That's how that works. Art, music, visual sound all goes together.
You know, hats off to the people who ever put out a blank album cover.
You got over because your name is what your name is. But sometimes most of the time people need visuals.
I think another to go back to the other question, pros and cons, because I am a private person.
If I was younger, I'm not going to lie.
If I was younger and I lived in this time frame, I would probably be all over social media with no, with all reckless abandonment, doing whatever, because I would be so gung ho into let's get this done.
But I'm older and I'm very seldom my ways.
I'm not going to lie.
I'm a good looking guy.
I could probably put my face out there and I could probably use some entertaining things.
I'm super social when I want to be. I'm very charming when I want to be.
I could be a salesperson. I could sell this if I really, really, really try to sell it.
But that's not me.
It's music is visual.
I want to be. I want it to be taken as that and I am not trying to be a friend. I am not trying to sell me.
I am trying to move the music. That's it.
You know, so I'm not trying to become a persona.
I've tried it a few times. I put out a few little videos, maybe a little video version of what I'm saying, a snippet of the video.
It's all right. I might have took it down like after a couple of days because I'm like, oh, no need for that.
But the thing is that that's part of it.
The visual arts. We are we humans as a society, as a culture.
We don't know what we want.
We think we know what we want, but we want what is popular.
We don't necessarily want what is good for us.
So don't get me wrong. I'm not getting off the beaten track.
It's currently November 20, 20.
November 20, 20 for and there is going to change the environment this week.
And it goes on to the thing of saying like you got a question.
What is it that you want and what you need in your life?
Use the phrase that we use in our household a lot that we're carfuffled .
We don't know what the rest of the world wants.
Sometimes I think that we're on the wrong side.
I think we're on the right side. I know we're on the right side.
But when so many contrary things happen that are not logical, it makes you funny.
So visual arts decisions to put yourself out there, decisions to walk the walk.
You walk your walk, the roads you walk.
It's all relevant and it's all left out there to the good.
You know, so visual art doodles.
Disney hit me up. Yes.
I'm redoing your Marvel product. I'm redoing your Star Wars stuff.
And I'm posting it and I'm sure it falls under the umbrella of fan art.
And I'm putting my songs behind it.
So if there's a lot of people who like Star Wars, a lot of people like Marvel,
there's a lot of people who like digital art.
Take a listen to the song in the background.
Go do whatever. All the podcasts be free.
I don't know. Bring me up in conversation. Tell a friend.
Tell a friend to go listen to the podcast.
You know, say that Timm guy, he rambles.
ThinkTimm rambles. T-H-I-N-K-T-I-2-M's.
He rambles a lot about things that are somewhat okay.
He doesn't really insult anybody or talk about anything too deep.
He just goes on and he's just happy to be an independent musician doing what he's doing.
So let's see. The next thing I have, the next question on here is what?
What are some of your long-term aspirations as an independent artist?
I did that.
Seventeen. Wishes for support.
If you could wish for one thing to help you in your music career, what would it be?
What would it be? One thing.
I would want that one commercial success because the thing is I'm not greedy.
And truth be told, I said it before.
If someone's out there listening and you like all the stuff that I'm doing
for a minimal price of probably what you think, I will give it all to you.
And you could do it.
Pay me a percentage off the tail end or whatever.
And you can have all this stuff because I am constantly making more.
And I feel as though all I really want to do is, let's see, kids go to college.
Household finances straight.
Peace. That's all I want.
There's nothing that I need.
My life, me personally, I am complete.
If money makes people happy, I would love just to give a countless amount of cash
to my household so everybody can just breathe that sigh of relief and feel comfortable.
That's it. Nothing more.
That's all I ask for.
That payday could be $10,000. That payday could be $100,000.
It's all going the same place.
There's nothing I want.
I want to pay for colleges.
I want to take care of household finances.
And that's it.
I know I probably lost all the exciting crowd.
Like, oh, wow, that sounds so mature.
But it's the truth. That's it.
I want nothing else.
Nothing else do I need.
18, role of technology.
In what ways has technology transformed your music production process?
How has technology, I told you.
I've been doing this since the 80s, early 80s.
That was basically playing into a cassette player, playing it back,
flipping it over, trying to get everybody a lot of static,
a lot of non-EQ things moved on to the test cam for a track where you had to still record and balance tracks.
And then you had to go into digital keyboard workstations that at least you had all your tracks together, then you had to buy audio effect boxes
and box yourself off in a room and do vocals and still had to balance the vocals.
And then later in the 80s and the early 90s with software like Cakewalk and the very first earlier,
QBase and recording on those things, early Mac programs, a little boxy looking Mac monitors and the big old PCs.
Right now, technology is at its best.
I know AI is right around the corner and AI is basically probably putting tons and tons of people out of work.
You can't stop technology. You got to go with it. You got to embrace it. You got to flow.
Compared to older tracks, which I have tons of older tracks that are on cassette tape,
that basically sometimes I play the cassette tape and it's a little warped because it's so old.
There's tons of ideas that I have created in the past, but the technology that we have today is so, so good
that there is nothing negative I could say about it because it allows me to connect to so many people so easily
with the precision that you don't necessarily know what I have or what I don't have.
The clarity of the sounds, the crispness, the ability to reach the masses is unbelievable.
Like I said, I look at my analytics, I look at the location that my stuff is being played at and it's phenomenal.
I'm like, there's no way by no means is it, oh, you're famous, you're popular.
I know it's just the simple fact that I know where I'm at right now doing this and I know that someone equal to me,
maybe better than me, might do this and learn something from this.
So it's all good. Equal, better, less, it's all the same thing.
Let's say with the cradle, you do nothing, you give all or you give half or something like that.
It's a good way of looking at things. I might have gotten that one wrong too.
I'm not the best when it comes to stating things, but I think that's something I found important one time.
Next one is podcast creation.
And how does it support your music career? 20 audience.
Podcast. Why did I do a podcast? Because I realized that I wasn't good at social media.
I'm not good at short spurts. So therefore, if I could, hell, look at the clock, look at the time, oh my God,
this is like almost as long as a movie. If I could create a podcast and I could talk about music and I can express myself
and you can sit at your workplace, your job, and you can listen to it while you do your work or while you blow leaves outside the house,
while you ride your bike, while you work out, that you might find this to be entertaining in some type of way, shape or form.
And it will be good for all parties involved. I would enjoy doing it. I ain't gonna lie.
This is like going to a psychiatrist, getting a therapy and every week I sit here and I talk and I get things off my chest
and I get inspired to create more. I get inspired to share more. And the more I share and the more I create, the better I feel.
I enjoy doing this. I don't do it for any other reason other than pure enjoyment. Nothing more, nothing less.
Enjoyment. So where does that leave everything that's going on? Simple enjoyment. Why would you not enjoy it?
Why would you not be happy at what you do? I share it in the podcast. You know? Like I said, Why Make Music…?
Why Make Music… is a great title. There's a story. I never told this story but I'm gonna tell a story right now.
When I first started this podcast, I was week one, week number one into it. And I got a message in my DM from Australia
from another guy by the name of Tim by chance. It was a coincidence. His name was Tim.
And he said that, oh, I had an idea for a podcast called Why Make Music… And by chance, he also did music.
But I think he was a jockey, like a disc jockey and he had a little bit more experience than I had and so forth.
But he really seriously did it. And he was like, oh, well, I've been working on this for a long time and would you like to maybe not use that name?
And I was like, I thought about it really. And the thing is that I'm impressed. It's the simple fact that I had the same idea that someone else had an idea for.
And I said that I too have given a lot of thought to the name of the podcast, Why Make Music…
And I kind of wanted to stick with it. But I do understand how it was, how it means something great to you.
And I've actually watched this podcast. This podcast is really good. I do enjoy it. So shout out to Tim in Australia, Why Make Music…
You can listen to that one too and still listen to mine. But it's just certain things you get to a point where you really become like a little amazed that this happened, that you can do it.
And I thought about making a podcast for years and I figured like, oh, who would listen? Why would anybody want to listen to me talk about Why Make Music…
And shockingly, some people do listen to it and it's kind of cool. And I actually really enjoy making it. I enjoy talking about it. I enjoy sharing my music in the background.
I enjoy pasting, putting music on streaming platforms. And however it works for anybody, I think that there are enough avenues and enough people everywhere that no matter what you do, you can always find an audience to want to work with you and be a part of what you're doing.
So there's room, long story short, there is room for everybody. It doesn't just have to be me. It doesn't just have to be the guy in Australia doing his thing. It could be everybody. We can all make music and we can all ask the question, Why Make Music…
You know? So the podcast was basically just a way to continue being creative. And I think creativity is very, very important. So let's see, how many more questions do I have?
There's one about audio engagement. How important is the audio and audience feedback? It's very important. The audience feedback right now has basically created this whole episode.
So there was a bunch of questions that I were asked or a bunch of paraphrased things and then I put them on a list and I addressed it. And basically I feel as though I had the opportunity to ramble on again and say some positive things and get to know you more so.
You guys get to know me more so. You got to hear me cut and edit on the fly as I'm going. So there's a lot of dropouts and drop-ins in this episode and me arranging music, making it longer than what it was supposed to be because I was only planning to go 45 minutes.
And right about now I am 98 minutes into this so I realize it is getting long. So audience engagement is very important. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you for listening. If you've been listening this long, maybe this will sit back and say, oh, if you've got an hour and a half to kill, listen to this podcast.
Work out, run, do what you got to do. Do your housework, drive somewhere, do whatever. The next one is 21. Creative block. What strategies do you employ to overcome creative blocks? I don't have a strategy. Don't don't don't have a creative block. That would be my strategy.
Don't don't ever not feel creative. Always be creative. Always look for inspiration and everything from everything from looking out a window to walking down the street to watching TV to watching the news to listening to your loved ones around you.
Talk, walk, do whatever. Just be inspired by everything. Next one, collaborations. Have you collaborated with other artists and what had those experiences taught you?
So before when I was younger, of course, I told you I had a brother. He plays the drums and I grew up in a musical household. Collaborations were there. I did try to do the band thing for a while. But the people I was playing with were
about right at the time, 10 years older than I was 10 to 15 years older than I and they were really good. And the thing was that that was the level of seriousness that I was on. So therefore, it was kind of hard for me to find folks my age to play what I wanted them to play and be serious about rehearsal time.
So I tend to want to collaborate. But at the same point, I know how much other people could be a distraction or I could be a distraction to other people because sometimes creative people don't play well with each other.
Sometimes creative people don't play well with each other. The reason because I think in the realm of creativity that there are a lot of alphas and people always want to lead and people always want to have their idea be the main idea and it's hard to humble yourself to work with other people.
Learning curve at the self-taught musician. What has been the most challenging aspect of learning of your learning journey?
I'm admitting that there's things I don't know. I'm still not as good as I want to be for reading music and getting it completely done as quick as possible. Sometimes I find I had to be a hinder.
I do read a lot of books about music or listen to different podcasts or look up different things online to see if I can make myself better in understanding and getting things done.
The biggest learning curve is the fact that a lot of things that you're doing, there is no right or wrong. There is no 100% correct way of getting it done. Sometimes you just have to do it. It works. It rocks. You're cool with it.
And you just move on and let it go. I will say for example, as you hear the closing music in the background, I want to tell you that there's quite a few stops and starts in this podcast episode. I was trying to keep it flowing.
Learning curve. I did not feel like going back and editing it. So if I, when I put this together and put it out, when you hear a little stutter stop or you hear me repeat myself, perhaps that was the point. Sometimes you just got to let it go. It's not perfect. I am far from perfect.
Next question. Also at the same point, as you tell, I gave up on the little personal assistant audio thing. Advice for new audience, for new artists. What advice would you give aspiring independent musicians to start out? Do it. Just get it done.
Don't stop. Don't worry about it. If you want to create, create. I don't care what medium is then if you want to act, act, sing, sing, you want to bake, bake, you want to cook, cook, you want to change tires for a living. I made a joke one time and say, listen, I approach life like saying like hell.
If I were, if I was on the pit crew team and my job was to change the left front tire, I would be the best dude with that gun and take that tire off and put the tire back on. You just got to take pride in what you do.
Whether it's music, medicine, lawyer, engineer, baker, preacher, teacher, whatever you do, be proud of what you do. Try to be the best. That's it. Be good at what you do. Take pride in what you do.
In my career, I was good in all everything I've ever done in my life as far as work wise. I have no regrets because I know I put the time in and I was proficient at what I did. And that's it. That's all you have to do. Try your best to be proficient.
Any my try to be that person that you will want to run into and take care of you or meet you or how you will want to approach future projects. The world is my future. That's it. I'm going to always have future projects. I'm not ever going to stop.
So ThinkTimm. T-H-I-N-K. T-I-M-M. This is why I make music. Enjoy. Peace. Check me out on my social media. Time's up.