Man this is valuable info, this video needs more views ❤❤❤😊😊

The "song a day" goal is arbitrary. That doesn't make it meaningless, but it does shift what I would see as the motivation. It basically means you have to turn yourself into a machine. The project itself becomes the art, and it is less about the songs themselves. It makes them polaroids, not paintings. You can make a those diary entry, but it's hard enough to brush your teeth everyday. Songs need their time with you. You have to be able to give yourself to the song and be open to what it has to say.

Hi! Are you actually quitting the challenge? I liked following along as a silent viewer, this gave me inspiration. However whatever you choose to do, best of luck with it

This was my favourite so far ❤️

Michael's a goat for this

have you tried playing live? feels like a very different vibe. feeling motivated my online feedback isn't really a thing imo - they can feel shallow

I don't know your stuff, but I liked the song at the start

i had a huge bout of music burnout last year. It stopped when i stopped punishing myself for taking a break and instead followed what i found to be fun in music. I stopped forcing songs and started following the fun. Ironically, songs are just coming now without trying. They arent perfect and the ones that i dont want to work on, i often just dont, although i still try to give things a fair try. In conclusion, if im not having fun then what im making is usually bad anyway. So instead i have fun and play games with my music like when i was a kid, and like a kid i dont judge myself so harshly. I wish you luck and thanks for the video

Dude, your lyrics are so good

I think a lot of people have some pretty strong misconceptions of what music theory actually is. It's not a set of rules, it doesn't teach you how to write music, nor how to interpret it. Music theory is primarily a language, it's the technical jargon dialect that we use to describe what we're doing when we talk to each other about music. You don't need theory to write beautiful music. If I come up with a cool unusual chord, I don't need to know what that chord is, what its function is within the key, as long as it makes me feel the right way when I use it in the right place, and I can play it. But then another musician joins the band and I can't tell them what I'm doing. Many musicians will be able to decypher it just from hearing it, but that usually takes time and is prone to mistakes. Someone who knows music theory would pick it up much quicker if I had the ability to call out the name of the chord, or all of the notes in the chord, either by note name or scale degrees. Even something as simple as "let's jam a 12-bar blues in Em" is music theory, it's the vocab words that immediately get other people who know the words onto the same page. Sheet music, lead sheets, and guitar tabs are all music theory. Learning music theory can certainly make you a better writer too, but that's mostly through exposure. In the course of learning the language, you are exposed to new chords, new musical phrases, and new patterns of thinking about music. And learning the language also gives you tools with which to analyze things you hear outside of that. When you hear something cool and ask "What is that," applying music theory is the equivalent of going to the dictionary to learn what a new word is. Just about the only musical "rules" that music theory teaches you are general structures, the "grammar" of music. Learning a language's grammar doesn't limit what you can say, or enforce how you express yourself with it (see: poetry). It doesn't tell you what words to use to make a good sentence, and music theory doesn't teach you what music to create. But learning grammar does help you to be a good communicator, and learning music theory does help you form better musical sentences (and, as mentioned, gives you the jargon with which to share those musical sentences with other musicians). All that to say: whatever skill level of musician you are, it is almost never necessary in order to create, and almost always helpful anyway. It should never be a barrier to entry, but it's certainly something that most musicians pick up fragments of naturally, and something that can only really give you positive benefits from taking some time to learn, at any pace. Don't put your creative life on hold to learn it, because it's not something you can learn to completion. There's always more out there. But anyone who wants to grow as a musician should consider learning music theory *as they create.* Whether you learn fast or slow, learn a lot or a little, it's all stuff you will be able to put into practice immediately and get better mileage out of your creative output.

Dude you are very inspiring

this series is so inspiring! thanks for doing this!

Hi Alex! I´ve been watching your content since the year started. I appreciate your honesty. I´m going to tell you about my experience. I play music as well. When I started, as a 13 yo, I made myself play guitar every wednesday. Eventually I started playing guitar more and more aften. Nowadays, 25 yo, I play every day. I feel safe with a guitar on my lap. I believe that to love something like this you have to let it grow in you. It will be a process. A process in the sense that you have to do it for sometime for you to feel something different, eventually it may come. Sooner or later. Expecting that in only 20 days something is going to change may not be the most realistic expectations. It may take time, you can go into it gradually an steadily. The thing here is not wether you continue this challenge or not, but if you continue searching for you love for music in the long run. You talked about your song moving someone. I would ask you: "Are you proud of that song? Does that song mean something to you more than another day surviving the challenge?". It makes me happy when people like the songs I´m proud of, not just a random song I wrote. This may no be your case, but I think it was important for me to mention it. Whatever you decide, I would love to hear about it in the next videos! PS: You are not loosing or failing if you quit the challenge, not even if you quit making music. The ultimate objective should be to find stuff you love to do (I insist, it may take time for you to love doing something) and do it.

(Slight essay incoming lol) I’ve been doing the same challenge for the month of January, and I’m feeling the same level of burnout (I’ve already “failed” and missed a few days lol). I think making music is so much more than just making and finishing songs. As creatives, finishing stuff is important, but I think keeping that sense of play and discovery is even more important. We need time to refine, to explore different skills and genres and art forms, we need time to consume other art, time to actually live life and have the experiences that we can eventually channel into art! And most importantly I think we need to share the art (both the finished art and the process of making art) with others. I think this challenge has helped me with breaking through the “wall of awful” I’ve built around my music and made me treat it a lot less preciously, but it’s also cut into time with people I care about, time listening to my favorite artists, and I think that in the long term that will make my art actively worse. I’m going to keep doing daily songs until I reach 31 just to say I did it, but then I’m going to go down to a song every 2 weeks. My ultimate goal is to write 50 songs this year, and being more leisurely will, I hope, make those songs better and let me enjoy making them more. Just some stuff to think about from someone on the same grind!

Could you try different song writing techniques? For example the cut-up technique.

Now this is what the creative underlying was hiding, ur insanely creative and i love ur dedication.. rip david lynch man i love blue velvet and twin peaks, he will be missed. I feel like you've figured it out in most of the ways that apprehend the creative consciousness and I'm really inspired. All i hope for you is sucess and keep up ur ambition! Hope we get some more songs in the future. All love 🤍

Sick

Beautiful

fav of the week is digital overwhelm song + thanks for the chrome ext tip :)

you a cool dude this is cool im subbing

I'm a heady dude - This resonates

im glad you stuck with it. i've had a lot of days feeling like "i dont really want to be doing this" and some of those ive come up with my best yet. i think it helps to keep going in those moments as it produces a lot of weird and interesting ideas that i can always come back to another day when i have more energy. anyway, cool vid :) keep going!

waiting for the week 2 recap ;)

good vid

awesome video! nice

Doggo living his best life ❤ Really beautiful to see ❤

sick drum drop 🆒

Great job, man. Please don't get bogged down in the amount of skill you showcase in a song. There's plenty of musicians out there that ram 'skill' down your throat and it touches nothing. Make music for you, with honest intent and an open mind. That's what the world needs more of. 😊

nothing to be embarrassed about, i thought it was quite lovely. ps i dont drink beer :P

Goes hard

this hits hard!! love when your honest in your lyrics! keep up the good work :D you inspired me to start making song so thanks for that.

Teenaged Eric Clapton started out playing songs by Buddy Guy and B.B. King. The Rolling Stones got their start playing material by Chuck Berry and Little Richard. The Cars started out as a cover band (they were fired after playing their original material onstage). Copying is a thing.

You're doing an awesome job 👏 Would love to see videos about (or the songs that resulted from) you trying and experimenting with different methods of writing lyrics.

🫀🫀🫀

first time viewer. I like your stuff. Keep it up

You have a beautiful voice. I appreciate your song. If you would like someone to talk about life with, let me know (retired therapist)...

❤

bruh i shit you not i was ranting with chatgpt about how i don't want to get a job, moving back with my mom, feeling like i've tried shit for 10 years with no luck, and before i hit enter this kicks in ( 16:50 ) most relatable song ever lol

I’m not much of a reader to be honest haha but I’ve been recommended that second book (the artist’s way) before, so I’m eager to hear more of what you learned from it in the recap! Maybe I’ll actually read it eventually. Also really enjoyed the song and change of pace with the keyboard, keep it up man!

loving the drums

there's some song in this bass 🙂

What’s the background?

I’ve been slowly torturing my KZbin recommendations until it starts recommending me creative projects by smaller KZbinrs. Given that I’ve found this, I think it’s working

I've written a poem every day this month, and the first line really resonated with me because I just finished cobbling something together in a house because of writer's block, but I'm happy to say I still have kept my streak. Anyways, keep up the great work, man, and the song sounds great. The vocals remind me of something like I'll try anything once or Call it fate, call it karma by the Strokes.

Your 2025 challenge has really inspired me! I’ve always thought that writing a good song is the coolest thing that anyone could ever do, but I’ve never tried it myself because it feels like it’s reserved for the “geniuses” or the people who started super young or who are naturally good at it. I’m in my early 30s with some basic instrument skills, and now my goal for this year is to improve at music theory and instrument playing so that by the end of the year I can write at least one song that I actually like. Thanks for helping me break down that barrier of thinking that doing cool stuff is reserved for other people!

Dreamy vibes ❤️

Keep it up my friend! ⚡️

The song sounds great! I love the acoustic sound. It reminds me a bit of Yosemite by Lana Del Rey. You should definitely keep working on it

you just popped up in my feed and you are asking all the questions i am. never been a great writer but ive always loved music and admired how people can just seem to say what they feel in an artful and insightful way. you are inspiring me that its okay to be a beginner, you just have to keep going :) please keep writing and playing and singing

I loooved this one, I'd me delighted to hear an extended version of this You think you'll ever do that with any of your songs?