Simplicity (Patreon)

Simplicity has become my biggest focus in recent times and it's been a piece of advice thats been thrown at me for years. But in reality, that skill is something that comes with time and experience. 

Simplicity comes with the accumulated realisation of necessary and unnecessary parts. Learning what is needed and what may not be needed., and having the confidence to take out what isn't. And the best way to do this is through failing... lots. 

DO LOTS. MAKE MISTAKES NOW. LEARN FROM THEM.

The idea of QUANTITY over quality when you’re learning is a great one. The more you DO, the more you'll fail, and the more you'll learn. Volume is your friend right now. Not that kind of "volume". But the volume where you work on new things more. Repeat yourself lots. And craft the subtleties. In music this means trying not to sit on the same 2 or 3 songs for months on end. I've done this a lot myself. But you are hindering yourself by doing so. 

My mother is a painter and I did an exercise with her the other day where we painted robins with water colour. We didn't paint one robin and fine tune the details for the next 3 hours. We painted 6. In fairly quick succession. And surprise surprise, with each robin, i got better and better. It was then that the details started to become necessary to look at. But as a baseline, the work was at a much higher standard already. If I had sat and worked on the first one the whole time, I would be trying to detail something that wasnt any good to begin with. I believe the phrase is "You can't polish a turd".

The skills you learn with repetition are invaluable. The subtleties and the details will become more refined, as will everything else along with it. A solid foundation will be formed and it will make room for you to naturally become more creative and experimental.

I'm writing this in order to remind myself as well as offer some sort of wisdom. 

Where are you at right now, whats holding you back?