Last week, I met a student during one of the review sessions from the ThinkSpace Education Orchestral Composition Bootcamp, who I think can teach us a LOT about breaking out of our comfort zones!
He submitted a gorgeous piano piece, originally written for his nephew, that was emotional and obviously filled with a ton of heart ❤️
However, he opened up about a struggle he was going through that I think nearly all of us can relate to!
He could pour his heart into the piano, but when it came to using a Digital Audio Workstation (DAW), he would hit a wall.
Every time he tried to take his music from the piano to the DAW, it just didn’t work out the way he wanted.
What started as a sketch meant for orchestration would end up staying a piano piece, and he’d find himself back at square one.
🔁 The Cycle:
✍️ Start with a sketch.
🎹 The sketch evolves into a full piano piece.
💻 It loses the human touch when brought to a DAW.
🔄 The cycle repeats.
Honestly, I didn’t have a definitive answer for him. 😳
Maybe his music really did sound better as a piano composition, and forcing it to be something else when he's not comfortable with a DAW just yet is doing him a disservice! 🤔
So I asked him what specifically about the DAW was daunting.
He said that the way he approaches the piano is fluid and expressive, whereas a DAW feels structured and mechanical.
So that makes it really hard to get what he envisioned in his mind down into the DAW.
That totally makes sense to me! It sounded like there were natural barriers between the spontaneity of a live performance and the structured environment of a DAW.
But more specifically, there were barriers in breaking out of this creative cycle!
What if the real practice wasn’t just in writing music, but in breaking out of your comfort zone?
I suggested that instead of starting with a full sketch on the piano, he could focus on smaller sections within the DAW, pushing himself to grow comfortable with the software’s environment as a whole!
🆕 A New Approach:
🎻 Start fresh with just one section, writing solely for the strings or a quartet, etc.
🙅♂️ Resist the urge to begin with the instrument you are most comfortable with.
🌊 Embrace the initial awkwardness and stiffness, knowing that fluidity and expressiveness will come with time and practice.
By stepping out of such a familiar cycle and challenging himself to try something new, he could eventually find the fluidity within the DAW that he felt on the piano.
🧑🏫 What We Can Learn:
This student’s struggle reminded me that growth lies just beyond our comfort zones. If we can step outside, we can become much more creative and expressive in our music creation process!
This experience taught me (and hopefully others as well) the importance of embracing discomfort as a part of the learning process. We have to break the cycle we often find ourselves stuck in.
I’m curious- what cycles do you find yourself stuck in that you know you should break?!
If you’re struggling or want to chat some more about where you are in your music journey, I’d love to hop on a quick video call to help you figure it out!