Making the Most of Quarantine
February 15, 2021 - Written by Chris Pop
Undoubtedly, 2020 was the most difficult year for many. The unprecedented pandemic posed an enormous strain on the music industry, especially due to the closure of concerts and events. As stated by Aristotle, humans are social animals. Thus, it is inevitable for many music makers to lose the motivation to create new music due to the absence of in-person events fuelling their inspiration.
Personally, I believe that everything happens for a reason. As irrational as this may sound, I think that there are some aspects of the lockdowns that music makers alike can benefit from. Whether it is being a resident DJ in a club or sticking to a release routine as a bedroom music producer, it is unquestionable that consistency is key to succeeding as anyone who is involved in the music industry. For once in our lives, the world was put on pause. The entire notion of “consistency” was tested on many people’s schedules. This meant that for once in our lives, we could have a break from the norm.
Prior to the pandemic, I was a university student who lived in a student house with 5 other students. As you would except from a group of university students, a lot of partying and little work was being done in that house. I am part of an EDM duo, and we were regularly DJing as well as playing our music at social events prior to the pandemic. Therefore, it was important that we stayed active with our music to make the most of the social life we had in university. With my room being right by the living room, it was difficult for me to enter my flow state when making music during the normal hours that normal people function at. In addition, I found that making music in public did not help me enter my optimal flow state - I guess I just get distracted too easily. This regularly led to me working on music in my room until the sun rises, just to ensure that I could stick to my release schedule. Although once the pandemic hit, all of this changed abruptly.
Being separated from face-to-face interactions when you are part of a duo makes things so much more difficult. Expressing any thoughts or ideas that you may have must be entirely done over FaceTime or text, which drastically slows down your workflow. These hardships made me really think about the lifestyle I had before the pandemic, and how I could improve it so that I could grow as a music producer. I realized that this might be the only time I could have an excuse to be less active than usual and get away with it. This meant that I could use this time to brush up on my music production skills, rather than just incessantly creating music for the sake of increasing my monthly listeners. So, I began limiting my presence online for a bit and directed my time towards bettering myself as a music producer. This meant finally getting around to thoroughly learning all those plugins that were collecting dust on my hard drive, as well as reading into the physics of sound that I did not have the time to before. After a year of constantly stressing myself with release plans, all this deep learning made me feel very relaxed and accomplished. Thoroughly learning everything I always wanted to learn as well as reminiscing on how I could improve the music that I made prior to the pandemic has made me even more excited to get back to making music regularly like I did before.
I hope that this insight has inspired you to take a break from your regular routines, and to try something new. Before you know it, we’ll be able to celebrate the improvements that we made during these difficult times.