26A - Celebrating Failure

1. This semester, I started to really get into music production. My friend was the first one to show me how it worked. When I first started, it seemed so difficult and confusing. I really didn't understand it at all. I started watching YouTube tutorials and I learned a bit, but it was still so confusing when I would actually be on the software. I then started to teach myself through Logic Pro X. I failed so many times and created some of the worst music I have ever heard. There was a lot of trial and error. When I would show people my early music, they wouldn't really have anything to say. They mostly just said I had a long way to go. It took many months until I finally started to get the hang of it. After so many failures, and so many horrible compositions, I finally started learning music theory.

2. I learned that I never actually failed. Just like Edison, I found thousands of ways that sounds don't sound good together. This helped me greatly in finding the ways in which it does sound harmonious. Also, every time someone would give me bad feedback or critique my music, I learned to use it as motivation and really listen to these people. I had to realize that these people just wanted to help me get better. I started to appreciate the critiques more and more, as I also got inspired by every time I created something I didn't like. It just made the music I did like, sound so much better.

3. I learned how to accept failure early in my life through sports. I played water polo and I had a very expressive, strict coach. He would yell at me for everything I did, even when I did something right. This made me grow some thick skin, and I learned to overlook failure and instead look to progress. I was no longer disappointed or embarrassed by failure, all I focused on was improving myself. This carried into everything else I did. It helped a lot in my businesses, and it definitely helped a lot in music as well. You need to relax the fear and insecurity that comes with failure sometimes. This class taught me that failure feels a lot better than regret. It is much better to at least try, than wish we did later on. I have learned this from a lot of the people I interviewed.