I'm generally not very good at balancing multiple tasks. I'm only really good at focusing on one thing very intensely. Strangely enough it's these "dedication" periods of my life that have allowed me to go through the most growth. Only after I've become completely obsessed with something do I begin to notice myself making rapid progress. Nowadays I've learned however to pay a healthy amount of attention to other aspects of my life aside from just music. I used to think in order to get really good at anything I would have to sacrifice pleasures like friends, partys, money, and relationships but in reality that was just a self-limiting belief. It's a lot easier to focus on music when I'm not in poverty and I have friends to keep me inspired. Not to mention when things aren't going my way sometimes taking a step back is the best thing i can do to recharge my batteries. You don't need to become a savant and practice 16 hours a day. Quality over quantity.

The problem with being in a dedication phase in the way that you described it is that you miss out on other things in life which can be just as satisfying as writing music. If you're eating dinner with a friend but really you're thinking about chord progressions in the back of your mind then where are you at mentally? In reality there isn't any difference between dedication or maintenance. If you are truly dedicated then you should be doing it daily and you should be focusing on it when you're doing it. Just don't let it ruin other aspects of your life in the process. It isn't worth it. Your health, needs, and well-being are just as important.

Relieved because being having less time for music will motivate me to be more productive with the limited time available.

Zedd Clarity

Varien - The Alchemist's Nightmare (1:25) goes around in minor thirds with some interesting resolutions.

Going around the circle of fourths is an easy way to get some harmonic motion, and give the track some "bigness". My new track has a bunch of perfect-fourth changes in the second drop.

Nice track

Zedd Hourglass

From Cmaj to Cm

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oN4oZtRKlPA

I've been thinking about it lately. When I went to EDC I was extremely disappointed when a lot of my favorite artists (Seven Lions especially) made DJ edits of their songs which REMOVED the break sections of the tracks they were playing. I absolutely LOVE breaks in a song but what I noticed is that most songs with a lot of breaks didn't seem to work as well on the dance floor at EDC. I don't know whether it was just because of the festival but it was a pretty big eye opener to me and it's been affecting the way I approach my arrangements. I've noticed that as a DJ when you remove the drums from a track it can totally kill the dance floor.

The thing is... I'm not sure whether I want to compromise having those beautiful break sections in my music. Which brings me to the question can you make people dance to music without drums? Does anyone have any good examples of "breaks" during a song section which still work great on a dance floor?

Or is it simply a matter of knowing "when" to give the the crowd a rest for a moment by timing your breaks efficiently vs trying to avoid them?

I always sit at a blank project not knowing what to do with it, what type of song it could be come. All I know is that the song has to be good. I want to be proud of it.

How can I fix this issue? I know its a bit weird but making music has just become so stressful and frustrating. Most of the time I don't have the effort to go further into a project because I know I will get stuck and get frustrated.

I would HIGHLY suggest writing your music on a piano first. This eliminates SO many problems with "sitting at a blank project and not knowing what to do with it".

I think the issue might be is you're trying to mix, do sound design, and choose notes all at the same time. This combined with deciding the arrangement and structure make things hard especially when you're a beginner and don't have the ears to be able to decipher why your music sounds "bad" (subjective of course don't shoot me.)

When you write your music out on a piano you can immediately tell whether or not the notes are going to sound bad. You can experiment with different chords and harmonies until you come up with notes that sound pleasing. (All it takes is an 8bar chord progression/theme to build an entire track)

Once you have all the notes figured out then it will be a lot easier to get started on your blank project because all you really have to worry about it is instrumentation, mixing, and arrangement. Don't get me wrong it's still a lot of stuff to think about but getting it done is significantly easier if you know the notes sound good by themselves. Then if the song sounds bad but good on piano then you know that the problem is the mixing or the instrumentation and NOT the actual notes.

Finance Degree, & To one day make music that I can honestly say I'm proud of.