15 Comments
User's avatar
Joe Richardson's avatar

This is great. Resist the urge to polish too early!

Matthew Morgan Makes Music's avatar

Great analogy. The longer I’ve made music the more I embrace the demo and early stage. Don’t rush to polish until the ingredients are there.

I also write about making music

Dave Johnston, DMA's avatar

Cool, have subscribed - great to find some fellow writers in the music space on Substack!

Julia Hall Allen's avatar

I think that this approach is so useful for all creatives!

Dave Johnston, DMA's avatar

Agreed! Bit of a mindset shift to start with perhaps, but worth it.

Michael Hudecek's avatar

As a filmeditor I know this concept from editing. Normally you go from rough cut to fine editing to picture lock. anf then colorgrading, sound mixing, mastering…

Dave Johnston, DMA's avatar

Absolutely - obviously there might be some different constraints depending on the collaborators and the project, but in general I imagine the concept / analogy translates well!

Lisa Marie Simmons's avatar

True words!!

Jeff “H” Harrington's avatar

Great metaphor! "Saved"

Dmytro P-ov's avatar

Yes, it makes sense. But sometimes I need to polish my improvisation first, I need to get an absolute trust in it, before it will be clear what to do next with this idea.

Dave Johnston, DMA's avatar

Yeah, that's fair enough! I think once we build experience and form an understanding of how we like to operate, we all find our own unique creative process (which will change over time, too). I do find many people can get bogged down early in their journey by being too detailed early on though.

User's avatar
Comment removed
Feb 4
Comment removed
Dave Johnston, DMA's avatar

Yeah good point, great software development teams are pros at that approach, rapid prototyping is a good way of thinking about it!