Hi everybody and welcome to another episode of Metal Mastermind. I am your host Ken Candelas and I have with me of course my Co host. Elizabeth Candelas. And this is beautiful. I love doing a podcast with you. So for you guys who are watching on a stream here with Spotify or if you are a member of our YouTube platform form, you'll get actually exclusive access to seeing videos of the podcast. We are here to talk with
Elizabeth today. A little bit more on the personal side because I feel like this would be a very, very relevant thing for you as the listener and for those of you who are especially creating music. This is something that I feel is important to share. Sometimes when it comes to music creation, we always see like what's on the final product. We don't see what went on behind
the scenes. For those of you who have been following me for a while, you guys know that I've been working on Home Eric for 10 years to get it to the point of release. And that's a lot of work to do that. But Ellie has actually been working on her project for longer than I have been working on Home Eric. And I wanted to ask Ellie a little bit of that side of her just to sort of help you guys with a little bit of context, but also to understand that this is a journey, right?
Making your own music, creating your own sound. The things that we talked about, a lot of Metal Mastermind, these are things that take a lot of time, take a lot of effort, and Elizabeth is a great person to talk to about that. I mean, she's my wife. I married her for a reason and mainly because I want her to share her story and what it's like for her going through and creating her project. Daoza. So I want to start off with the name Daoza. Can you explain to me what Daoza
is and what it means to you? Yeah, so my, my last name is D Deos. And it's kind of like funny, but it's like when I married you, I knew right away that I wanted your last name because as much as I do love my last name, you know, it's it's my father is Brazilian. It means of God. It's a beautiful last name. But like spelling it on the phone, like dispelling, like DEDE, every letter rhymes with a different letter, you know, And it's just like impossible to spell.
There's a space in between it. It's just, it's, it's difficult. No one could pronounce it. I've gotten a lot of different pronunciations. They're pretty fun. Well. It's pretty beautiful. It's a beautiful last name. About both of our last names, actually, right. My candelas means light of the candle. Yeah. So it's kind of like. Candles of God. Candle of God. Right, more metal than that.
Yeah, but I do love the last name and, you know, I love the origin of it, but Candelas is just easy to spell and it's also a beautiful last name. So I I decided to go with Elizabeth Candelas, but then Deoza. I love the sound of it means Goddess and it had it's like kind of like a play on my last name. So it kind of like gives it like its special place, you know. So that was like the the real T behind it and I just loved how
it sounded. I just knew whatever the the band name was going to be, it was going to look good in like metal old English font. Well, you know, I think in in other ways. In this. Part of how I interpret Daoza too, is that you mentioning it like a goddess is, is very interesting because your your entire project is very much about dreams and you are such a creative force in that that it's like you are creating that world. So it's very fitting.
Thank you. Yeah. And I just think it sounds beautiful, like it's, it's such a cool name. Yeah, that's where that came from. Yeah, so now Daoza has been in the works since how long now? OK. So yeah, I did want to like touch on this because it's important to to like further explain how, yes, it over 10 years is correct. But it wasn't like, you know, over 10 years ago I woke up and said I'm gonna start making this album. And then I just opened up Pro
Tools and went to town, right. Because that didn't take over 10 years. No, no, But the journey was it was a long journey. So yes, over 10 years ago, I thought of the concept, you know, and like just the idea of it. And I always had like melodies in my head and like music in my head. I wrote like, you know, a couple little songs when I was like a teenager that I liked but never did anything with it. So it started like accumulating over 10 years ago.
I've definitely been talking about the idea of like having this album with this concept about dreams and nightmares. Like, you know, that was always like the storyline. And I got to tell you when I was like, you know, in my early 20s, a Hostess in a restaurant, like, I would. It was slow. Like I would write on receipt paper, just write notes about this concept. So very. JK Rowling. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, my God, Totally. So it was always like a
developing concept that I had. It wasn't until I went to college where I was where it really started composing the album, you know. So I want to say like that was like a good five years or so. Well, that's it's important to say because people forget like some of these ideas that we create, they have their roots in a long like time ago, but we don't realize their tangibility until later in life.
Because you know, you like, this is one of those things where it's like, don't delete your old, you know, voice memos of like your ideas like you never know when they become very useful. Yeah, make an archive folder and just stick it all in there. Yeah, actually now. That you mention it, I actually included in in Homeric stuff that when I was 16 years old too. Yeah, it's like you you get these projects and you shelf them. Yeah, little melodic ideas,
whatever. But then, you know, conceptually, you know, for me, it was my, my thing came in like when I was, you know, 10 years ago when I wanted to do the Dante's infernal thing. But you had melodies and ideas and but then you had this concept that you wanted to do this about dreams. And it took, it took time to
develop that process, right. So, and production wise, you know, you, when you start the journey of saying, OK, now we're recording or we're now we're writing these things down into MIDI and you're producing this stuff, you know, that's another leg to the entire experiment, right? So I find that really fascinating. I also think it's again, for for all of you listening, we live in a new world of, of making music. It's very accessible to make
music. Not to say that it's not expensive like Elon Musk said, which is completely out of touch. But when we are talking about making music and high quality music like these things in the modern age, they take a lot of time. They take a lot of effort. They still take a lot of knowledge to do on your own especially, but as you're creating this stuff, like don't feel like if your music is taking a long time to make that it's not worth anything, right? Because this is still your journey.
It was Elizabeth's journey, it was my journey. We now have to do things very much in ways independently. And I feel like that's also a beautiful thing, right? Because now you are unrestricted in the way that you want to create the story that you want to tell. And you can do it on your terms. You can keep all the ownership of it, right? Yeah, I just think that your journey is your journey. And there are musicians out there that do knockout songs fairly quickly.
You know, different genres, different styles, different skills, like produce different things. So it's like, you know, I, I knew my music was going to take a long time. It's super proggy. And like a lot of it, like I do rely on like intuition to compose it. There's a certain like vibe I need to like really like, you know, build onto this album and this is the what I choose for for my music.
I, I like that approach to it because like, you know, whenever I compose in that way, it's like a, it's a good quality in my opinion. I was like, oh, this is like longevity. So it's why I want to do it this way. But there's a lot of people that don't have that process and they can knockout songs really quickly. My point is here, don't let them judge you. Like, open the conversation. If someone says like, oh, it takes you so long, why is that? And explain your process to them.
Maybe it's a new process that they've never even heard of, you know, and and you know, ask them about theirs. Like, how do you compose music? But if it comes from like a hasty kind of place where it's just like, oh, you're never going to come out with your album, it takes you so long. Or if they do it in a judgy way, you can always tell. And that's not your people. There's some feelings there. No, well, it's just, it's just real life, you know? Totally. I've experienced it.
You've experienced it our listeners probably. And, you know, it's like writing your music is a very personal thing and like the it's easy to like be hard on yourself. Yeah, yeah. And that will, you know, delay you from finishing your projects. So take away those things that delay you or affect you even, like, you know, in that way. And like just keep focusing on
the on the prize. And yeah, like when when people want to like pass judgment, like they're not in your element, you know, So that's just something I wanted to add in there. Absolutely, and I feel like the journey of a solo artist versus like a band is a very different one too. So nowadays, like we have a lot of people who are able to do these things on their own. So they have a lot of solo
artists out there. Actually, one of the things that I noticed on I think it was the top Billboard or it was a top Spotify artists, only like 1 of them. It was like a band out of like the top 50. Yeah, is that? Interesting. I do find that interesting. Yeah. So I'm. Wondering if it's like, because when it comes to solo artists and I, I don't know if this is the case for most solo artists, but I feel like maybe this is just our personal experience that we're more conceptual.
So we have like a very, you know, specific vision that maybe represents something. But like, I feel like bands in many ways, when they create music, it's trying to capture what happens in the moment between the players. Well, it's collaborative and and typically collaboration is something that happens like when you're jamming and stuff, unless you guys have like a system in place to, you know, build on a song with all your like, you know, parts.
But I think it's just simply like, getting four to five people, like, in a band to agree on one thing, right? Like, it just takes longer. Sometimes it doesn't work out when it's one person. They can just, like, spew out their vision and make it happen. And then, you know, just find the musicians to fulfill it. Yeah, I've been in both positions. I've been in bands, and now I'm focusing on this solo project. 2 very different vibes.
Yeah. Completely very intentional about what it is that you want right. So that's that's a very important part of this and something that you you're doing, which I find really exciting is that you've, you've written everything down, but you are aiming to mostly record everybody in a very similar time frame, which is interesting because I haven't done that with home Eric, or at least I did at one point, but then the band
collapsed. So, but at those moments like building on after, let's say, like the drum session, like now we're going to have things like keyboards, guitars, bass, and, you know, that's all going to be recorded pretty much in a very similar time frame, if not at the same time. At least that's what I find that we're shooting for, which is amazing. So can you tell me about like how you integrate your musicians into your process?
What are you looking for? Maybe because like somebody here on the other side might be at a point where they're like, OK, I have my compositions down, I want to record them, but I don't know whether or not I should get a band or if I should just do it, you know, 1 by 1, hiring people, overdubbing. What do you think about that and how would you answer that
question for somebody? I love that question because I feel like being in my position, you know, somebody that has composed a whole album and now, you know, working with musicians to learn my songs. Essentially, you know, I just did a long audition process with a bunch of lead guitarists and stuff. And in my position, I find that you have to like have like a checklist of things or like, you know, just A to do list or like goals, you know, happening in
like the next few months. Like first we're going to do this first, we're going to then we're going to do that. You need to have that organization, but you also have to like be aware that it's constantly going to be changing. So anytime there's like a new thing, you have to kind of just revisit that list, you know? So it's like, like, I had like this good process going. You know, we're working on like
a live set. So right now I have musicians learning the songs and, you know, my scores weren't up to date. So I was like, cool, they need better scores. So I collaborated with somebody who does scores for a living just to make sure that they were like top quality. And that helped a lot. And I was like, cool, scores are done. And then one musician was like struggling a bit. So I was like, all right, we need to like add an additional
guitarist. So, you know, I made my posts and I had people submit their video auditions and I found a great guitarist and I was like, cool, that's all set. There's constantly things like happening, especially when you're working with like, musicians that are just down a play and they believe in the project. You know, you got to show them that love and respect, respect
their time. So you got to make sure that you have all these things, like, checked off the list and that you're constantly looking out for, you know, the quality of the project. So yeah, that I would be like my my main advice with that is to roll with the punches and revisit that To Do List as often as you need to. Staying organized is a big part of it. Yeah, if you want to essentially achieve the highest quality that you can afford, it comes with a lot of preparation.
And this is, you know, even if you were just a band, when you're going to go into the studio, right, you want a lot of pre production for that. You want to rehearse a lot. You want to make sure that when you go into the studio, it's as tight as possible as you think you can make it. And then that's when you create your best work.
So I I totally agree with that. And I think that's a very, that's very good advice as to not to let yourself be held back by the things that you need to do, do right, Roll with the punches, like keep moving forward, keep moving the needle a little bit more. But to also do it in a way where you have, you know, very clear goals, very clear, you know, to do lists on what's important priorities in the music.
And also what I find interesting about having musicians, especially when you have like a score, is that the music is very, very written in an intentional way. So when a musician interprets the music and they add certain things like embellishments, this also reminds me of a lot of the old classical composers, where classical composers would also expect that musicians would apply their own color, right? Even in the case of chromaticism, right, chroma,
meaning literally color. So there is a lot of that that happens in the moment. And so when you create, you know, something that's not, let's say for example, MIDI, and you actually hire a band, those are some of the things that make the music feel lively, right? Because it literally comes to life when somebody interprets the music. They play the music and they're really good at their instrument
and they know how to read. These are all things that I feel add just a level of integrity and quality to the thing that you're creating. I think it's really, really beautiful what you're doing. And Elizabeth's music is very progressive too, so it's got a lot of long form songwriting in there. There's also these interwoven melodies, and you're a vocalist, which means that your focus on harmony is like through the roof.
Count the counterpoints are almost, it's almost like if you, if you take a section of the song and just like look at it for what it is like break it down. The counterpoints that I, I added, they're almost like different songs that just work together when you like lay them on top of each other. And it was funny that we mentioned like, you know, shelfing a project, having that archive folder because like, sometimes I would find like an area of the song that needed like more layers.
It was too like plain, you know, it just needed like more to, to more texture. I would visit that archive folder and I would like find like old composition that was like, oh, this is like in the same key. Let me just slap it on top of it and see if it works. A little bit of like just polishing. And I was like, wow, OK. Like, you know, it wasn't enough for it to be a song on its own and made it like years ago. But like, I just like, stuck it there and it felt like it was
always meant to be there. It was a very intuitive kind of thing. And like, that's like, it's like the best feeling in the songwriting process when you have those moments, it's like, yeah, that works. And it's like it was always supposed to be there, you know? Yeah, I love that feeling too. And I always felt that in my experience, a lot of my ideas have always been like these short motifs, and then I would just integrate them.
And my job was to be like, how do I make the coolest transition possible between these ideas, right? And I feel in some ways like you've done that in your music as well. Yeah, You have to really trust your process because like, like I said, like I've had this idea, this concept, it's like I would, you know, I've been working on this for a long time. Most of it was just like figuring out my flow and how to actually truly execute the
vision I had in my head. That meant going back to school and like learning how to use like, you know, audio and like Daws and stuff. Like I had to like learn how to do that because I was like, this is what I need in order to, you know, compose the sounds I have in my head and stuff.
And yeah, no, I, I made sure to do that because it was important to me. Like this album was very important to me. But like, throughout that process, you know, I've had musicians just be like, well, no, that's not how you write a song. You're supposed to start with the drums or like, oh, there's it needs to have a song structure. There's no song structure. Like you have verse, chorus, verse, chorus. And obviously maybe they've never really like messed with progressive metal before.
So it like, you know, when you have a lot of different people telling you what you're supposed to do, you really have to like TuneIn to your intuition being like, I, I hear you. I observe what you're saying but like this is the process I want to do because this is my my vision and you have to just go for it. Yeah. And actually, you know, we just published a very recent video about metal songwriting, which I think it's very.
Relevant in this situation because it's like explores like the the forms of what like might be typical in metal. But some of the things that I like to point out when I talk about these things is that these are just things that can help give you more clarity or guide you in your creation. But they're not rules. You don't have to always do, you know, first chorus, first chorus, bridge, chorus, whatever, you know, that's a very, you know, typical type of
song form. And there's a formula and it works in most cases. But you can absolutely explore other opportunities in your songwriting to make something that's different, make something that feels refreshing, even something that feels like it goes on a journey that's actually, you know, if you want to go back again to these ideas of classical composers like sonatas have, have you explored writing a Sonata? Right. You know, there's only three forms in the Sonata.
You got your your exposition, which is your development of your idea. And then of course, the development which takes it to a different realm. And then you come back to your recap, your recapitulation, take that idea, try to see if you can make a song out of that, right. These are just like old types of forms, but also there are very new types of forms. And sometimes you're just very free form. In many cases.
I feel like with film scoring, that's a very good example because when you write to film, it's, it's all program music. It's not absolute music, which you could define it as. Absolute music is sort of like what's purely just coming from your head. It doesn't have to be necessarily related to anything, but program music means that you're writing for something, right? Like a visual or something of that sort.
But when you take that kind of form, I'm looking at it as you're taking absolute music and you have like this program music, like this idea in your head and you sort of fit it along with like this journey that you're creating. I think that's really interesting. I feel like we share a lot of those qualities when we write
our own music. So going around and writing music in that way, I feel like those little ideas, those motifs that we were talking about become even more important because those motifs can represent, you know, events in your story or if they open up, you know what it who is this character maybe in the story or even just overarching themes about maybe where they are in the story, right? So I always look at writing songs as very much storytelling, obviously, in a very musical sense.
But if you look at your song as writing a story, what makes a good story, right? And you can sort of use that in a way into making music and you do it very successfully. I think it's very, very cool. And yeah, so when we come around to now the idea of like creating this world, I know you want to do this in Dolby Atmos and you want to go into immersive audio. Have you always, like envisioned doing this in Atmos or were was it that kind of a later thing that revealed itself to you?
What did you think? Well, OK, so the Dolby Atmos aspect of it, it was when I was in college, you know, I was taking audio engineering music production. I was very fortunate because my, my college, they, they just installed like their Atmos system like. Installed it by the way. He installed it. Yeah. He used to be a tech at my school back at back then can installed it.
But I was lucky that I was, you know, taking courses at that time when when we had that, because when, you know, came to the time where our teacher was giving us the demo of it, I was just like, Oh my God, this is like what I need. So it's like, throughout my journey in college, it was like there was things that I needed to learn, you know, because you need certain classes in order to get the degree, right? And there was things that I was like, OK, this is awesome.
This is what I need. Or I can like, turn this into this in order for me to, you know, implement it in my album. My goal and my vision throughout my time in college was this like, what do I need from my album, you know? And yeah, with Atmos, I just remembered to standing in the middle of the thing and just, I felt like I was levitating. I was like, this is great. Like I was just, I got so hyped. I loved it. I loved the idea of it. I love the idea of like, you know, all the harmonies.
I always do a lot of harmony. It's like, oh, what if they just circled around you? And I was like, yeah, that's what it needs. Or else it just gets lost. All those little details, those counterpoints. So it's like songs that I stacked on top of each other from the archive folder. There will be space for all of it. And it could actually just be like, you know, heard all at once. And I got really excited. Those things that make you like hyped like that, it's a good sign.
Listen to that feeling. But I wanted to also mention that I'm very lucky that I got to go. You know, that music theory was a requirement in order for me to like graduate and get the degree. I had to take music theory, and I've been writing songs all my life without really knowing too much music theory.
But once I started taking that in school, I really got to understand why my ideas were working and, you know, understanding why song structure is the way it is, you know, And in order for me to, you know, successfully compose progressive metal where it has all these crazy changes, even like genre changes sometimes, you know, just like crazy changes, I had to understand why my song structure works so that I could break it, you know, because the balance of song structure is
there for a reason. You know, you go through the the changes when you listen to a song and it and it's pleasant, you know, but with progressive metal, you are rearranging it, you're adding 10 minutes to your extending it.
You're you're just doing all types of different things that is outside of the song structure, but the balance and that like pleasant change changes that you go through when you listen to a song that still needs to be there, you know, when you're breaking the song structure. Yeah. So it's good to understand what what it is that you're breaking essentially. Now what about sound design? Like sound design?
What about it? Well, you like incorporate a bit of sound design in your music making you want to elaborate. Like how do you go about doing that? Like what do you experiment with? OK, well there is a little bit of sound design so far and it's just it in some of the songs it's kind of gives me like the backrooms kind of vibes, like a old faded doorbell.
Like I'll hear it. Like there's like a sound sample that I hear and as soon as I listen to it, I'm like, this is definitely like a doorbell from like a 90s toy and it's faded and it's like all like tinny. It sounds like it's playing on a on a old vinyl. Like this is giving me some eerie viby. Like I don't know shit, sorry. Can I hear something? Yeah, it's just like eerie viby shit. And I'm like, this needs to go somewhere. I need to like put it like I
need to like comp it somehow. So that's how I've been with sound design, but I want to add more of it once I have the, the visuals complete. Yeah. And my, my pianist, he's so good at sound design. So I'm going to like, work with him a little bit to like, get that down. There's also like, you know, like a heartbeat, you know, stuff like that to like kind of bring you back to this is a story, this is a concept. So what is your process with sound design?
Because I know that you've done sound design for movies and one of the requirements, you know, of taking sound design seriously where you're looking for jobs in that field is, you know, have like accumulating a library, you know, so like walking around
with like a task Cam recorder. And if you like hear a crookedy fence or like, you know, like a bird or something, like anything that sounds usable or interesting, you want to record it. And I know Ken has like a whole library of things that he's accumulated over the years and he uses it for, you know, sound design for movies and also for your music, right. So tell me about your experience using it in your in your album. Well, it was.
It was a lot of fun. I find that sound design in many ways are like accents in, in, in music. So when you're using sound design in the context of a composition, you have to be very aware of just like the Sonic palette that it accumulates because it could be very like broadband, for example, like a lot of frequencies, a lot of this sort of stuff. So in the mix you might, you might have to do a little bit more tailoring to that, but it's
very effective for making sure. For example, here's a very good compositional example. And Mahler would do this. You know, the old composer, he would have anvils like little like legit blacksmith anvils with the hammer. That's so. Gangster. And he would use that for accents. And a lot of composers would do this kind of stuff too, where they would make it essentially sort of like a percussion.
Even the very famous, you know, again with Mahler, he had an entire thing called the Mahler Hammer, which was like a big wooden box and you would just basically smack it, go to town at a certain point, which I find is like a really good starting point for exploring sound design in your music. So old composers have always been trying to figure out how to create really interesting sounds.
And you know, you have, that's why I like in the percussion world, there's so many different like types of, you know, gadgets and stuff like that you can just play with. So in the modern sense, a lot of that to me feels like movie sounds right. Things that you'd go and hear in a theater. I love cinematic stuff. I mean, I grew up with movies all my life. So having a little bit of experience with doing some movies helped to actually make my music sound more cinematic
that way. And I'm just a fan of the tone, so. But yeah, we're gonna be exploring more of these kinds of things with your project too, which I think is gonna be super fun. What is the? It's called Mickey Mouse thing, right? I don't know, It's stuck to me because it's Mickey Mouse and that's adorable. But being. Like Tom and Jerry or. Well, Mickey Mouse saying that's something that I see me doing like my process would sound designed for my album.
Because right now I am in the process of getting my visuals done. I want to have visuals on on for my live performances, like the way that like Opeth or Dream Theater, they have like those like visuals on stage, right? It's like beautiful artwork that's like just changing and vibe. So I want to add sound design that goes along with that. And yeah, I think the concept of that is Mickey mousing when you're going along with a visual and then and working in that order.
Is that correct? Is that they say it right? OK. Yeah, yeah. And you know, that also begs a question for, you know, during the mixing process, like are we going to mix, you know, with the visual in front of us? Like that could be a very cool way to create immersive content. So it's like almost like we're mixing a movie. These are just like some things that with, you know, the power of immersive or the power of
just your creativity. Like you could don't have to do everything the same way how it's always been done. You can always find new ways to do it. We, like I said earlier in our conversation, we have, you know, a new world of just creative, you know, intent out there now because of the technologies that we have, the more knowledgeable that you become, the more you're able to essentially create
without resistance, right? And that's one of the biggest takeaways that I feel like being on your own as a composer and a producer can really unlock for you. But you have to be patient with the process. It's not you. Have to be patient with the process. And The thing is, I feel like it's a lot more it's, it's easy to be overwhelmed. There's like a lot of things that can delay your process. And I think one of them is maybe like social media, right?
So feeling like you need to keep up with social media in order to be a musician. This is true. And just keep in mind that, you know, the musicians that you see on social media, they have their project done already and now they're at that point where they can just share, share, share. And if you're not at that point yet, if you're still working on your music or you know, like if it's not quite finished yet, that's the first step. Step number one is having a high quality product. Thank you.
You know, totally. It's the most fun part too. So just really enjoy that process, the intuitive process that the music is still yours at that point, it's still your project, it's still yours, it's still like your baby. Once that's like done, then you give it away. You know, that's when you post share and you'll know what it looks like, you'll know how to market it because it'll be done.
You'll understand the vibe, the, you know, if you do some live shows first, you'll know the kind of people that really like, you know, resonate with it. So that was just something I wanted to add because social media is just like you're seeing people that are at that point where they're done with their project and now they're showing it to the world. And you'll get there too, when that time comes, and enjoy that that the moment where the the album is still yours and only yours. Right.
And yeah, that's a such a great point. And you guys really shouldn't feel like if you don't have anything out there that you have to rush to make it out there, right? Like while things are still relatively, you know, yours and unknown. That's a beautiful part of the process. Don't negate the fact that people necessarily know who you are, because that means that you don't have that kind of pressure to create something that maybe you're not that into, right?
Because you want to make sure that what you create is authentically yours. It's the thing that you've always been dreaming of making. And I'll say it again, we live in that time, right? You can really focus on what it is that you want to create. So create your own sound. All the things that we talked about here on Middle Mastermind, it's, it's all relative to the individual independent songwriter. And that's one of the things that we really highlight here at Metal Mastermind.
This is to explore like opening that creativity for you so that you have tools at your disposal that you know how to use, but you're unrestricted in the way that you want to use them. And so that process is a beautiful process. Sometimes it feels frustrating when you know you're working on things for a long time. You're like, is this ever going to be a thing? But know that that's a natural part of the process. Like you're never going to not have that feeling. So just give yourself some
grace. And sometimes, you know, we need to hear it ourselves when we talk to each other too. It's just like, you know, we'll have our feelings of doubt or whatever, but Ellie and I, what makes us such a great couple is that we really just work on making sure that each other is, you know, content and knowing that they have support that there's not ever going to be a point where they're alone in that process. And we we help each other out.
So sometimes if you're. Yeah, we get in our own way sometimes and yeah, it's, we don't realize it, you know, like we just we're hard on ourselves or whatever. Or we say, like, oh, we can't do this or this is not going to work. Or like maybe it's just not good enough. It's just like, you know, you getting in your own way. And that's like something that I do enjoy people that are taking our courses.
Like when I have students reach out and say the struggles that they're having, it usually has to do with it just kind of like inner work, like just being like, oh, I just can't get through this part. Like, you know, and I'm just having someone that's been there and understands and just the this effect that you're worried about something like that, like, you know, any delays in your process and the fact that you reached out for help at all. Like it really says a lot.
And like I'm always going to be the first person to be like you are exactly where you need to be. And you know, let's try this, this and that and let's touch base after a couple weeks to see where you're at. After you do that, you know, it's just you just got to keep going. You always got to revisit that To Do List. Yeah, one of the most beautiful things you actually said to me was something very similar to that. What did I say?
Which was that you know where you are is exactly where you need to be. Because what you're creating isn't isn't necessarily up to you. It's the universe in a sense, making it ready for it to be accepted. Yeah, I do. I do get very, you know, like spiritual in my process and. No sharing that was very. Do yeah, I know I, I, I, I do believe in when I say, when I do say, like the universe has its
plan. And I do want to put this into terms that everyone can understand because maybe some of our listeners don't like tap into that in the same way.
But it all does boil down to to the same thing where it's like when you're writing a song, when you're writing your own original stuff from your own creative brain, Like you have that moment where you're like, this is right, and this is how it was always supposed to be. So it's as if the song is already written and you're just trying to uncover it. Because when you know it's right, you know it's right because the song is already, like, created. You already have the vision for it.
Yeah. You're just picking away at the rock to to find the sculpture underneath. So that's a good mentality And you know, whatever higher power you believe in, whether the universe already has its plan for you or, or God or what have you like, it's just a very insightful way to go about it. And I think it leads to a much more enjoyable experience. Well, one one part of that that I took as a big take away was that my music was essentially another entity. It wasn't basically just me.
It was separate from me in a way that allowed me to uncover this in a natural way. So I really did appreciate when you said that to me. I felt like it was very, very helpful for me to put things in perspective. I've also always felt in my heart that what I do is very much like I am a vessel. I'm just, you know, essentially going to the muses and and the hearing from them what I'm supposed to be putting down onto tangible form.
And that allowed me to at least visualize a little bit more in AI guess in a very, yes, spiritual way, but also in a just, I guess a little bit more of a detached way where I didn't have to feel like it was all me. It wasn't my ego. It was its own entity, like I mentioned, you know, So that's very powerful. And I think the way how you, you know, give yourself grace for your music is to allow yourself to also believe that your music is a living thing.
It has its ups and downs. It will reveal itself in time to you. You have to get to know it right? So the more time you invest in your music and the way that you create your music, treat it like a relationship with your music that you want to foster healthily, and you are not putting the kind of pressure on your music or yourself to make it a certain way. When you start forcing things, then things don't turn out the way that you want them to. Totally.
If you start forcing a person, they will retaliate or whatever. Yeah, retaliate. I don't know. That's the best word to use. They will attack. But yeah, no, it's like it is like a really relationship where it's like, you know, you find areas that need improvement and you want to put in the work and the detail. You don't want to just like ship something out that's like, it's fine, it's good enough. You do that, that's fine.
Maybe it's a great song. But like when, when you really want to get it, like quote UN quote, perfect, you know, the areas that need improvement, you know, schedule that time to just like focus on it and put in that little bit of work and you know, find that balance to to, you know, make that song, that entity what it always was supposed to be. I do want to like also talk about like refining your process. Do you want to add something
before I like head over there. I think refining your process just takes time. It really is about, in a sense, trimming some of the fat of what doesn't work and discovering what works for you and what keeps you motivated to keep going. Yes. And I do want, yeah, what works for you is important because, you know, Ken and I, we relate on a lot of levels with our music process. It's how we, you know, our friendship began, you know what I mean?
Our relationship began. It's like what we have in common to the core, but that's our process. You know, we are very like intuitive with the process. And you know, we see our our music as its own like entity. But like what's so fun about music and what's so creative about it is that everyone has like a different way of, you know, making music. So it's like if you have like a band that likes to just drink beers and like jam, you know, that's great. You know, it works for you.
So it's like figuring out what works for you and then refining the process. You know, how do you get productive when that's your process, when you want to just like jam and drink some beers and like see what happens? Record it. That's all you got to do. Make sure you set up that recording. So it's like, all right, this works.
We love that, but let's make sure that we record it so that, you know, we can like maybe chop it up like in logic or in Pro Tools and find the parts that we like and, and work off of that. And that's how you can use the process you enjoy feels organic to you, but also be like productive with it. So whatever your process is, some people just need to be like super sad to write music. You know what I mean?
How, how do you refine that process, you know, journaling, getting, getting yourself like in that headspace to write music that could be like a way so that you can be productive with the process that works best for you and. We're as it's all fine finding a balance, yeah, you know, if something's not working, don't let it trail on, you know, for
unnecessary amounts of time. Otherwise, those problems just build and then working through what feels natural versus what helps to push you just a little bit more, right? Because we don't want to just settle. We don't want to just, you know, get into a position where we're just like, kind of like, all right, whatever works, it's
fine. But it's like, no, if you want like to get like really great, great stuff, then you have to have just a little bit of that, just pushing into a little bit of uncomfortable space for you to help make something new come along that you're supposed to receive in that moment, right? So a balance is super key. And so for those of you who are interested in, you know, learning more about this kind of stuff, right, Metal Mastermind, we have resources for you.
We also have a community. If you don't know, we have a community on Discord. It's about 600 people on Discord right now. We just, I'd love that. I love seeing how people just communicate in our community to each other. They're very supportive. People share their ideas all the time and they get feedback. And in our platform, Mental Mastermind, we've been teaching since 2020, as officially 2021 when it came to the business.
But the entire journey of Metal Mastermind was all about empowering independent musicians. So if you're going to go and you know, start to explore some of these aspects of yourself, you know, we can help you. Metal Mastermind is here to do that. And so check it out, see what fits for you. We do have songwriting, music theory, we have studio design, we have vocals, we have bass guitar. I mean, like we really got pretty much everything you need
and we're still adding more. So more to come this year. We're, we're currently working on some really exciting stuff, including also like Adobe Atmos course that I'm, I'm putting together. We're working on some more production stuff with the studio. It's very exciting times here at Metal Masterminds. So just stay tuned. And of course, you know, as you go through your journey, don't don't forget, you know, create
your own sound. That is always the thing that we want to leave you with because we truly believe that while you go through this process of being a musician, don't forget that it's your sound that you are after. So always create your own sound.