throwing myself into the deep end

mostly music and imposter syndrome

i don’t typically get imposter syndrome, but i’ve been feeling it a lot recently. i’ve been starting new things, or at least getting serious about things i wasn’t serious about before, and i’ve felt a little bit as if i’m deluding the people around me when it comes to my abilities and experience.

maybe i just have a uniqueness complex from high school and am experiencing the lack of it. in my high school i was the only person ‘mainly’ interested in linguistics, and probably the person most ‘outwardly’ interested in creative writing. my interests were to some extent mine and mine alone - at the very least, i felt like i was the ‘most’ interested in them.

i’d always wanted to do music things, but i think one of the reasons i never really got that serious about it was because it seemed like (a) so many people were into it that were way better than me and (b) how would i ever do it as a career. so i did silly noncommittal things like writing raps in spanish and arabic for my language classes, producing a lofi version of remember me from coco and sending it in my friend group gc, creating a padlet with SR full of song lyrics and melodies that i basically never did anything with (that was when i had a crush on a girl that had a crush on a guy that was a really good singer), and making the first recorded rap in old babylonian.

however, a few things conspired to make me actually think about taking music seriously this year.

first, CS convinced me to be a computing & the arts major, and i realized the music track classes interested me way more than the visual art track ones.

second, i watched way too much music theory youtube when my eczema got bad last term (as i mentioned in the trenches).

third, i’d decided over the summer that i wanted to primarily create music for cortex this year, because i was very inspired by JD and MA’s work last year.

fourth, the number of people i knew personally who had released music that i liked on spotify grew too large for me to be like “woah this is such a crazy thing to do,” and instead it became “woah this is so awesome i have to go do something like it” (ty TG, GK, SH, SC, and DO!). as i wrote in too many dreams, one lifetime, i’m very susceptible to this type of inspiration.

so i decided to make music a big focus of my gap semester. i’ve been writing a song or composing a short piece almost every morning this semester. (i had to skip ~2 weeks because of the CCAM symposium and the amoriem game jam, which i’ll mention later, but otherwise this holds). i’ve been ‘publishing’ my compositions on a new youtube channel, unlisted - reach out to me if you want the links. (i haven’t been publishing the songs anywhere yet, because idk, songs can be more personal, and songs that i only put three hours into inherently sound worse than compositions i only put three hours into, because vocals, lyrics, audio effects, and sound selection actually matter¹.)

but despite these habits, i’m really still a beginner. i’m lucky enough to have some piano skills and music theory knowledge going in, but apart from a few tiny compositions when i was like 10 years old, i’ve never composed anything before, and apart from the slightly silly songs/raps i mentioned previously, i’ve never written & produced anything either.

being a beginner at things is really hard. i think i haven’t had to do it in a long time. one of the great things about covid was that it allowed me to prove to myself that i was good at linguistics and creative writing, by making my conlanging youtube channel and writing a few books. post-covid, i haven’t really had to do anything that hard². i haven’t been a beginner in a long time.

being a beginner at things is not just hard because you have to learn a bunch of skills, but also because you have to justify to yourself and to others why you’re doing something you’re not actually good at. this is really hard for me.

i always feel like i’m misleading people. like i’m making people think i’m better than i actually am. i feel like i’ve been making basically-false promises in order to force myself to learn things. here are some examples in chronological order:

1. i told JD i would compose music for the cortex installation when the last time i composed any amount of music was when i was like 10.

2. i told DO i would learn to play the electric bass for our band over winter break³ when i had literally never touched one before.

3. i told CS and JT i would compose music for our game during the amoriem game jam when the only other thing i’d composed in the last decade was the aforementioned cortex installation piece.

4. i told EM’s cousin PN i would compose for her short animated film Galactic Gambit when the only other things i’d composed in the last decade were the cortex installation piece and the two game jam pieces.

with each of these things, i was (or am 💀) really scared that i’d create something terrible, or just …not be good at the thing i’m supposed to be good at. i feel like i’m misrepresenting myself. implying i have skills i just don’t have.

there’ve been other, less dire scenarios where i’ve felt like this too:

5. i told MS (my boss, a composer) that i was a composer.

6. i went to the first meeting of the yale new music collective (aka composing club) and told them i was a composer.

7. i sat at the music table one time at an amoriem labs meeting and nodded along with JL as he talked about b6-b7-1.

8. i told CS i could draw creatures for our game (probably true? but has it ever really been tested?)

9. i told DO i could sing harmonies for our band (also probably true? but has it ever really been tested?)

(there are more examples, i just can’t think of them right now.)

anyway, i think this strategy has …mostly worked. while i’m not extremely proud of my cortex installation composition, i am somewhat proud of my game jam compositions, and i think i’m at least good enough at the bass to play background for our band. i haven’t started work for Galactic Gambit yet but i will soon, and i’ll let you all know how that goes. i’m not proud of many of the songs i’ve written, but i am proud of a few.

i think being in rooms with people who are better than you at stuff is really important when you’re starting new things, but at the same time, it’s really scary. i’m like, “why am i doing this if these people are so much better at it than me?”

but i know the best way to learn is to put yourself out there. to challenge yourself. to sign up for things you don’t think you can do, and to put yourself in rooms you don’t think you deserve to be in.

i think a lot of it is also about identity. one of the great nuggets of knowledge from atomic habits⁴ is that you keep up with habits which you see as part of your identity. if you are a writer, you will write. if you don’t see yourself as a writer, you’re not going to keep up a writing habit. the moment a habit is solidified is when there’s a meaningful change in your identity.

so that’s why i’ve been trying to call myself a ‘composer.’ maybe i should start calling myself a songwriter/producer too. maybe i should start calling myself a bassist. i’ve been thinking about trying to learn screenwriting too - maybe i should start calling myself a screenwriter? (nah - too soon for that one.)

i want to emphasize that every time i think about calling myself one of these things i actually want to puke. my entire body shakes in disgust: you are not a bassist. that’s silly. you picked up the bass three months ago. you are not a composer. you’ve composed, what, twelve pieces?

i just don’t want to misrepresent myself.

but at the same time i know i have to, in order to challenge myself. at least a little bit. at least, i have to do what i view as misrepresentation, even if others might not see it that way.

so… i’m trying to call myself things i don’t really believe myself to be.

yet.

and i’m trying to make promises i’m not sure i can fulfill.

yet.

it’s a weird feeling, but i think it works.

i’m trying to throw myself into the deep end - let’s hope i at least know how to swim.

this is a stock photo the person in the image is not me

1. yes, effects and sound selection in composition are also really important, BUT compositions can sound pretty good to laypeople with just a few basic orchestral instruments, without basically any effects, whereas songs often need more than that. and yeah, this is kind of an artificial division, but it’s one that society has forced itself into for the last two centuries, so who am i to break it (yet :).

2. maybe taking all those cs classes last term was some form of this. adding “programmer” to my identity in some way.

3. mostly cuz my mom had one at home

4. ik ik, it’s everywhere, it really seems like it’s overrated - but trust me, it’s NOT, it’s actually so good