Inspiring artists

Do you know that feeling when you watch someone do something they’re really good (like really really good) at and you think to yourself: “I wish I could do this as well!”

This is something I feel with many people whom I see creating things, but most prominently in musicians. Something about their craft feels different than, say seeing a digital artist draw something in Procreate or a coder bringing a creative project to live. Music sparks emotions like almost no other medium (maybe film/photo could do the same) and can be created on the spot (which no other art form can in the same way). And watching a great musician improvise while something beautiful comes out of it is fascinating.

A recent example of this emotion was when I watched a Piano Live Concert on YouTube by Fred again. The whole vibe of the video is awesome. I mean, who wouldn’t want to be able to play a piano like this on a rooftop in London during sunset time?

Fred is an especially good example for sparking this inspiring feeling. I like his music but it’s not something that I listen to every day. Still, his dedication to his craft and his creativity (especially how he samples existing sounds) is unbelievably admirable. For example, his “Actual Life” albums contain songs made out of TikToks, voice memos or other audio snippets. And he manages to create fantastic stuff with it. How cool would it be, if I were also able to sample sounds from my environment into songs? I’ll learn it one day.

I think the reason I admire these types of people so much, is that they have a real foundational understanding of whatever they are creating and working with. Another example here is Finneas, who produced the album “When We All Fall Asleep, Where Do We Go?” of his sister Billie Eilish in a bedroom. That album won 3 Grammys, including “Album of the Year” and “Best Engineered Album, Non-Classical”. How crazy is that? (There is a documentary about the creation of that album that you should definitely watch.)

It feels really inspiring and empowering when you see what can be achieved with enough passion, dedication, creativity, and knowledge, no matter what equipment you have.

These are just two examples, but you get the point.

I’m not sure, if I have found “my thing” yet like these two people did. As of right now, I would say that the web is the thing I have the most foundational knowledge of (although I’m still barely scratching on the surface). Mostly frontend stuff, but I’ve been doing more backend stuff in Laravel recently as well. Let’s see where that takes me.

I feel like it doesn’t really matter what exactly you do, as long as you do it with dedication. Musicians are my personal example, but maybe I can inspire someone someday with the digital products I’ve coded, essays I’ve written, or something entirely else. Who knows.

Until then, keep inspiring!