 While the CDC has never studied it, the most common affliction among musicians is definitely Demoitis. But I'm kind of thankful right now they're focusing on more important things. This affliction occurs when someone has heard a mix of a song for so long that any change to it sounds wrong. The only way this song sounds right is the way it was in the mix the afflicted person is used to. Demoitis is most commonly contracted by overly listening to a mix of a song. It's inevitable to contract it after prolonged listening of a single mix of a song. And yes, a rare breed of musicians are immune to it. But for most of us, the more we get used to it in that form, the harder it is to be open to changing it. In this video I want to discuss what the affliction of Demoitis is and how you conquer it so you can always make good decisions for your songs. Hi, I'm Jesse Cannon and this is Muse Formation. I'm lucky enough to have a job where I would get to regularly discuss writing songs with some of the best songwriters in the world. And when you start discussing songwriting with them, the most commonly cited problem is a loss of objectivity. Once you've written a great song, the most treacherous part of creating is maintaining objectivity. After all, if you lose objectivity, the ability to judge options is compromised, which always results in poor decision-making since you have to guess at what's right and odds are you're not going to guess well and the song is not going to come out as well as it could have if you had maintained your objectivity. What makes crafting music so difficult is that even if you have intent and know exactly what you want, you can lose perspective along the way. If you hear a song the same way too many times, you're going to get used to the elements relationship with one another and any change to it is going to sound odd. You subsequently lose the ability to objectively hear changes to decipher whether they improve or detract from your intent in the song and how it should feel emotionally. Just as treacherous is that you can make poor decisions if you don't listen to a mix properly. In a past video linked below and on this card, I talk about the concept of zooming. If you're too focused on the details, you can lose track of the big picture. All of these choices are crucial to consider, yet I've never seen any good insight onto how to properly use the tools at hand to stay as objective as possible. But before we go deeper, we should identify that there are two plagues that kill musicians objectivity constantly that we should define. The first being what we just discussed, demoitis. And then there's analysis paralysis and I know that sounds like some weird heavy metal album name, but anyone that's ever tried their hand at perfecting a song has probably experienced this. In his book The Paradox of Choice, author Barry Schwartz explains the phenomenon like this. When we become paralyzed by the different options in front of us, in music this is most experienced when we've heard so many options, we can no longer make a good decision because we can't tell which one is right for the song. This regularly happens when surfing through plug-in presets or drum samples. The loss of perspective from working too long on a song or hearing too many alternative ideas is debilitating for artists. Now you can make the song sound different. All emotional resonance to judge an option is depleted, leading to confusion about what the best option is. This usually causes the creative process to cease as the song becomes abandoned or becomes completed as the artist can no longer tell what choice to make and they give up on the song and just release it. Producer Greg Wells, who's known for his work with Katy Perry and Adele has said, the hardest part of making music is that you can never hear it the way the listener does the first time they hear it. Now before you crucify me about how much I've talked about making the music you want to hear and not concerning yourself with the listener, take in this concept. As you craft your music, it gets harder and harder to tell if you're doing the right thing since your excitement for a song declines in time as you get used to it. Just like the songs you enjoy made by other artists, your emotional resonance towards a song dies with repeated listens. To make matters worse, while you work on a song, your objectivity gets more and more skewed as you get used to the way the parts sound. Elements you find emotionally resonant on a first listen compared to elements you find interesting after hearing it a thousand times can be vastly different. To make good decisions for our music, we need to acknowledge that we're running a race against this loss of objectivity. At some point your objectivity gets depleted and your ability to make good decisions will be reduced. You should always be conscious of the balance between under developing a song and developing it for so long that you lose this objectivity. While you want to give enough consideration to the composition, you must execute it fast enough not to lose your perspective. After all, if you flog a song to death scrutinizing every detail, it could suck the life out of it. With that said, focusing on details can also bring out the magic in a song. In yourself, you have to find a place where you can find the balance since it's crucial to the execution of making a great song. But now that I've talked about the dynamics of this, let's get into how you actually solve this for yourself. There are ways to regain your perspective. Revisit the greats. I've told you in past videos to make a great songs playlist, which could be the tickets to regaining perspective. In my experience, losses of perspective commonly stem from making judgments against previous drafts of your own song you've made without listening to enough outside inspiration to get inspired again. Your head is so inside your own work that you're not regularly gaining feedback from what has been resonant to you in the past and the songs that have really affected you before. Revisiting your favorite music to judge how tight grooves are, the levels of certain elements in a mix or the overall timbre of a song could be a great reference to help steer you in the right direction. I find if I revisit my favorite songs for an hour and revisit the song I'm having trouble on, my perspective as a true north that's easy to see again. As well, employ muting and soloing. When you start off mixing, employing the mute button or solo instruments to analyze songs is a basic practice that's dismissed as being too critical oftentimes. While sewing a track that has too strong a groove, it could sound totally wrong on its own, it could also unveil a perspective that shows a flaw. There are plenty of instruments that may sound odd when sold, especially if they played to a rhythm track with a less conventional groove. But soloing tracks can help give further perspective. While muting various elements of a song is equally helpful in finding perspective on what could be flawed or superfluous within it. The other tool you have is time. Time away from a song is a commodity many musicians don't have during the development process. Sadly though, it's the best cure for lost perspective. Any one experience to making music that's revisited to a past recording in hindsight can hear clear flaws as well as better decisions they could have made. While there's no definite prescription for how much time it takes to regain objectivity, breaking from hearing a song regularly leads to huge epiphanies as well as regain perspective. In fact, time away from a song may be the single grayest way to regain objectivity, which is why you'll hear so many huge artists talk about how they put a song aside and then they released it on another record. They knew they lost perspective, but the song had great potential. But how do we cure analysis paralysis? As it's a particularly tricky affliction to navigate. If it's a regular occurrence, you're probably suffering from self-doubt and need to do some research or gut analysis for what feels right in your heart. The most common cases stem from having to make big decision coupled with a lack of confidence and knowledge on how to make that decision. On a macro level, when coaching musicians through it in the past, I talk to them about who they'd like to be as an artist and what type of decision that artist would make. Reverse engineering how you could be confident in your decision is crucial since deciphering what would be beneficial about each path makes you more prepared when a choice has to be made. This results in solidifying your intent since it's the best guy to avoid this troublesome paralysis. You then need to start creating again. The only way this affliction subsides is by committing to a decision. You can also employ phase decision making. On a more micro level, options need to be whittled down over time by doing some batch decision making. If there's five directions you're considering for a vocal that you can't decide between, get it down to two or three and next week get it down to one. If there's an unclear decision between two key elements, make a decision and if it still annoys you weeks later, revisiting with a different mind will usually give your thoughts clarity. Then there's giving up. Analysis paralysis commonly occurs at the end of a project where uncompleted songs are left hanging to avoid making a crucial but confusing decision. Further consideration of what's best reinforces intent and resonance is the only way to consider this. Time away can help regain objectivity to make that decision, but don't give up during a tight deadline. Employ outside of years to consider the decision after hearing your intent. And what I mean by those outside of years is what I like to call a lifeline. Just as the show Who Wants to be a Millionaire has illustrated for years, occasionally we hit a point where we view their lost perspective or don't know what to do. Perhaps the democracy within your group has broken down or you've lost perspective and the only way to regain it is from trusted ears. You need an outside opinion that hasn't heard this song a million times whose thoughts may help you to come to a decision. The lifeline on that TV show is the person you can call who is not on the stage that can help you get through a tough paralyzing choice. Once you hear from this trusted person, you can usually regain objectivity by knowing whether to trust your instincts or not. Throughout my life, I've collected friends that I can turn to for various dilemmas. My producer friends that I constantly shoot mixes back and forth when we've been working on a song for too long or received feedback on a song that's perplexing us. You should find someone outside of who you regularly make music with who can help give you a perspective. Keeping these lifelines in your back pocket can save your songs. Throughout post-mortem album interviews, you hear that musicians let their friends listen to songs to set them back on course. Sadly, they probably won't make you a millionaire by answering these questions, but still, hopefully you can make great songs from it. That's it, am I missing anything? Is there any way you would have done this? I need to know your questions and what no one else is telling you since I wanna answer them, so leave them in the comments. I hope you liked this video and if you did, please like and subscribe and get notified for my future videos since I'm gonna be breaking down the concepts in this video along with tons of others on promoting your music and how to make music you're more happy with. As well, I have a Facebook group that's linked below that has only helpful information. No one tried to sell you anything, playlist or con artist, only helpful information for musicians looking to be better themselves. If you wanna learn more about me, make a record with me or check out any of my books, podcasts or anything else I do, head to jessicanon.com or at jessicanon.com on any of the socials. Thanks for watching. One last thing, if you liked this video, there's two playlists here with tons more videos that you'll probably enjoy. One's about how you promote your music and the other's about how you make songs you're happy with. Otherwise, you can hit the subscribe button here to see the rest of my videos. Thanks so much for watching.