Matt Tinkler - The Path to Creative Independence

podcast
Written By Brian Funk

Matt Tinkler is a musician, educator, and Ableton Certified Trainer. He runs a the Aspect Music Academy and makes music as Chronitect. Matt’s YouTube channel is a great resource for learning music production and creative workflows.

Matt and I spoke in depth about the creative process and how he makes music. He shared his 5 I’s of Ideation workflow, as well as how he helps students turn their ideas into finished tracks. I’ve been following Matt’s work for a long time and it was a lot of fun speaking with him. 

Enrollments for Matt's Aspect Music Academy's 24-week structured mentorship program begin February 9, 2026. The program starts March 16, 2026. More information here: https://aspectmusicacademy.com/

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Episode Transcript:

Brian Funk (00:02.011)

Matt, great to see you, great to talk to you, great to finally meet you. Welcome.

Matt Tinkler (00:03.328)

Brian.

Likewise, thanks for having me on the podcast. I really appreciate it. Yeah. Appreciate you reaching out and looking forward to chatting.

Brian Funk (00:12.652)

Yeah, we're in the Ableton certified trainer world together and I've been following your work a while now. I love your tutorials. They're fun, upbeat and always interesting takes on things and stuff. You use things in ways I never thought to do. So yeah, when your videos come out, I usually check them out and it's great to get a chance to talk to you now for real.

Matt Tinkler (00:37.91)

Yeah, no, thanks, I appreciate that. always, I love keeping things fun when it comes to tutorial, like fun, interesting. I always try to do things that like...

Even if I've seen a feature or something or a technique or something like that, that someone's shown and I'm like, that's a cool idea. always try to figure out how I can take it in a different direction or do something a little bit deeper or like showcase it on a few different levels. Like so that, you know, maybe someone who's never seen that particular feature or anything before, or maybe they're just a little bit less advanced or skilled. They still understand what's going on and then can kind of follow along.

to the more advanced parts of the tutorial and the technique and the tool. And trying to keep that fun along the way is the most important part as well, I think.

Brian Funk (01:32.236)

Yeah, you definitely seem excited about it when you're talking about it. I get the feeling your ideas might come from your music making. It seems like you're kind of working it into something you're doing a lot of the times and then you're sharing whatever it is that you're doing.

Matt Tinkler (01:34.742)

Mm.

Matt Tinkler (01:47.774)

It's funny.

I would say probably it's actually more about 50 % both ways. I think it kind of comes a lot from, I will come up, it's either that I will find something, like do something when I'm making music, be like, that's a cool idea, I wanna save that and do a tutorial with it or think about that later on. Or it's about like going, I wanna go deep into this particular thing or how do I do this thing or.

like what's this sound design technique? Like how do I sound design this thing really nicely or whatever? And then figure that out, figure out a way to put it into a tutorial format. And then I'll use it in music. And I'll use like that kind of, that learning and that deep dive into it as inspiration for the creative process later on down the line.

just like another tool to kind of add to the arsenal. But everything that I do and showcase will eventually link to my own music or just my own writing process somehow, whether it started there or if it ends up there. Yeah.

Brian Funk (03:02.05)

Yeah, it's a cool...

back and forth thing that happens, I think, when you start teaching stuff, that it keeps you kind of looking for new stuff and it keeps your eyes open for when you're doing something worth teaching. But sometimes when you go to teach something, the creative thing starts to kick in too. So I've found it to be kind of a nice little hack for myself to keep myself making music where I might teach something or I might, even if I'm building like an instrument rack or something like that, that now I'm making sound.

Matt Tinkler (03:24.47)

Mm.

Brian Funk (03:33.724)

and I'm like, that's fun, I'm gonna start making a song or suddenly you're just making a song. It's a great, because being creative is hard, I think that's something we wanted to talk about too, was just like creative workflow and...

Matt Tinkler (03:39.563)

Yeah.

Brian Funk (03:49.678)

Sometimes you just don't always feel like, okay, I'm gonna make some song or some music right now. And that could be for a lot of reasons where you might be just not in the energy or even nervous about it. That happens to me a lot. Like, I don't know if I have any ideas. So this is another sort of back door into that process a lot of times.

Matt Tinkler (04:06.88)

Mm.

Matt Tinkler (04:12.852)

Absolutely. I find it interesting. Like I do a lot of like one-on-one teaching as well. And it's always, it's always fascinating to me when someone comes in with a question where I'm like, maybe I don't.

quite know the answer to that or like I know kind of how I'd go about making that particular sound or whatever but maybe I don't know exactly how I'd get to it and you know we work through it in the one-on-one session but then like as you say I'll kind of just like sit down for an hour two hours after the lesson and be like and then just like really just figure it out and then eventually yeah it always just turns into making music it's funny super tangent but like well not super tangent

A lot of people will talk about separating the sound design part of the process from the music creation part of the process or stuff like that. I find that really difficult to do because if I ever sit down to do a sound design session, five minutes in I'm making music. I just, can't separate it, you know?

Brian Funk (05:12.961)

Yeah. Right. I think there's some wisdom in that because if you're in the creative flow and then now I have to design a snare drum sound that might pull me out and I might've had an idea that was working out and then by the time I finished my snare drum I might've lost that wave a little bit.

So I tend to follow it in that regard. If I'm on a creative idea, all right, don't worry about the sounds too much. Don't worry about designing things. But if I'm in the sound design mode or the just general upkeep where I'm organizing things or something that's a little more kind of clerical almost. If I get inspired to make music, I always go there.

because to me that is the harder thing to cultivate, that's the harder thing to catch. think...

I can tell that you're probably the same way like you if you had a synthesizer in front of you could probably design a bunch of cool sounds and you'll wind up with something but For me if I have the blank canvas, I don't know if the song or the music is gonna be any good So I'm pretty sure I can make the sounds and the instruments But the other stuff I'm much less confident on so I always prioritize that if I get that kind of jolt, then I'll jump so

Matt Tinkler (06:37.142)

Mmm.

Matt Tinkler (06:40.682)

Like, yeah, using the sounds as inspiration is a really good way to kind of get that kickstarted.

Brian Funk (06:42.582)

It's like a.

Brian Funk (06:49.267)

I like to follow that rule when I'm creating music and in the flow, but when I'm not, if I get the flow, like go with the flow, jump, know, take that chance.

Matt Tinkler (07:01.686)

Yeah, absolutely. It's funny. I think that like one of the, there's people who get stuck across like different parts coming up with ideas is one, you know, sound design, another thing, or like, I think another part that people often get stuck on is like structuring and arrangement. But I think there's like, you know, ways to...

overcome each of those different parts where you get stuck in like, you know, on the ideation side of things. It's like the inspiration is huge. If you can find something that inspires you, like whether it's a sound or if you're actively seeking some other kind of inspiration, like maybe you're doing some kind of conceptual track or something and it's a story that's inspiring you or whatever. Like yeah, if you get that inspiration bug,

you either have to try and catch it in the moment or try and store it for later so that you can draw it out again. I mean, there's techniques as well that I try to teach to come up with ideas and get over them, but yeah, inspiration is a huge one and just trying to find inspiration in different areas of the creative process, but also just of life in general and try to capture those moments.

whether you can do it instantly and try and get inspired to make some music or if you just kind of have to capture it and file it for later.

Brian Funk (08:34.029)

What are some of those techniques that you say to people when they're maybe struggling finding inspiration?

Matt Tinkler (08:43.912)

It's, inspiration to me is often like, it's about the ideation kind of phase of the process. So if you're struggling to come up with, struggling to get inspired, it's, guess that more so on a broader scale, you're struggling to like come up with ideas, right? So inspiration is not the only way to come up with ideas because you can kind of force,

I say force, it's just pushing through barriers, right? You can get to that state where you can come up with ideas.

or find things that inspire you by actively seeking them out. So there's, there's of course, inspiration, like making sounds, playing games, listening to music, reading books, like consuming art, being out in nature, like just having some kind of story thing or having something happen to you, like a life event, something can always inspire you from, from that regard. But if you have really nothing that inspires you, then there's a few other things that I like to kind of,

draw upon. like the next one is, I mean, it's kind of like a working title, right? But it's like the five I's of ideation. I like to do that. So there's like inspiration. Then the next one is improvisation. So if you're just sitting down at a keyboard or maybe a synthesizer or whatever, and you just, you just start playing, it's, it's just, it's play. You make a sound, you play some chord progressions or you play some notes or whatever. And then maybe, and then something that you play will

Brian Funk (09:54.157)

Okay, I like that, cool.

Matt Tinkler (10:17.208)

spark an idea, like that process of improvisation is a reason that a lot of people do that when it comes to writing music because sometimes inspiration is really fleeting but improvisation is kind of always something that you can control. You can always sit down at a keyboard or at a synthesizer or at whatever instrument it is.

and play some notes, hit some things, and it might take two seconds, two minutes, 20 minutes, an hour, but eventually through that process of improvisation, you will find something that is an idea that can then kickstart the creative process and kind of get you writing. And I think that's a really important thing for like...

people who do music writing as a career path. if you have to write something for film and TV or for a video game or for like some background music for something or if you're working corporate, anything, if you have to write something, improvisation is a really great way to overcome that inability to get inspired. So inspiration,

improvisation. The next one is imitation. So if you listen to something like, you know, a track that you really like or an artist you really like and then trying to imitate that style or imitate that artist, that's a really good way to not only try and get inspired, but also to learn as well. Like if you're like, I want to learn a new genre of music. I want to learn how this artist does this kind of stuff. It's like, great, we'll sit down and try and

you know, imitate what they're doing, maybe the same drum patterns, the similar kind of sounds, the similar rhythms, maybe similar chord progressions, tonal aspects, just similar musical functions or whatever it is, and really just diving in. The beauty of doing that as well as you really find out whether you actually like that or making that particular genre or of music or whatever it is that that artist is working in, because sometimes you don't, right? Sometimes you really enjoy listening to something

Matt Tinkler (12:31.524)

But making it is just boring or like it doesn't excite you or... But it does really benefit you too.

learn that process and to go through that process of like experiencing something or like trying out something new or interesting. And that even can kind of come down to tutorials as well, right? Like maybe you've seen a sound design tutorial and your process of imitation is I'm going to try and imitate that sound or I'm going to try and imitate that tutorial and make that sound. And that is going to then hopefully inspire a creative idea. Or maybe you get to that point, the sound you're like, I wonder what would happen if I tweaked this knob or if I did this to it.

you kind of get into that inspiration improvisation stage where you can then start to move further into ideation. yeah, whatever that's for inspiration, improvisation, imitation. And then the next one I find is innovation. So trying something that is really new.

that might be putting together two effects you've never put together before. That might be like trying a new synthesizer. That might be, well, kind of trying new synthesizer, kind of ties to the next one. But it's like, it's really about, I have these things that I know how they work. What happens if I put these two things together? Or like, what happens if I, you know, duplicate this effect a bunch of times? Or what happens if I like, you know, actively try something that I've never tried before?

And then that it kind of is like improvisation as well, but it's really about just like there's an active component to it in that you're thinking about what is this thing that I can push to the next level or two things that I can combine that I've never combined or thought about combining before. And then the last one is investigation. So that's like diving deep into something. So that might be you've got a new synthesizer.

Matt Tinkler (14:33.078)

And you're just going to learn it and you're just going to like, I'm going to make everything with this synthesizer or maybe there's a technique like a really classic one that I like with something like investigation as a, as a framework for creating and coming up with ideas. It's like limiting yourself to a single sample. Right? So like if I used to do that a lot when I was, I don't know, 10 years ago when I was writing music. Um,

one of my creative processes would be to, I'm just going to see what I can write with just one sound. You know, maybe it was like a sine wave and then I'd resample that and stretch it and put it in simplers and resample and add effects and like really just diving deep into one thing, one particular process, one particular sound, one particular tool, one particular whatever. And then I find kind of

between those five different things, you should be able to pick any of those lanes and overcome that inability to come up with an idea. So if you're not inspired, you can try improvising. If you really just can't get anything from improvisation, you can try moving on to imitation. You can try something else that someone else has done and experiment with that. And then if that really doesn't work, maybe you say, okay, well, maybe I'm just gonna try something new, something I've never tried before.

and then if that doesn't work you can always go well I'm going to just try and deep dive into something and whether or not that will end up in a good creative output or something that you're happy with I mean that takes... you've got to expand on that of course you can't just leave it at the ideation phase if you want to actually turn it into a song or whatever but those can all get the ball rolling

Brian Funk (16:18.527)

Those are great. And I like the five I framework just to, you know, sometimes you don't think of those things in the moment. You're just like, I don't have any ideas. But as you're rattling them off, I'm realizing these are a lot of things I like to do. I might try to learn something new, which would be in the investigation thing, or I might learn how to play a guitar solo and or like you said, recreate a patch, follow a tutorial, but then

Matt Tinkler (16:21.43)

Yeah.

Matt Tinkler (16:27.158)

Mm.

Matt Tinkler (16:34.347)

Mm.

Brian Funk (16:47.317)

three quarters of the way through just be like, I'm just gonna go this way. And next thing you know, you're off on your own. It's really nice to have some, I'm gonna probably have to like make a little post-it or something with that just to, just so you have it. Like right now, especially I'm in the middle of January, which is the thing where we try to make something every day and share it. And that's always a big challenge because...

Matt Tinkler (16:59.478)

Hahaha

Matt Tinkler (17:05.77)

Yep, nice.

Brian Funk (17:15.083)

Most of these days, and especially this year so far, we're on like the eighth day and I feel like every day I've been like barely able to even show up. I feel like I haven't even really started yet. But having something just, okay, I'm gonna at least be able to go in a direction is really helpful when you're feeling that like, that pressure or that overwhelming feeling of like, I don't know if I'm ready right now or I don't have a lot of time.

Matt Tinkler (17:42.358)

It's funny, always, I find that the, it's often the people who are more.

Brian Funk (17:45.867)

.

Matt Tinkler (17:54.262)

used to or like more skilled or advanced or longer further along in their journey of making music that often are the ones that struggle to come up with ideas. Like the people who are new at making music, could they could throw ideas out instantly. And that's because they're so playful about it.

Brian Funk (18:04.949)

Hmm.

Brian Funk (18:12.711)

Everything is innovation, right? Yeah.

Matt Tinkler (18:14.538)

That's it, everything is new, everything is just inspiring. Like you see a new tutorial, you wanna go and make that sound, you see this new thing, you wanna go and do that, you download a new plugin, you wanna play around with it. There's so much excitement in those newer people. But then as you get more used to, I kind of know all the techniques, kind of, you know, like I've done this before, like it becomes harder to.

dig for that inspiration and I guess find that excitement and that playfulness. And I think that's why in a lot of my tutorials and just when I teach in general, I like to be so passionate about it because it's, you know, it should be fun. It should be exciting. And that energy I feel like can translate and then get someone inspired to go and make something.

whether they're completely new or they've been in the game for a very long time or anywhere in between. That energy I think is really helpful because at the end of the day it's music. It should be about playfulness and fun. There's always going to be parts of the process that suck and that are annoying but the majority of it should be fun and you should be doing it because you love it.

Brian Funk (19:35.66)

Yeah, that's a great point. I find myself looking at some of the tools I have or the instruments and kind of like, I've played that before. I've, kind of get how it works or I know it, but the deep dives going into it, every time is different. You're different. Your ideas are different. The buttons you press or the knobs you turn or the notes you play are usually different.

So I'm often surprised, this teaching does this for me a lot too, because people will ask a question about, do you do that? And they're like, oh yeah. And then you start playing with it, like, oh, and you know it's another really cool thing you can do. And sometimes you have to just go in the pool a little bit to know you want to swim around. But that feeling before you jump in the pool where you stick your foot in the water or something, you're like, I don't know, is it too cold?

Matt Tinkler (20:16.682)

Yeah.

Brian Funk (20:34.909)

I can't think of a time I ever regretted jumping in the water, literally or figuratively. It's that poking around phase. think it's one thing that is nice about the January high intensity experience when you put that pressure on yourself, or even if you just have a deadline or someone's expecting work from you. The nice part about that pressure is that you just have to do something.

And sometimes the only thing stopping you from really making anything is that you just haven't tried to do anything yet. You're just thinking about it too much.

Matt Tinkler (21:11.028)

Yeah, and I think that's where having these kind of like things to fall back on is really nice because you're like, what haven't I tried yet? I haven't tried this thing. Okay, cool. Well, I'll go and try that thing. And it's just like making a decision, committing to trying that thing. If it doesn't work, that's okay. You can move on and try the next thing. But.

Yeah, having those systems and frameworks and processes that you can use as fallbacks for when you get stuck or when you're just not feeling inspired or you're like, I can't, I don't feel like jumping in the water at the moment. It's like, that little kind of voice that says, no, you can jump in the water. You're like, really? yeah, cool. you kind of go.

Brian Funk (21:53.653)

Now you mentioned capturing these ideas or storing them for later. A lot of times, yeah, I'm like most psyched to make music when I can't. You know, I'm like on my way to work or I'm stuck somewhere away from anything I can use to make music. What kind of methods do you like to use to store that so that when you do have the time, you can access it and actually do something with it?

Matt Tinkler (21:58.602)

Mmm.

Matt Tinkler (22:04.459)

Mmm.

Matt Tinkler (22:18.762)

Yeah, totally. It depends on whatever the form of inspiration is, but if it's like a melody or something that comes into my head or like a rhythmic pattern, I don't funnily enough often act on it, but I will often just pull out my phone and just record like a little voice memo or something. And I've probably got...

I don't know how many little voice members of them. I've never gone back to them because I don't feel like I often struggle to come up with ideas because I will often sit down and improvise or whatever. So I've probably got ideas on there that are probably really good, but that'll never see the light of day. But the voice members are probably one of those things. And I know for a lot of, I've got a lot of friends who use a lot of voice members and stuff like that. And that's how they'll capture a lot of their ideas when they're on the road or just out and about if they can't actually get to a computer and

Brian Funk (22:43.53)

you

Matt Tinkler (23:09.015)

capture it properly or an instrument. Voice members are fantastic. But if it's something that's extra musical, so if it's a book or a story or a video game or something like that, just like writing down notes, you're just like, oh yeah, I want to explore that thing. Or maybe you've seen a YouTube video, like you're out.

somewhere and you're like watching a YouTube video or seeing something crop up on Instagram and you're that's a cool technique. just, just save it. You know, save it to a folder. Like all these platforms have ways that you can save and then refer back to videos later.

And then even if you don't end up referring back to it for ages, you've still got that kind of collection of ideas and inspiration there that you can always like, I'm gonna try this technique. I remember seeing that thing in a video. Let's go back and watch that video. I saved that in this collection and going and seeing that. I mean, I'm still not fantastic at actually.

capturing those ideas. I guess I don't like scroll social media a huge amount. I do watch a bunch of YouTube videos but I think the YouTube space is an interesting one.

there's definitely some people doing some innovative stuff, but there's also people just not doing very innovative stuff as well. And so I find myself rarely getting super inspired from YouTube videos or anything like that, but I definitely like kind of pulling in my surroundings and...

Matt Tinkler (24:51.86)

coming, like drawing on stories or things that have happened to me, experiences, and using those as like starting points. But just emotion as well, I think is a huge thing for particularly what I like to do when it comes to my writing. It's like very immersive and emotive and so just trying to draw on past experiences and stuff like that is I think where I get a lot of my own.

inspiration from. But yeah, capturing ideas, voice memos, journaling, saving things to collections so that you can kind go back to it and when you have the time or if you were really stuck you can always go back to something, you always have some kind of jumping board.

Brian Funk (25:39.241)

Yeah, yeah that's important. Voice memos is huge for me too. I'm always recording stuff.

I do go back to a lot of them. A lot of times I use it for figuring out like phrasing of vocal melodies, especially for songs that I'm working on with my band or things with vocals because getting those words out in a natural way, I try to figure out as best I can.

But I love getting just field recordings. That's probably the thing that pays off the most for me is just recording the atmosphere and the environments I'm in. so I, I loved layering that in the background on tracks. just, you might not even know it's there, but it, for me, sets up like a world for the song. So those pay off a lot. And I do keep lists.

of like song titles or techniques I want to try in a song or even like philosophies to keep in mind. It's actually what I call them too on my list, philosophies to keep in mind, techniques to try.

But I noticed the more I am doing that, the more ideas I have. The more I'm consciously, yeah, that's a good idea, let's write it down in the notebook or on the phone or whatever. It seems like they attract more ideas as well. I don't know if maybe it's that you're just tuning in or you're just noticing that you do have ideas and inspiration all the time, but most thoughts, they just sort of slip away in the moment they're thought and then they're gone.

Matt Tinkler (27:22.934)

I mean, it's interesting, like, because capturing the ideas also extends beyond when you're... mean, it also extends to when you're in the studio or actively working on music as well. Because that's part of the improvisation process or whatever. Like you have to capture something. If you don't, you forget it. So that's where, you know, using the capture MIDI technique or like always being recording or...

You say with like vocal melodies something that yeah, I'll do a lot is just like yeah loop a section of the give I'm trying to come up with vocals or a melody just loop a section and just you're just recording consistently and you end up with way too much audio recording But you just that process of yeah, that's cool. That's cool. That's cool That's cool and you kind of iterating on it as you're recording and improvising

And then eventually like, yeah, that was a good one. That was a cool idea. And then you've got that idea captured because I find inevitably if I don't record that and I try to do it again, it's gone. So kind of capturing it in the moment is so important as well and having the tools to be able to do that. But also just like...

Brian Funk (28:26.407)

Yeah, right.

Matt Tinkler (28:38.086)

acting on that instinct. You know, like, I'm just going to try this. I think that that pool analogy that you had before was really interesting because that's what a lot of people do. They hesitate. They'll think of an idea. They go, I want to do this thing. And then before they act on it, they think about all the reasons that it's not a good idea to do that thing. Whereas all you need to do is just try that thing and then you'll see whether or not it was a good idea. And then if it is a good idea, great. You can keep moving forward with it. But

You kind of don't know it until you try, really.

Brian Funk (29:12.137)

Yeah, you really don't know if any ideas are any good until you try. I've learned that playing in bands with people and I'm gonna, I want to do this. And in my head, might be like, ah, but I'm amazed at how often they're right. Like, yeah, that worked out pretty cool. Like you get on board and give it a shot.

Matt Tinkler (29:27.094)

Mm.

Brian Funk (29:34.824)

Yeah, this idea of deciding to do something. I've been thinking about this a little bit and I don't think that word should exist. Deciding. The ing version, the present tense, I'm deciding. Cause you're not deciding is this, right? It's, it's a millisecond. It's okay. Go. It's or don't go.

Matt Tinkler (29:45.963)

Hmm.

Brian Funk (29:58.472)

deciding is like really more like procrastinating or like you said letting all the negativity or the reasons why you shouldn't fill your mind and you're putting it off. So I'm really trying to do that a lot with my music and the stuff I'm doing where I just, just do it, just decide to do it or not. Don't sit in this kind of in-between world. And I don't.

give myself the time to worry about if it's any good or not. It's like, I'm not even gonna worry about it. I think half the time, your taste comes in somewhere along the way and you make decisions that kind of fit whatever preferences you have. I'm enjoying this freedom of trusting that.

Matt Tinkler (30:30.816)

Yeah.

Brian Funk (30:50.893)

It's not always easy for me to get there, but when I find myself there, things just happen. And it's more fun.

Matt Tinkler (30:55.978)

Yeah.

Totally. I really like that philosophy. That's because you're totally right deciding doesn't make any sense You're in that like in that space of indecision is When you're deciding you've either decided to do something or you've decided to not do something or you're about to decide or not decide to do something

Brian Funk (31:06.803)

Yeah.

Yeah. Right.

Matt Tinkler (31:19.402)

But yeah, like deciding, that's an interesting one. And I imagine doing something like Jamuary, I mean, I'm doing a lesser version of it at the moment, where weekly beats. So it's like one track a week for the whole year. But Jamuary is something that the idea of that is amazing, but scares me. But yeah, I imagine that you'd become really resilient to...

Brian Funk (31:40.155)

It is scary. Yeah.

Matt Tinkler (31:48.718)

the, I guess consequences of making quick decisions when doing something like Jamuary.

Brian Funk (31:55.924)

Yeah, the nice thing about a daily activity like that is if it's terrible today, tomorrow I'll be here. Even the weekly thing you're doing is pretty, that's a pretty ambitious task too. And I'm sure you probably get that same sensation of like, all right, I'm doing this this week, but next week is a new idea anyway, so.

It gives you the freedom to be a little risky and courageous with your choices. Whereas if you were just making one song every six months, you'd labor over it and you'd start worrying about so many things. Is this expressing my true artistic vision? You get caught up in this like artist idea. I think that screws us up a lot where I'm making this song that's going to really capture me and my

statement to the world. It's too much pressure.

Matt Tinkler (32:51.976)

It's so much pressure. It's really funny, like the whole idea of the, like capturing your unique artistic voice or whatever. There's, I mean, there's a lot of talk about, like that's one of the things that a lot of people talk about online. It's like how to find your sound, how to not sound like anyone else, how to like find your unique sound, et cetera.

But from my experience, the only way that that actually happens, the only way that you find your own expressive voice, your unique sound, whatever it is you want to call it, is just by writing more stuff, writing more music and getting through the process more because...

you're never gonna find what works for you unless you've just like gone through the process so many times and you're discovering new tiny little bits along the way. And then that.

unique sound that really personal expression of yourself musically is always going to change as well. Like it can change on a relatively frequent basis but it can also just change on a very long over time basis. Like the music that I'm making now feels really personal and it feels like one of the most truest expressions of

me as a creator, but if I fast forward five years, I know that that's probably not going to be the case anymore. The music's going to have changed. The ideas and the style is going to have evolved and it's going to still feel like me. And it's the moments when I haven't been writing much music where maybe it's like one track every six months or whatever.

Matt Tinkler (34:38.258)

It's those times in my life where I haven't felt artistically aligned because I haven't been churning out music. I haven't been figuring out what is a representation of me at that particular moment in my life. So yeah, like I don't think, I don't think that there's any way that writing one track every six months, seven months, one year.

and laboring over it to make sure that it's your own artistic identity or expression of yourself is ever actually gonna work. It just doesn't make sense, to me anyway.

Brian Funk (35:11.753)

I think you're right, because then it becomes sort of fabricated too. Because you're thinking about it too much, you're crafting it, you're designing it, you're not just being whatever you happen to be. I think those types of things like voice and all of that happens through a body of work, through a large collection of stuff over time.

And that's probably a more accurate representation of any person, right? Like you're not whatever slice of you that a person gets on any given day is only just a little sliver of the full picture. So you kind of need to keep showing up. One of the nice things about something like a weekly challenge or like a January is that a lot of people will start

putting stuff out there for the first time, the first few times, and do it a few times in a row in succession, and sort of see like, it didn't really, you know, break anything, it didn't shatter the world. Mostly, we put stuff out there, it's hardly even noticed anyway. When you have, when you sort of pollute the world with your art, so to speak, there's just so much out there.

Then there's so many different angles people can come to you or different slices of you out there that it's hard to even know what they're going to pick up on anyway. I just watched an interview with He was talking about his biggest song was sort of a, is now this, I forget what song, When It Rains I Feel Like Dying, I think it's called, something like that.

Matt Tinkler (36:52.98)

Mm-hmm. Yep.

Matt Tinkler (37:04.831)

Okay.

Brian Funk (37:05.956)

It's an instrumental and it's very different from a lot of the stuff he's ever done. And he was just talking about how that particular track wasn't really meant to be this whole statement. It's his most stream thing now. You really just don't know what's going to happen. And if he didn't go with that, if he didn't put that out or didn't follow through on it, or even listen to some people that were kind of saying like, it doesn't sound finished. Where's the beat? You you're supposed to have

beats in your song, you make dance music. It's kind of freeing, I think, to just throw stuff out there a lot. And then you sort of have this trail you left behind. It's a documentation of where you've been. I think it's kind of rewarding on a personal level, even forget what other people think. I don't really rely or count on anyone listening to anything I ever do.

You know, it's freeing when you look at it that way, I find, compared to the, I'm making my masterpiece, my opus, my statement.

Matt Tinkler (38:06.048)

Totally.

Matt Tinkler (38:18.332)

Absolutely. I find it really personally interesting to A, go back through other artists' catalogues and like you find a new artist to you or maybe one of your favorite artists that have just released a new album or a new body of work or whatever and going back and listening through their whole discography or like listening back to some of their first stuff and comparing it to their newest stuff and be like, it's so interesting to see that.

Brian Funk (38:35.527)

Yeah.

Matt Tinkler (38:44.763)

progression and see that difference. Yeah. Yeah, 100%.

Brian Funk (38:45.564)

Yeah, those deep dives. Yeah. Yeah, those are fun. I love when I get on one of those. Sometimes you just find somebody, some group or something. And after a while, you start almost, I find, start, I don't have favorite songs anymore, favorite, maybe I have like, eras I like, but I just like them. I like what they're doing. And...

Yeah, I'm not like into like take like a Bob Dylan type of character that's left thousands of songs behind. mean, I don't love all of them, but I love Bob Dylan. And you can go almost anywhere with him and find something interesting. There's so many artists like that where it gets really exciting just to get to know them as a person through it and their views on things. And you see it change.

Sounds change, ideas change.

Matt Tinkler (39:45.61)

Yeah, absolutely. And it's also really interesting to go back and do that for yourself as well. Like go back through your own catalog and be like, yeah, that's what I was writing at that moment in time. And you kind of remember like, yeah, that's what I was feeling. Like you talked about it being a really personal thing too. I think it's really cool to go back and listen to your own catalog and where you were.

Brian Funk (39:50.173)

Yeah.

Matt Tinkler (40:05.066)

you know, one, two, five, 10 years ago, whatever you were writing, kind of put yourself back into that mindset and be like, what's so interesting? Like what I'm writing now versus what I was writing then. And regardless of the technical progression, you know, maybe you've gotten better at sound design, sound selection, mixing, composition, whatever it is, just hearing that.

representation, that manifestation of where you were emotionally, physically, mentally at that point in time versus now, or you know, that whole spectrum across that whole timeline. I find that super fascinating and interesting. And you don't...

you know, if you don't write music and if you don't finish music, even if you put it out or not, it doesn't really matter, you can have it on a collection of hard drive, which is just, guess, totally okay. I think you should share it, but it's just personally really satisfying to have that collection of finished stuff that you can hear your progression along however long of a timeline.

Brian Funk (41:07.144)

find it interesting how my relationship to it changes or my interpretation of it or sometimes I hear things in it and I'm like, whoa, what kind of like fortune teller was I? How did I, you know, see this or just there's naivete to it too where, oh man, listen to what I'm going on about here or the way I was playing or these...

periods you go through it's it's surprising how you can it's like going back to a hometown I guess or something like that where you see it again from a totally different angle and that itself is also very inspiring

I often want to make more music when I hear it. For a lot of reasons. It could be the like cringe factor, like, oh God, like I gotta, you know, put more, dilute this down with more material so it sinks further to the bottom or something. But mostly it's like, I want to keep writing the story of whatever it is I'm doing here.

Matt Tinkler (42:03.167)

Yeah.

Matt Tinkler (42:10.966)

Mm.

Matt Tinkler (42:14.784)

Yeah, I mean, it's quite, it's a little bit tangential, but one of the things that I've been doing now for the last seven years is like every night before bed, just like journaling, even if it's just like three, five, six lines, whatever. And in the moment, like it's not about getting my ideas down or like, you know, getting my thoughts on paper or anything like that. It's purely just about the practice of doing it and being like what happened throughout the day.

Brian Funk (42:29.787)

Nice.

Matt Tinkler (42:43.792)

And, you know, in the moment you're writing and you're like, yeah, whatever. That's interesting. It's, but it's not until, you know, I go back now and I'm like, I have seven years worth of books that are documenting every single day of my life.

Brian Funk (42:59.495)

That's awesome.

Matt Tinkler (43:00.31)

Like it's just crazy, you know? And I'm never gonna go back and read them, but maybe I'll flick through one and open one up and be like, oh, you know, the 10th of January, which is funnily enough almost is the 9th January day, like, you know, it's the 10th of January, like 2020, like what was happening then? And you just kind of, you just flick back through and go, oh yeah, that's really interesting. And so it's, yeah. Yeah, I wonder what was happening. I could go tell you. Yeah, we had no idea. Oh man, yeah, yeah, that was the thing.

Brian Funk (43:19.621)

The 10th of January 2020. We had no idea. We were like so innocent.

That's a great practice. I do something similar. I'm going on about three years of daily things. And it's something I totally took from a writer, Matthew Dix, who wrote some really good books on writing and storytelling that really apply to music. I had him on the podcast. He was a very cool guy.

book called Storyworthy, which is about storytelling, and another book called Someday is Today. Someday is Today. And that's like being creatively productive. And I'll put show notes because, I mean, these are life-changing for me, these books. Seriously. And one of the things he does to get his story ideas, he calls it homework for life. And every single day, just writes down something memorable about that day.

And it's only meant to take like a minute. You don't want to draw it out because kind of like I get the sense that's what you're saying. Just a couple of lines. Because if it's a big project, you're going to eventually be like, I don't have 20 minutes to journal today and you'll miss a day. But when it's just like really quick, it's not too bad. And you're right. It's really interesting to look back on things. And the biggest takeaway I've had from it is that

Most of your life is not even a memory. It just slips away. It just poof, like smoke in the air, you know? And to be able to look back on things and be like, yeah, yeah, I do remember that day. I haven't thought of it since, but it comes back to you in these little nuggets of things. Yeah, I don't look at it a ton, but every once in I do it on a spreadsheet and I just kind of scroll through and.

Brian Funk (45:14.063)

I could even do like a search for like a name or a word. And, it's pretty cool. It's helped me a lot with being creative, I think, and just trying to notice too, on a daily basis, what was interesting about today? Was it like something somebody said, something I heard or somewhere I went? And I think that those types of practices just get you in this mindset.

trying to make stuff and make something of stuff, make something of your life.

Matt Tinkler (45:52.222)

Yeah, I mean that kind of comes back to doing like jammery or jamuary or weekly beats or anything like that, just having that consistent practice.

that you have at the end of the day or the week or the month, whatever it is, you have just an archival piece of material. It could be public and it could be, yeah, as the Moby example, it could be the next big thing or one of your most streamed songs or whatever, or it could be private and just purely for you as an archival purpose, but if it's a completed thing, completed being.

whatever that is that you want it to be. Then yeah, you've got something that can go and you can look back on, you can listen back to, you can read and get that.

Brian Funk (46:31.879)

Yeah.

Matt Tinkler (46:42.87)

I mean, it's also another form of inspiration to you. Like, yeah, I remember what I was doing back then. that's really interesting. Like, maybe, you know, even if it's a personal thing, like, yeah, I really enjoyed going to that cafe. I want to go back to that cafe again. Like, is that kind of revisiting, revisiting things that you've done previously or, and yeah, musical ideas, creative ideas, artistic ideas, places, mindsets, thoughts. And it's just interesting to see.

Brian Funk (46:45.713)

Yeah.

Matt Tinkler (47:11.538)

how you've changed and progressed over that time as well.

Brian Funk (47:17.735)

Yeah, it sounds like part of what we're getting at. It's almost a lifestyle, this creative process to try to find it in a lot of things. And it just starts to show up. Maybe music is the thing we and people that might be listening to us talk right now are into. But it's...

about trying to find it all the time and always keeping yourself like a radio antenna tuned to that and noticing it. And even noticing it in other people. I get a lot of inspiration out of the whole Jamuary type thing or even watching you do your work. It inspires me like you're doing it. Like, cool. It's not impossible. You made a song. Wow. Because sometimes it feels that way. Sometimes it's like,

I don't understand how to do this. I've been doing it for most of my life and now look at me. Today I can't do nothing. noticing other people's victories even. I really do try to take some pleasure in other people's accomplishments for that reason. You could almost call it like in a selfish way but it...

Matt Tinkler (48:19.766)

Absolutely.

Matt Tinkler (48:34.293)

Yeah.

Brian Funk (48:39.982)

It's fuel to the fire. like listening back to your old stuff is just seeing people do it.

Matt Tinkler (48:46.324)

Absolutely. It's, I think one of actually the most inspiring things for me is, so like recently I've been running like the pilot version of a six month mentorship program, which is about to kind of re-kick into it, like about to kick off in a few months time, like properly. Yeah, it's Aspect Music Academy. yeah, it's, yeah, yeah, cool.

Brian Funk (49:05.038)

Is this Aspect Music Academy?

Brian Funk (49:10.182)

Yeah, tell us about that a little bit. And then you can tell us the inspiring part about it. Let's get a little plug in because...

Matt Tinkler (49:14.238)

Yeah sure, so yeah I'll get a little plug, that's a good idea. Yeah so Aspect Music Academy is basically the school that I'm starting. I last year started doing a pilot of a six month mentorship program where I would help people one-on-one just kind of with their...

problems, I suppose, when it came to finishing music and writing music and overcoming technical barriers and being able to get stuff out there and get their creative ideas flowing and, you know, out and have something that they could show for it. And all of the students that came through, noticed them basically having very similar...

issues in terms of like the blockers or things that were coming up and the majority of it for them was that they couldn't finish music. Like it kind of comes back to what we're talking about before. A lot of them were kind of more early on in their journey and they don't...

struggle with coming up with musical ideas, they struggle with finishing music ideas or progressing the musical ideas. And so I kind of noticed this, I was like, oh, okay, that's really interesting. And that's led me to kind of do some research into the creative process and thinking about it as well. But it was also like, well, is there a way I can take what I'm teaching these people and...

structure it into something that can also be used to help other people because if basically seven out of my seven mentees are all struggling with this exact same thing there's probably a lot more people who are struggling with this exact same thing as well and I kind of

Matt Tinkler (51:00.948)

tangent to the inspiring part, is that seeing these people then actually finish music, like I have one of my mentees who's been working on music for five years, never finished a single thing at all. And like finally getting him to actually finish a song and finish something and like press export and be like, it's done. Like that was so...

inspiring and exciting and amazing to see that like actually you've been working on music for five years you've never finished anything now you've actually finished something and just like seeing his face light up and

seeing him be so proud and then having more ideas and knowing like the process that he can kind of go through to now take an idea from the start through to the finish line. That's, it's really incredible to see that. And so yeah, I decided that I wanted to start up.

Basically a more structured program where I could help more people in both a kind of group capacity and a one-on-one capacity as well. And so that's why I decided to start Aspect Music Academy. So it's basically a developed, further developed version of the one-on-one or the six month mentorship program where there's weekly sessions, it's a curriculum. We go through the process of basically the whole creative process.

in a very short period of time and then iterate on that process. So you kind of go deeper into each of the different sections over the course of the 24 different weeks. But the idea is that you start with, let's just get you finishing a song, like very quickly. So it's like, you know, doing like a January or a weekly beats. It's over a four week cycle. But the idea is like, let's get you.

Matt Tinkler (52:43.294)

to know how you can actually finish a song and take something from start to finish, even if it doesn't sound as polished or professional as your reference tracks who are artists who've been making music for 15, 20, 30 years, like music that's... Exactly. Yeah.

Brian Funk (52:56.26)

And how could you ever expect it to be? I mean, we all want it to, but it's a very, yeah, I know that feeling. I want it to, too, but how could you realistically expect it to be? And you gotta let that go. Yeah.

Matt Tinkler (53:09.202)

Exactly. Yeah, 100%. And the only way that you'll get to that point, if you want to try and get to that point, is not by spending 30 years coming up with eight bar loops, it's by spending 30 years finishing music. The more music that you finish, the better you'll get at the process. So that's where the whole thing starts off with...

getting something finished really quickly so you know what the whole process looks like so that then every time you do that you can get better and better and better better and better at each stage of the process so that can kind of, every track you finish is slightly better and it's teaching you something. And so...

That was the kind of whole idea with the program. I don't know when this episode is coming out, but the waitlist is open at the moment. This is the 9th of Jan as we're recording this. Applications are going to open the 2nd of February and the program is going to start 9th of March or something along 9th to 16th. Can't quite remember. But so that's really exciting.

the progress with the mentees so far, the course of the pilot program has been amazing and I'm really excited to share it with more people and get more people finishing music. So yeah, that's Aspect Music Academy. And I kind of decided on the name because it was about kind of finding your own musical aspect. Like everyone who's writing music.

part of themselves is music and it's about like tuning into that aspect of yourself that was kind of where the name came from.

Brian Funk (54:53.093)

That's cool. Yeah, that's a, I could see how that could be really inspiring. Yeah. Especially somebody that's had a hard time with that and made it through. It's like, yeah, you did it, you know? And we get good at starting songs because it's the first step.

Matt Tinkler (55:05.142)

Yeah

Brian Funk (55:12.869)

You know, you do that every time. But the finishing steps, the final steps, you don't always practice those if you gotta finish songs to practice those parts of the process. And I'm a big fan of making bad music for that reason. Try to just follow through on it. Let it be a bad song, it's fine, it's okay, it's just practice.

Matt Tinkler (55:13.398)

Mm.

Brian Funk (55:35.014)

You're just going through the process because one day you're going to have a good song that you really like. And at least now you know how to get through it. You'll know how to finish instead of now I got this really great idea and I don't know what to do. And then that becomes your seven year opus that never gets finished because you haven't gone through that. Just cranking them out, I think is really the only way it's just getting reps in.

Matt Tinkler (56:00.074)

Yeah, I see that so many times where people will early on in their journey or even later on in their journey come up with an idea that they're like, this is it, this is the best idea. And then they're really scared to touch it. Or they will take, yeah, it's precious. Or they'll take it through to a point where they're like, okay, this is the best I can take it at the moment. I can't really get it to where I want it. So I'm gonna leave it and park it. And then they kind of...

Brian Funk (56:15.353)

Yeah, it's precious.

Matt Tinkler (56:27.486)

three years later on down the road or one year or two, or however long it is, they come back to it because they're like, now I've got the skills to finish it. They go back to listen to it and they're like, no. And they try to like finish it and they try to tweak it and finesse it and everything. But they realize that the skills they have now are vastly different to the skills that they had then. And it's never going to be able to like sound like what they want it to sound like because they've started it from a different point in their life and their skill set and everything.

they kind of tear it down and just take like the core melodic idea or core rhythmic idea or whatever it is and then try to build it back up again and they reach that same point where they go okay cool well now I just need to spend another two years getting more skills so I can get that last bit and it just repeats it just repeats and yeah you end up in these with these tracks that you've sat on for years and years and years and years years that are never gonna see the light of day because they're too

Brian Funk (57:13.709)

Yeah.

Matt Tinkler (57:25.824)

precious to you almost and then every single time you keep getting better and you go back and you try to apply those new skills to that older track it doesn't work because that track was made in such a way that your new skills aren't going to be able to help it because it's already so far along in the process.

Brian Funk (57:47.75)

Yeah, and then you re-record it, you got demo-itis because you liked something about the way it was. Maybe you just had the spirit of that day. It's really hard to tap into that feeling you had.

Matt Tinkler (58:01.396)

Yeah, absolutely.

Brian Funk (58:02.295)

I think we, the longer we have an idea in progress, it gives us more time to imagine all the places we want to take it. And in my imagination, it's a perfect fantasy. It could do all these magical things and go in this direction, that direction, contradictory directions that are like the impossible staircase, know, MC Escher sketches and stuff. Like.

Matt Tinkler (58:24.32)

Yeah. Yeah.

Brian Funk (58:27.909)

And you can have that in your head, but once you start putting it down, then you get the imperfect reality. And it's not quite what you thought. And it can't do those seven other things because that's impossible in reality. And you get stuck because of that. I think it's important to blast through it.

Matt Tinkler (58:50.492)

Absolutely.

Brian Funk (58:50.807)

I don't see the only real answer I can come up with is blasting through it while you're excited about it, taking it somewhere. And then when you have it, you can do like the editing finessing stuff a bit. But when it's still kind of being formed and if you let it stay as like mushy clay for too long. There's like a expiration date or something that happens.

Matt Tinkler (59:13.738)

Yeah. Yeah.

Matt Tinkler (59:19.597)

100%. Yeah, I did a video about this recently, actually. It was a horribly performing video, but I was very, I wanted to put it out. But it was, you one of the things in it was, yeah, like this idea of when you spend more time on something, like it's kind of this bell curve, right? Where it's the amount of time spent along the bottom versus the ability to actually finish it. And at the start, you know, you did...

you've not spent any time on it so you can't finish it, but then at some point you've spent just the right amount of time and if you push through at that moment, you'll really easily be able to finish it, but then the longer you spend on it, the harder and harder and harder it becomes to actually finish that track because you become either really attached to it or you become really bored of it or you just kind of keep trying new ideas and everything and it's just, yeah, it's mostly you either become too attached to it or you become too bored with it.

and then you just kind of move on to something else and you never get that thing finished because you've just spent too long working on it.

Brian Funk (01:00:22.276)

Which video is this? I'm looking at them now. Is it the second to last one you did? Watch this if you can't finish music. Okay, because yeah, I see like you got like, I see the number dipped on that one. And I, this is like, you know, kind of.

Matt Tinkler (01:00:25.334)

I think it's the second to last one, the... Yeah, something like that. Yeah.

Matt Tinkler (01:00:37.382)

Yeah, yeah did, yeah.

Brian Funk (01:00:43.012)

You're trying to learn YouTube, I'm sure, as I've been trying to learn and understand what works. The more I've researched it, I used to think it was the algorithm that was evil, but really mostly what the algorithm is just what people want to see and what they click on. Sometimes I feel like I have this gem of an idea and I put it out and it's just like, what the hell? Why didn't that work?

And it makes me think a bit about music too, with a lot of like artists, you probably heard artists talking about their hit song and they'll be like, I didn't think that was the hit. We thought if anything, this was the song or, so like people don't even know when they have it, that they have it. You know what I'm saying? So that judgment thing is really, you can't trust it because

Matt Tinkler (01:01:33.428)

Yeah, absolutely.

Brian Funk (01:01:41.399)

You really just don't know until you get through and until you put stuff out there. And I can see I watched this video. It's got the complete red bar. So I'm wondering your views on that. I kind of remember it. It's yeah, it's a good one.

Matt Tinkler (01:01:49.29)

Yeah, right. yeah. That's... Love it. Thank you.

Brian Funk (01:02:01.56)

But who knows, I couldn't tell you why. Maybe it didn't have the like instant, maybe you're being a little too realistic. You know, it wasn't like guaranteed number one hit in five minutes.

Matt Tinkler (01:02:05.012)

I think it's...

Matt Tinkler (01:02:14.734)

I think, yeah, I think actually one of the reasons it probably doesn't do well is like, you know, I've built up the channel over the last three years, just being like Ableton tips and stuff. And so when something comes out that's not an Ableton tip specifically.

Brian Funk (01:02:26.264)

Yeah, okay. Specifically a tip, yeah.

Matt Tinkler (01:02:31.902)

technique or something like that then it doesn't do as well because that's not the audience that I've built up and it's like not what people expect to see from me but it makes me think back to like when I first started doing the YouTube videos where I was getting worse views than that because my channel was so small and no one knew what to expect from me so it kind of makes me think if I put out something that's

tangentially related to what I do, know, like the three reasons you can't finish music, why you can't finish music. It's not that it's a bad video, it's not that it's got bad content in it, it's just that the audience that I have isn't primed to receive content from me like that. And so it's kind of like almost building up the channel from scratch again, because you've just got a different type of video. And I guess that's where people start up second channels and stuff like that too. I don't know, I'm not.

I've kind of thought about this a little bit and doing the content creator thing, you know, making YouTube more optimized and doing that. But I never really set out to be a content creator. It was always just about sharing value and giving people ideas. And so like, if there's lots of, even if there's like 10, five, one person who sees a video and they get inspired by it and it's like, it's really real to them. Like that's the kind of impact I want to have in the world.

it's got hundreds of thousands of views or whatever, it's about that really direct impact.

Brian Funk (01:04:05.252)

Yeah, I've been...

thinking about this and thought through these things a lot too, because my channel has, there might be Ableton Live Packs, it might be a tutorial, the podcast goes on at two. So then you throw in an hour and a half conversation and some of it's more philosophical. Sometimes it's just music I'm making. It is very, it's not well optimized for, you can expect this from me every time.

Matt Tinkler (01:04:24.043)

Yeah.

Brian Funk (01:04:37.318)

it's not. And I even thought about that with my music too because I tend to want to do like everything, you know, I don't want to stick to anything. So do I have other names? And I ultimately came to the decision just to use my name as artist as just the...

Matt Tinkler (01:04:38.848)

Mm.

Matt Tinkler (01:04:47.68)

Yeah.

Matt Tinkler (01:04:56.523)

Yeah.

Brian Funk (01:04:59.044)

It started to get so weird to me that we even have to have artist names and alter egos. On one level that's kind of fun, but I just wanted to not even think about that anymore. And it might be a marketing misstep as far as some of that goes, but maybe there's a long game to it where after a while...

Matt Tinkler (01:05:22.847)

Yeah.

Brian Funk (01:05:24.682)

some of the people that only care about the packs I make or only care about the podcast might. And if not, I think the other thing for me too is I just don't have enough time to worry about that. I'd rather just make stuff. And I do have a day job as a teacher, as a high school English teacher. So it affords me a little freedom to not have to.

Matt Tinkler (01:05:40.137)

Yeah.

Brian Funk (01:05:50.34)

really worry about focusing on it for like financial success. There's, you know, that's something I want to be able to do. And I'm very thankful that I don't have to teach summer school because I can do music. But, yeah, like there, I guess it's just like a.

Matt Tinkler (01:05:54.89)

Yeah.

Matt Tinkler (01:06:02.838)

Mm.

Brian Funk (01:06:09.048)

point where I kind of came to that conclusion for myself and maybe I'll probably reevaluate and probably wake up in the middle of the night sometime next week and be like what am I doing but I should have four channels for I should not do this anymore but it's nice to be able to again like if you're thinking about like this artist thing this body of work it's nice to just make it and you know

Matt Tinkler (01:06:21.44)

Yeah.

Matt Tinkler (01:06:36.746)

Yeah, and have that kind of archival, yeah, like I've got all these songs.

Brian Funk (01:06:41.098)

Anytime I've gotten too concerned over the statistics or the pack sales or the downloads, it's taken a lot of the fun out of it. And I found myself doing things that I don't enjoy as much. Because like, that worked. That was effective. But I did that video for that company about their new gear. Like, yeah, that did hit pretty good, but...

Matt Tinkler (01:06:52.982)

Hmm.

Brian Funk (01:07:03.864)

Whatever I've decided to do for those reasons, those are the things I get stressed out about. They made my play work. Play music became work music. I'm kind of okay right now, think. Ask me next week.

Matt Tinkler (01:07:22.878)

It's funny every time you try and like, I mean, I go through this, yeah, so much. I'm fortunate now, I suppose, where I'm able to have my music in general be the primary source of my, or the only source of my income, whether it's, you know, like doing content or if it's teaching or if it's making music or whatever it is. But...

Brian Funk (01:07:49.058)

That's amazing. I mean, that's a really awesome accomplishment. got to, and I'll take my own personal pleasure from you for this by showing that it's possible. Because it's one of those things, I think, probably any adult hears a kid say like, I'm going to do like, want to make music. like, even musicians like, no, you know, don't do that. But no, that's a really great thing.

Matt Tinkler (01:07:57.558)

Thanks.

Matt Tinkler (01:08:09.035)

Mmm.

Matt Tinkler (01:08:13.578)

Yeah. Yeah.

Brian Funk (01:08:17.345)

to be able to do and have fun doing it. one of first things I said to you is, it seems like you're having a lot of fun.

Matt Tinkler (01:08:24.244)

Yeah. And I think that's, that's the biggest thing is like, think that the things you have the most fun doing tend to be the things that translate into financial success. at least from what I've, what I've seen, like, yeah, there's going to be the, like you said, the videos that pop off because you did a video for a company or you managed to get in on a new, a new release or something like that, or,

someone sponsored you for something or whatever. So you get like little bits of financial stuff, but if you can tie that back into something that actually makes it fun for you or something that is fun for you, then it's something that I think translates to your audience, whether that is you doing a video on that thing or if it's just you making music or if it's you writing a post or putting together a product or something like that.

you know, if I don't know about you, but if I see a product like a plugin or a rack or sample pack or something, I can tell whether or not the person who's made it or the company that's made it actually cared about what was put into it. And you can kind of tell like, you know, if they, they continually updated or anything like that, then, you can, you can tell this heart and soul and love that's gone into it. And it might not be

an immediately obvious commercial or financial success, but I think that over time, it's the showing up thing and it's just the putting out there things that you love and in return, eventually the world and the universe will kind of catch up and be like, yeah, okay, you deserve this now, finally. But yeah.

Brian Funk (01:10:06.019)

Yeah, there's something about enthusiasm. I've always felt that just playing live music, you have to be enthusiastic, I think. mean, that was always one of the most important things. Like, you can't look like you're not having a good time.

Matt Tinkler (01:10:12.075)

Yeah.

Matt Tinkler (01:10:20.085)

Yeah.

Brian Funk (01:10:28.149)

And I've seen lots of musicians play that I didn't even like their music, but they were fun to watch. Like, look at how much fun they're having up there, you know? And it does come off, yeah. You kind of can see it when people are doing something they're really excited about or when it's, you know, just something that might work.

Matt Tinkler (01:10:33.522)

Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Matt Tinkler (01:10:51.734)

Yeah, absolutely. Even if the crowd doesn't enjoy it, right? Even if the crowd isn't having fun, like in the moment, you know, I've played shows to 10 people or whatever, and those 10 people aren't enjoying it at all. But you're just up there and you're just having a blast. Or maybe those people don't look like they're enjoying it, but then they come up to you afterwards and be like, oh man, that was really sick. You were having so much fun up there. I was like, yeah, I was having a lot of fun up there. So even if in the moment it doesn't seem like the crowd's enjoying it.

Brian Funk (01:10:52.599)

That's tough.

Brian Funk (01:10:56.291)

.

Brian Funk (01:11:05.357)

Yeah.

Brian Funk (01:11:16.641)

Yeah, you win them over sometimes that way.

Matt Tinkler (01:11:19.646)

Yeah, you do. Yeah, even if the music is really, like if the music really good, but it's not really exciting for you to watch because you're not having fun, then that translates. But then if the music is not what someone likes to listen to, but as you say, just having an absolute blast up there and really enjoying it and having a lot of fun. That can make people really enjoy it because they're just like, I just love watching this person be really passionate and excited about what they're doing.

Brian Funk (01:11:21.463)

Yeah.

Okay.

Brian Funk (01:11:47.266)

Yeah. Yeah, when I first started bringing out my Ableton Live performances, I was playing to the scenes I knew, which were like rock band, punk rock, know, that kind of underground rock, you know, local band thing.

And this is probably like 2010, 2011, where laptops weren't ubiquitous in every type of music. So I've come out with my laptop and people are like, what? Like, you know, the rock and roll club and like, we're doing dubstep, bro. Like that was what people would always say. We do a dubstep, bro. And then Long Island accent. And.

Matt Tinkler (01:12:23.574)

Hahaha

Matt Tinkler (01:12:29.877)

Yeah.

Brian Funk (01:12:33.283)

I had to sell it. I had to really perform it and enjoy it while I was doing it. There was always a point, it's funny, there was a point, like I said, was three songs in where I'd bring in this song, I'd do a vocoder thing.

Matt Tinkler (01:12:35.702)

Mm.

Brian Funk (01:12:52.835)

That was when I could see people like, okay. You know, they're like, all right, all right. But I had to always get over this beginning part where everyone was like, what the hell is this? what, we're here to see bands, not DJs. And, you know, it wasn't DJing, but it looked, I was, it looked like DJing, you know, cause I had my controllers and my knobs and my laptop. So.

Matt Tinkler (01:13:14.368)

Yeah.

Brian Funk (01:13:20.139)

That's powerful, your own passion, just like really being unashamedly enthusiastic about what you're doing. You do have to kind of sometimes get over those hurdles or those doubters and all that.

Matt Tinkler (01:13:40.01)

Yeah, and it's interesting like...

Brian Funk (01:13:42.263)

But it's contagious. It's a contagious energy, if you continually put it out there, to your point.

Matt Tinkler (01:13:49.396)

Yeah, exactly. It's super contagious. And I think that that's all the people that I see who are successful in the arts or creativity and in any way, shape or form, content creation, anything where they have to have like a public facing thing. It's, they're enthusiastic. They're passionate.

And I think that it's something that maybe doesn't come naturally to a lot of musicians or artists or creative to be able to show that passion externally. But I think if you can, it's going to be beneficial to potential commercial success.

if that's what you want. Or just in success of your art in general, like the more that you can showcase your enthusiasm for what you do and your passion behind it. Yeah, it's contagious. You're 100 % right.

Brian Funk (01:15:02.114)

So let's see. What else do we got to talk about here? Because I know we had a few things on our minds.

Matt Tinkler (01:15:04.544)

Mmm.

Matt Tinkler (01:15:12.05)

Yeah.

Matt Tinkler (01:15:15.722)

I mean, I'm curious.

Brian Funk (01:15:16.076)

How are you with just the whole, yeah, sure, go ahead. I was going to ask you probably a repeat question, I think.

Matt Tinkler (01:15:23.949)

I was curious, with the Jammuari stuff you're doing, how far are you taking those ideas? When you're doing them, are they fully structured songs? Are they finished? Or are they just kind of like... What stage do they get to when you...

Brian Funk (01:15:42.123)

it always varies and it's almost always a time thing. I try to complete it for whatever it is though. Whereas like, even if it's just sort of like a couple scenes of loops.

Matt Tinkler (01:15:45.515)

Yeah.

Brian Funk (01:16:00.717)

that I've jammed out. I'm going to arrange it. It might be a little crude, I'll make a little automation here or there. But I always try to at least get there. want to export it. Because I mean, like listening to it in my car rides and see if there's anything there. The jamuary thing is definitely very sketch patty. And I can listen back to these ideas.

Sometimes you just get lucky, you know, there's definitely a numbers game and once in a while like boom the song just shows up and you catch it and you feel pretty good about it. I like to try to finish stuff in February so the next thing I do with my community the music production club we'll talk about is finish February. Try to finish anything. It could be an EP, an album or just one track and try to put it out there, put out something.

That doesn't always land finished in February, but it usually gets the ball rolling for something that I can have at some point throughout the year or so, or I can have some kind of release and something to work with. Yeah, it really depends. Some things are a little jammy where, like last night, I just played guitar through this really cool pedal, not pedal, plugin called...

Butterfly Effect by Sound Better. You know that one? So I've had it for a while and talk about like saving ideas. keep in the Ableton Live browser, I keep a collection called Try Me. And that's where I'll just put things that, this is cool, but I haven't really played with it too much yet. So on a January, for instance, when like last night when it's 930 at night and I'm

Matt Tinkler (01:17:30.74)

Yes. Yeah. I do. Yeah, I've seen it.

Brian Funk (01:17:57.153)

I really need to get to bed. I found myself just loading that up, playing the guitar, you know, running that through it and getting lost in it for quite a while. Cause it's just a really fun plugin and takes you to outer space and ambient worlds. but even that, like I tried to make a bit of a composition out of it, you know? So I am trying to have some sort of

Matt Tinkler (01:18:07.606)

Hmm.

Brian Funk (01:18:29.14)

I guess, you know, finished version of it, even if it, even if all I have is like a loop, a couple of different tracks, I'll at perform it and make a bit of an arrangement out of it.

Matt Tinkler (01:18:42.964)

Yeah, cool. I think that's important.

Brian Funk (01:18:44.448)

That's something I want to work on. That's something I want to get better at. And that's, think, a good thing to have in this type of activity is a little bit of a goal. Something you're trying to polish up on.

Matt Tinkler (01:18:57.364)

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. think it's, yeah, I mean, it kind of comes back to stuff we've talked about before, but that the importance of taking an idea through to some semblance of completion or finishing. And yeah, the more you do it, the better you get at it. And people like you and I have been doing this for a long time. So we probably have little techniques and tricks that we can kind of fall back on to take an idea from just an idea to an arranged thing, to a structured thing, and then maybe go through to mix it down or whatever.

But yeah, really like just going through that process of doing it over and over and over again. You just get better at it. And I think that's the biggest thing really.

Brian Funk (01:19:41.088)

Yeah, I'm hearing people in our Discord that have been doing it a couple years now and some of their stuff is like so much better this year. It's just come a long way. I can hear like, man, these like productions are really far ahead from where they might've been last year. Like one after another too. It's really nice to have that. You've got your community too where...

Matt Tinkler (01:19:53.398)

Mm.

Matt Tinkler (01:20:01.334)

Mm.

Brian Funk (01:20:10.145)

just have people doing it, because I go on that Discord sometimes not sure if I'm going to be able to make anything for the day, and I start hearing some things like, I have to, like, everyone's doing it, you know? Like, I don't want to be, I don't want to miss it, I don't want to look back and be like, I missed the day, you know? It's another form of motivation.

Matt Tinkler (01:20:17.206)

Mm.

Matt Tinkler (01:20:23.381)

Yep.

Matt Tinkler (01:20:32.052)

I think the community thing is...

Yeah, the community is really a fantastic way to get motivated. I mean, I run little monthly challenges on my Discord, on my Discord as well. yeah, like that's, get, I think we had eight submissions or something last month. I've been doing it for a year now. And yeah, like that's really the community aspect of that, seeing other people finish it inspires you to make something. if like, for me, know, seeing someone submit to the challenge I'm running, it's like, I should probably make it. I should probably make something as well.

Brian Funk (01:21:03.765)

Yeah.

Matt Tinkler (01:21:04.92)

And yeah, like Weekly Beats as well, community for that. That's massive this year. I think there's like 440 something submissions, 450 submissions for the first week, which is huge for that. I did that for the first time back in 2016. And I think there was 200 or something for the first week. And that by the end of it was down to 50 people.

Brian Funk (01:21:17.493)

Wow.

Matt Tinkler (01:21:29.262)

and but yeah 450 people the first week of weekly beats is pretty crazy and yeah having that community of people it gives you that external motivation to actually go okay I should get something finished and you know that that can be in the form of a community that could be in the form of a mentor that could be in the form of um uh just like a friend that you have like an I have I have a mate that I catch up with every week we're a count of beta buddies like um

Brian Funk (01:21:29.535)

Wow.

Brian Funk (01:21:53.462)

Yeah.

Matt Tinkler (01:21:58.364)

So yeah, exactly. Yeah, kind of billiard buddies, kind of beta buddies. so yeah, just having someone that you can, or yeah, an external factor to ensure that you're pushing through on making music, if that's what you...

Brian Funk (01:21:58.818)

Account of beta buddies. Like accountability. That's good.

Matt Tinkler (01:22:22.218)

want to do is a really fantastic way to actually overcome that thing and be like, okay, I need to get something done. It needs to go out. I need to have something that's in a shareable state, whether it's finished or not.

Brian Funk (01:22:35.424)

Yeah.

Brian Funk (01:22:39.743)

Yeah, it is. I'm looking at our SoundCloud playlist. So I set up a music production club, January SoundCloud. So whenever anyone puts something on SoundCloud, which isn't everybody, I'll just add them to the playlist. And I've gotten through the first like seven and a half days. It's January 8th right now. And there's 160 tracks on here. That's it's wild.

Matt Tinkler (01:23:04.574)

Wow, that's crazy.

Brian Funk (01:23:08.905)

And last year, I found out how many tracks you could have in a SoundCloud playlist because of this, and it's 500. So we got to 500, it wouldn't let me add any more tracks, so I had to start at part two. And it looks like at our rate now, think, yeah, we should be getting, we're probably gonna need another, yeah. So it's pretty cool.

Matt Tinkler (01:23:16.726)

I'll see you there.

Matt Tinkler (01:23:26.944)

You'll hit that in no time.

Brian Funk (01:23:34.882)

just to see it, you know, lot of familiar names and some new names and it's six hours of music it says. It's six hours of new music and it's, there's a lot of good music. There's stuff in here like, I don't know. You're like, how did you do that in a day? Or like day after day, you're making something really awesome.

Matt Tinkler (01:23:45.054)

It's insane.

Matt Tinkler (01:23:55.499)

Yeah.

Matt Tinkler (01:24:02.219)

Yeah.

Brian Funk (01:24:02.261)

It's inspiring. And it does give you that feeling of like wanting to keep up with it and see if you can hang. Right? Can I do this too? You know, very motivating, but yeah, having even people you play with, like I play in a band, three piece rock band and we get together just about every week to play and

Matt Tinkler (01:24:08.338)

and

Totally.

Matt Tinkler (01:24:15.104)

Yeah.

Brian Funk (01:24:28.789)

We're playing, you know, we're all busy, we're all working and we're gonna get together for like three hours. So let's get down to business, let's do it. that has produced tons of great music and so much fun with my friends.

Matt Tinkler (01:24:30.006)

Mm.

Matt Tinkler (01:24:47.338)

Yeah, I think it's a really good showcase that in a world where some people, like artists of all kinds, quite a lot of the time feel like, what's the point of putting my art out there?

Brian Funk (01:24:49.931)

Great by-product.

Matt Tinkler (01:25:15.668)

just hearing people like you say, you know, it's inspiring to me. Like that just shows you why you should put art out there. I think I mentioned something about that before. Like I'm a firm believer that I think you should put art out into the world, whether it's for commercial purposes or otherwise, but finding a way to show, to get your music or your visual art or whatever it is, just public somehow.

Brian Funk (01:25:31.541)

Yeah.

Matt Tinkler (01:25:40.34)

because you never know who it's gonna impact. And it could just be impacting another creative to inspire them to do something right the way through to just impacting someone who's just like, really love what you put out there. And it's just, it's awesome. Like...

Yeah, I think it's really important to put out your creative endeavours somehow. It doesn't need to be for commercial purposes, it doesn't need to be packaged in a commercial branded way, but if you have, it doesn't even need to be like widely public, it can just be to a group of friends, you know, like onto a Discord community or something like that. Cause it's, yeah, it's inspiring. And I think the more art there is in the world, the better the world is for it, really.

Brian Funk (01:26:29.642)

Yeah, I totally agree. yeah, I remember when you said that. I made a little note here to come back to that. Because you said you could leave it on your hard drive, but I think you should share it. I agree.

Matt Tinkler (01:26:38.645)

Yeah.

Brian Funk (01:26:44.572)

Yeah, what's gonna happen with it, who knows, right? And in most cases, probably not much. even if you put that little ripple in the water, like you said, and somebody else, even someone that likes to draw pictures decides, yeah, I'm gonna put a picture I made on Instagram. That's powerful, because then that's another ripple.

It's just good because we're in a world now where it's very easy to just consume, consume, consume. Social media, it's social media, but most people I think are just consuming, just scrolling. They're not actively. Most of the time I'm on social media, I'm not posting. I'm just kind of looking at stuff mindlessly. So to encourage people to participate.

Matt Tinkler (01:27:36.618)

Mm.

Brian Funk (01:27:44.671)

just by an example, by being the example is really cool. Yeah, I told you I'm like a high school teacher and the students are on social media all the time, but very few of them are really participating in it. Maybe in their small friend groups, in their Snapchats or whatever, but I'm surprised.

Matt Tinkler (01:28:00.214)

Mm.

Brian Funk (01:28:07.902)

that there's not more interaction, more creation. You've got the tool to put yourself out there. It's such an amazing power. When I grew up and I was doing my drawings in school and cartoon characters that we used to make, me friends and I make comics, we could only show them to whoever we could hand it to. So now you can just distribute. It's so amazing and it is kind of a shame how few of us take part in that.

Matt Tinkler (01:28:20.075)

Mm.

Matt Tinkler (01:28:36.555)

Yeah.

Brian Funk (01:28:36.89)

Even though there are tens of thousands of songs uploaded every day, still, in the whole world, it's still a drop in the bucket of people that are actually doing it. By you doing it, by someone else doing it, might be enough to make somebody else say, hey, I could do something cool like that. I could share my recipe that I make meatballs with. Whatever.

Matt Tinkler (01:28:44.074)

hundreds of thousands.

Matt Tinkler (01:29:04.34)

Yeah. Yeah.

Brian Funk (01:29:06.516)

Just be creative and sharing. It's cool.

Matt Tinkler (01:29:09.61)

Yeah, I reckon that's Yeah. Important to share. 100%.

Brian Funk (01:29:17.716)

Preaching to the choir,

Matt Tinkler (01:29:19.668)

Yeah, exactly. Well, hopefully someone listening to this, maybe, yeah, you've never shared your music before or whatever it is you do. Hopefully it inspires you to share something.

Brian Funk (01:29:22.13)

Yeah.

Brian Funk (01:29:31.37)

Well, you know what, Matt? 10 years from now, one of us might put this conversation on just for the hell of it. And we haven't put any music out in six years and be like, you know what? So it might even come back around.

Matt Tinkler (01:29:38.037)

Yeah.

Matt Tinkler (01:29:45.726)

It could very well do.

Brian Funk (01:29:51.905)

So maybe we'll wrap this up. You probably want to get your day started and my day is ending fast here in the past, here in the future over in Australia. But we should send people to Matt Tinkler Music on YouTube. That's a good spot to find you. Also, that's your website. Smart keeping that together, all the same. I think that's also your Instagram, right? Yeah, same thing.

Matt Tinkler (01:29:54.708)

Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Yep.

Matt Tinkler (01:30:11.368)

Absolutely. Yep. Absolutely. It is, yep, Matt Tinkler music everywhere.

Brian Funk (01:30:22.214)

everywhere. Yeah. Yeah, I think if you're listening, check it out. There's a lot of really good stuff, lot of inspirational stuff, also technical how-tos and but yeah, not just here's what this button does, but here's something cool you can do with this button. I like that kind of tutorial a lot. That's the stuff you're doing.

Matt Tinkler (01:30:23.626)

Yeah, I just searched on Google.

Brian Funk (01:30:47.366)

And yeah, I think this will be out in time for the next Aspect Music Academy run that you're doing. said early February. We'll make sure it gets out in time for that so people can have a chance to join in.

Matt Tinkler (01:31:00.276)

Awesome. Yeah, cool. Yeah, no, thanks for having me Brian. has been really amazing. I love having chats like this.

Brian Funk (01:31:05.044)

Yeah, awesome talking to you. I knew it would be, but I didn't disappoint.

Matt Tinkler (01:31:09.576)

Yeah, well, I'm always happy to chat, you know, do this again sometime, because this is really cool. I love talking about creative process and music and just life and in general, it's always fascinating hearing people that are really passionate talking about their things and being passionate. Yeah, it's super cool. So I really appreciate you taking the time and inviting me on. It's been really cool.

Brian Funk (01:31:34.783)

Yeah, well thanks for being here. And thank you to everyone listening. If you want somebody that's inspired to help get you be inspired and be enthusiastic about making music with, Matt is your guy. So check him out, Matt Tinkler Music everywhere.

Matt Tinkler (01:31:52.854)

Sweet. Thanks, Brian. Cheers.

Brian Funk
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Blankfor.ms and Aqeel Aadam - Collaborating, Production, Plug-in Making