As a musician living in the capitalist hellscape that is the United States, I’ve long been encouraged by friends and family to do things the normal way. The safe way. Sure I’m talented and all, but I shouldn’t pursue music as a career.
Well, I followed that advice.
I worked full time as a designer/web developer for a solid decade. At the start of 2020, tired of working in noisy offices on projects that mostly didn't matter, I went freelance.
For the next couple of years, I was getting by with pretty steady client work. But eventually the work started drying up. And I looked for the work I had done at my previous fulltime gigs, and much of it had vanished. And recruiters suddenly all wanted me to use typescript and write unit tests and use tailwind, none of which is appealing to me as someone who primarily enjoys writing html and css and cares about things like web accessibility. And then generative AI came along, converting engineers to people who ask chatGPT to write stuff and then make sure it works.
And I was tired.
Tired of working for corporations. Tired of working in an industry that reinvents the wheel every year. Tired of working on projects where the only real goal was to make people money. Tired of trying to do things the “safe” way, when that way was no longer working.
All the while, I had been working out of my studio, Mountainsize Audio. I’d been taking baby steps towards making audio production my profession, while also trying to maintain this designer/developer alter ego that you’re looking at. I was splitting my attention and not making much progress in either direction.
So in late 2023, I decided to go all in on audio production.
It’s been a long time coming. I’ve always wanted this to be the focus. I was hoping for a smoother transition, but I’m a one thing at a time kind of guy. I just had to go for it.
Now I’m working with people, not corporations. I’m doing my part to build up my local community and music scene. I’m working with people to make their art sound as good as possible. And everyone I’ve worked with so far has been thrilled.
I’m better at working for people now than I’ve ever been, and it’s because I understand my role, and my clients trust me. I’m my own project manager now. I find my own clients. And when they want me to make changes I don’t agree with, I recognize that it’s their art and happily do what I’m asked to do.
It’s been tough to get things rolling, but this year it’s really felt like the snowball has been building momentum. I feel like I’m finally on the right path. Not the “safe” path yet, but the right one.
So what about all this design and web development stuff?
Though I haven’t been actively seeking out this type of work, I did work on two branding + website projects last year — wassup J.R. Bauer Construction and Envision Realm Studios! I’m proud of that work and happy to continue working with people that need those types of services.
But as for my main focus, I want to continue elevating people’s art.
