I was watching Serj Tankian in a podcast with Rainnn Wilson - How can music change the world - when he mentioned this book by Rick Rubin.

Over the years I’ve listened to a lot of albums that Rick Rubin helped produce, I’ve read what others said about him, and I found it interesting how he can shuffle through so many music genres when it comes to producing.

This book is more of a philosophical essay when it comes to being an artist, more precisely about the creative act that we’re all involved in. It has a very stoic approach to it.

It can be your little guide to let yourself immerse in the process, as this is something that you need to embrace and be open to ideas and challenges.

I’ll leave below some of the notes I made while listening to the audiobook read by the man himself.

• Everyone is an artist. Being an artist involves creativity and finding creative ways of doing something.
• Art exists without exposition, without a trophy. A master piece can be created and no one to witness it.
• If you don’t act on an idea, that idea will find someone else to bring it to life because the time is right for that idea to be put into practice. It needs a vessel.
• Awareness is an important part of creativity. Allowing to notice and be impressed by things happening, art, music, and only after go deeper and learn about it.
• Level up your taste. Go see the greatest paintings, listed to greatest music, watch the most important and acclaimed movies, get to experience what made them great. Curate your taste and interactions.
• The person that starts the work today is not the same that will return to it tomorrow. Everything changes all the time.
• Rules guide us to average. Average is nothing to aspire too. Value your own voice, self express.
• Music is listened with the whole body, vibrations go through your body. Headphones are an illusion. Some live their life through a headphone, not experiencing the full range.
• AI might help to see things with fresh eyes, with eyes that are not trained exactly as us, without preconceptions. The example was the Go game move. This is the beginners mind, someone without experience, a blank slate, with as few believes as possible.
• A child like mind, not thinking about consequences, just be in the moment, enjoy the play, act on your instinct, can help tap into more creativity, not thinking of the outcome or a desired outcome.
• Inspiration is something that comes to us, it’s not entirely us doing it. This can help release some of the pressure around it creating?
• Habits are great for helping managing time, to free bandwidth for being creative. Habits are not constraints, they can create a framework for you to be creative. Meditation, schedule important things to get them out of your way.
• Ideas are like seeds. Some will sprout at the right time, some will not, some are bad seeds. At the beginning try and nurture all seeds before selection. Let them evolve before sorting them. Do not force a certain outcome unless you had it in mind from the beginning.
• If you know what you want to do and you do it, that’s the work of a craftsman. If you begins with a question and use it to guide an adventure of discovery, that’s the work of an artist.
• Releasing the work is one of the hardest steps, we always find reasons to not release it, tweaks that are not needed, doubt, lost faith in the work. It’s viewed as a final step that will forever mark your progress, when in fact that work is not all you are, it’s not gonna capture all yourself, but that self in that period of time and if you delay it, you might not even capture that anymore
• Refine your work, strip it of any decoration until you’re left with the essence. Less is more. Perfection is achieved when there is anything else to take away, not to add.
• Put your work in a different context.
• Realize when an idea or seed has nothing more to give and work towards another one. Follow the excitement as it comes with energy.
• Play, experiment, do not put too much importance on the work as it will constrain it.
• Competition servers the ego, collaboration gets the higher results.
• When giving feedback be specific, talk about the work, don’t make it personal, zoom in to the actual thing.
• When receiving feedback leave aside the ego.
• The Editor: trim and remove things, strip to essence, it’s the cold calculated action. It’s your self that is in control of curating the final piece and presenting it.
• However you frame yourself as an artist, the frame is too small.