The Struggle is the Point
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Recently, an interview with the founder of Suno AI has been making its way around the internet. Suno is that company that lets you say “Write me a 90s country song about a grilled cheese sandwich” and it’ll just…. do it. In the interview, the founder says: “It’s not really enjoyable to make music now. It takes a lot of time. It takes a lot of practice. You need to get really good at an instrument or really good at a piece of production software. I think the majority of people don’t enjoy the majority of the time they spend making music.”
WHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOSH! Talk about a close call! The guy just BARELY missed the point as it flew right over his head. THE POINT IS THAT IT’S HARD! It’s hard to learn an instrument. It’s even harder to get so good that the instrument becomes a vessel to channel your hopes and fears and the experience of being a human until all of that stuff comes together into a song that the rest of us get to take in and be changed by. The fact that it’s hard is why it earns our admiration! We know that the time and effort you put in allow you to see things the rest of us didn't take the time to see. And when you share those things with us, it is a gift. Recently my 14-year old daughter has decided to teach herself piano, and it’s been such an incredible thing to watch. Before this, she’d spend her free time talking to friends, scrolling social media, or practicing makeup techniques. All of those things are great, and they’re valid ways to spend your time. But now, she’s replaced all of that with piano practice. Every night around 9, we have to say “Hey Lu, no more piano for tonight. We’re putting your sister to bed.” And every night she goes “Ughhhhhh… I was just getting this part figured out!” As a parent, it’s so fun to watch your kid fall in love with the process of getting good at something. And that process starts, almost by definition, with not being very good at that thing. Someday soon, Lucy will write a song. She’s already hinted at the desire to do just that. And the same day she does, someone else will turn to Suno AI and say “Write me an 80s power ballad about razor scooters”. And you know what? The second one will probably sound better! It will be polished and it will be perfect and the “songwriter” won’t have had to lift a finger. But we’ll all know they didn’t lift a finger, so we won’t be impressed. My daughter’s first song might not be amazing. But her second song will be a little better, and her third one will be better still. And if she sticks with it, at some point in the future she’ll write a song that will bring tears to someone’s eyes. She’ll write a song that makes someone say “I didn’t think anyone else understood the way I feel until I heard this song.” And that song will stand on the shoulders of the ones that came before. It will only be possible because tonight, and tomorrow night, and the night after that, Lucy will sit down at the bench and plink out “Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star” over and over again until it clicks. And contrary to what the Suno AI guy says, she’ll love every second of it. And as her proud dad, so will I. Happy Friday, friends. Make it a good one. Kyle Scheele |
Kyle Scheele
One useful idea about creative leadership, once a week
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