If you battle your inner critic on a regular basis – this one’s for you. I received a standout email recently from a subscriber, and it was surprisingly freeing!
I was delighted to be invited onto one of my favourite podcasts recently – The James McMahon Music Podcast. It was nerve-wracking being on the other side of questions for once, but James made me feel comfortable enough to share some pretty personal stuff.
In this video, I talk about how moving all the time and being bullied at school knocked my confidence, but trying and trying again to make music helped me grow. I also share the reason I stopped making my podcast “Attention Engineer” and why I changed my artist name from She Makes War to Penfriend. Plus, get a sneaky glimpse of my new studio room!
Hands up if you find working from home with your loved ones a *little bit* tough! Two full years of sharing a wall with my darling husband has come to a grateful end – I’m leaving my beloved home studio The Launchpad for a bigger, quieter space.
In this video I discuss Joseph Campbell’s concept of a “Bliss Station” (via Austin Kleon) to help YOU get the creative time and space you deserve, plus I explain what led to this decision and give you a sneak peek of my new room…
I share my music plans for 2022 – Obey Robots, She Makes War *and* Penfriend, oh my! – raise the question of live gigs plus discuss why on earth this 40-year old musician is spending so much time making YouTube videos……and how you can help!
This month, I’m making an album with Rat from Ned’s Atomic Dustbin under the name OBEY ROBOTS and sharing the process in my Captain’s Vlog ā
I have 19 days to record all my parts in The Launchpad before we go into the studio to finish the album. The clock is ticking!
In this episode: I share never-before heard song snippets, plus my essential equipment for recording bass at home. See how I write, record and edit parts and try to overcome the mental roadblocks that are an inevitable part of the creative process.
This is the first time I’ve ever shown behind the scenes of how I write!
In my twenties, I spent a few years running a covers band called Co-Star. Great name, right? Good work, Gareth the guitarist.
I booked the shows, played bass and sang. It was an education in many things – how far away Aberdeen actually is in a van from London, how to file a CCJ when the agent doesn’t pay, how to dodge drunk wedding guests – but mostly in how songs are put together.
When Richard approached me to make my version of his band’s track I was delighted at the idea. It’s rare that a musician actively asks someone else to have a go at redoing their work – in my experience, we’re not the most humble bunch! – not to mention the invitation came via my Bespoke Sponsorships page, and a generous contribution to the Penfriend project.
I think a good song should still be immersive and affecting when you strip everything away apart from the main vocal line and a simple instrumental accompaniment. But when you add in the other building blocks – drums, bass, melody lines on guitar or synths or something else – you’re creating a world within the song, an alternate reality the listener can step inside for a few minutes. An escape.
I love “Can’t Get You Out Of My Head” by Kylie Minogue, and I bet I’d still enjoy it if she sang it along to an acoustic guitar. It’s a good song. But when you add the hypnotic beats and subtle synth lines, you reside in a different universe for 3 minutes and 50 seconds.
Go back and listen to just how many bursts of different sounds support the vocals in that song…it’s a complex, but deceptively simple arrangement – and for once, I’ll accept the choice to fade out at the end (I’m not usually a fan).
[I’ve just realised my pop references are 21 years old – oh my. ANYWAY -]
I’ve only recorded a handful of covers over the years, so re-arranging “This Is The Sound” was a fun but slightly daunting challenge. When I listened to the original song, it sounded just right. I listened, I really enjoyed it, and I couldn’t think why there would need to be a cover of this song in the world. That *was* the sound.
However, I needed to honour Richard’s request, and so I set to work on picking out the key parts that I felt were integral to the world of the song, without seeking to recreate what was already there. You might have noticed that covers are often faster or slower than the original, perhaps a sad version of a happy song or vice versa. Creating contrast in speed or tone is the most straightforward way of creating space between the original and the cover, and I decided to go for “slow and weird”.
As I wrote to Richard in a status update email: “Your song is so great as it is that the only option was to GO WEIRD.”
I started with the drum machine parts, then added sounds from my OP-1 synth played through the Strymon Nightsky reverb pedal (which I was just starting to get the hang of…still am, if I’m honest…), vocals and synth bass.
As I was making a slower and therefore longer version, I was keen to make sure stuff kept happening throughout – and the shift in energy and tone at the end via the energetic bassline just came to me in a flash as I was sitting at my computer, wondering how to make the song sound more weird. Mission accomplished, I think!
“Battery Thinkers is a duo that emerged from Hull University in the late 90ās. I met Chris at regular music gatherings of students on the last year of my maths course, calling ourselves The Mobius Band. The two of us kept meeting up after University when we discovered we had each started writing our own songs and Chris was keen to try out some recording software he had recently acquired. Our influences were Teenage Fanclub, R.E.M. and Blur, our band name coming from a Blur lyric and we are both massive fans of Underworld. Battery Thinkers is something we do as a hobby just for fun, itās never been something we have seriously pursued.
Our first āalbumā, āDreaming in a Northern Townā, 2005, was recorded using a knackered kick drum found in the loft of Chrisā house when he moved in(!), improvised bass guitar for some songs as we didnāt have one & when I did buy one second hand it wouldnāt tune properly – and a mic stand that regularly had a leg fall off of it. We discovered at the end of that process that we had recorded most tracks incorrectly and the overall sound is a bit muffled on those songs as a result. So the song I chose for Laura to cover, āThis is the Soundā was from this album, as a surprise for Chris ā he was really emotional about it when it arrived.
We have improved very slowly over the years in terms of standard of equipment and knowledge of recording, Chris has been the one making advances in the production knowledge whilst I generally sit on the other side of the room and make helpful comments. We recorded another 2 albums, āThree Thousand Thoughtsā in 2007 and āTo the Rescueā in 2011, after which progress stalled with the distance between the two of us greater due to my move to London and Chris being regularly busy in York with two kids.
Getting anything finished nowadays is a massive task and our imminent (maybe) next album has been years in the making. We stripped some songs intended for the album to form an EP āSquare Picturesā in 2015 just to get some songs finished. The new album, provisionally titled āAll Things After Sunriseā will have between 10 and 12 songs, depending on our sanity. We also have songs written for the next one after this, which we intend to be a road trip album.
In December 2019 we fulfilled a long time ambition to play a Battery Thinkers gig, at my friends 40th birthday party at Band On The Wall in Manchester, bringing in 4 friends to help us. After only 2 or 3 full band rehearsals we managed to get together 9 songs from our history, including This is the Sound and we went down well on the night. We did have plans to continue rehearsing in 2020 until of course they decided to hold a global pandemic event, so we are still waiting to meet up again.”
I’m recording an album! In 2019, my friend Miles Hunt from The Wonder Stuff put me in touch with Rat from Ned’s Atomic Dustbin, and our collaboration project OBEY ROBOTS was born.
This month I’m recording bass, synths and vocals for our album in my home studio The Launchpad, so what better time to invite you behind the scenes of how I produce records?
In this episode: an honest (messy) studio tour, a chat with Rat and two book recommendations for creative encouragement.
The 17th January is “Forget New Year’s Resolutions Day”. Did you know that? I believe everyone has the power to tweak and improve their lives, but there’s a far better way than proclaiming “New Year, new me!” on 1st January and then giving up 16 days later.
In this video, I discuss setting measurable goals and working backwards to figure out what activities you need to do to achieve them. And how about breaking the year up into more manageable, 12-week chunks as well?
What would you like to change in the next 12 weeks?
Resolutions don’t work. Change your life with GOALS TRANSCRIPT
The 17th January is “Forget New Year’s Resolutions Day”. Did you know that?
I believe everyone has the power to tweak and improve their lives, but there’s a far better way than proclaiming “New Year, new me!” on the 1st January and then giving up just 16 days later.
Letās talk.
“Get fit, read more, stay in touch with friends, get organised, do better at work” – do these sound familiar? I’ve made these enthusiastic lists myself, fantasizing about revamping my life to become a better person in the New Year.
New Year. The magical New Year, glowing fresh like a hopeful Monday, but 52 times better!
At their worst, New Yearās Resolutions are a smorgasbord of random hopes and wishes that we almost immediately forget about. The idea is great – humans want to improve and progress, so why not get started in January?
The problem is we’re being way too vague. We’re listing too many things. And then, we let it all go far too easily – on the 17th January, apparently.
Repeat this a few times, and we’re even less likely to succeed with our resolutions next year: we’ve proved to ourselves that we can’t or won’t get very far with them, so why bother?
Let’s stop this right now.
How about this year we ditch the idea of New Yearās Resolutions, and set measurable goals instead? And let’s give ourselves a fighting chance of success by focusing just on the next 12 weeks.
I read āThe 12 Week Yearā by Brian P. Moran and Michael Lennington last year and it was a game-changer.
Thinking about a whole year is really overwhelming. Three months – 12 weeks – that seems like a manageable length of time to me, and the idea of making big changes in that shorter period of time is more exciting to me, too. It feels closer, and more possible somehow.
So, what would you like to change in the next 12 weeks?
First, we need to change the way we think about this stuff. “Get fit” is a nice idea, but you would never know if you got there. Run 3 times a week is something I can actually tick off my list – but why am I running three times a week in the first place? What’s going to keep me ticking off those runs?
Well, goal setting. But not setting so many goals at once that we get overwhelmed and quit on the 17th January! And the key is setting goals that we really care about, that connect to our vision of our future – a future where Iām healthier, more well-read and doing well at the job I love, for example.
There has to be a reason that you want to achieve the goal.
I want to run regularly because I know that it makes me happier and nicer to be around, and way, way better at getting on with my creative work. When I wake up and I don’t want to go running because it’s cold outside, I stand a much better chance of going for that run if it’s part of a plan leading me towards a specific, measurable goal that I really care about. I don’t have to question the plan every chilly morning when it feels like Iāve got sand in my eyes, I just have to put my running gear on and leave the house, and then do it again next time.
Try this: set a measurable goal in each of the following categories: health, leisure time and work, and then list the activities that will help you achieve that goal.
For example, I would like to run 10K in under 60 minutes by the end of March 2022. The way I’ll get there is not by crossing my fingers and hoping, but by following a training plan which includes three runs per week of different styles – easy jogs, speed training and long runs – I only know this because I looked it up on the internet.
In my leisure category, I’d like to read 12 books in 12 weeks, which means one book a week on average. To stand a chance of managing that, I have to set aside time each day to read at least two chapters.
As for work, I have many goals and many activities going on all the time – and I’m sure you do too – but I know that picking out one thing to focus on over and above everything else is the very best way to make progress. I’m still figuring out what that one work thing is, but I will let you know in a future video.
Write your goals and your activities down – yes, write them down! Your brain is not a filing cabinet. You stand a far, far greater chance of achieving your goals if they’re written down. It really helps you to keep going when you can look back at your goals and remember why you decided to do these activities in the first place.
Achieving your goals is about making a plan and executing it. Thereās really no use making the most perfect plan there ever was and not doing anything about it, or even worse – never making a plan at all.
Just make a plan, and execute it. And then do it again next time.
I’m genuinely excited about kicking off my New Year with this approach. I try to do a lot of things, and I get overwhelmed sometimes, no matter what forward-planning and time-blocking I do – and oh, I do!
Time spent taking a step back and thinking about what are the most important things to you in all of these categories is never wasted, and Iām convinced it will be way more effective if it happens more than once a year, with a hastily scribbled list of New Yearās Resolutions.
I hope this video helps you kick off a brilliant year.
If you want to read more on this, Iāve put affiliate links below to my top 3 productivity books: Eat That Frog, The 12 Week Year and Deep Work – but make sure you’re not just reading them to put off working towards your goals.
I went into more detail on goal-setting and the power of consistency in this video, so watch that next, and Happy mindfully productive New Year to you.
I started making videos again this year after discovering Casey Neistat’s vlogs 6 years late! Here are the three big things I’ve learned from his videos, why I think filmmaking is so similar to making music, and why I’ve signed up for Casey’s new online course. Plus dogs! And British winter chips! And a very cold, windy beach!
Audio was recorded on the new Rode Lavalier 2 – impressive!
Itās true: I’m only standing out here on a very chilly December day – right before Christmas! – because of Casey Neistat.
(Itās so coldā¦Iām wearing so many layersā¦)
Iām a firm believer in JOMO – the joy of missing out – so I really donāt mind when Iām late to the party on things. I only discovered Caseyās very famous vlogs this summer. 2021! – and he started uploading them in 2015ā¦so that is pretty late to the party.
Benjiās eating sand.
[Tim, off camera – āCome on, Sandman!ā]
Sandman!
[āCome on, mateā¦ā]
For the first time ever, Casey is sharing his filmmaking and storytelling secrets in an online course through Monthly, and I signed up immediately.
I actually started vlogging in 2007 – 8 years before Casey did! – and I uploaded a couple of hundred videos to my old channel. But it was a lot harder to make videos for YouTube then – I was using camcorders with tapes. Tapes! Added to that, I’d sort of missed the memo about storytelling – itās just something Iāve been learning about much more recently. So I’m not surprised my channel didn’t blow up, and thatās absolutely fine.
Watching Caseyās vlogs has taught me three big things:
1. It is possible to film yourself in really interesting ways, so you don’t have to rely on other people.
2. There are lots of different and fun ways to structure edits to tell a story, even when you think there might not be anything that interesting going on.
3. Just get on with it!
I’m aware thereās a backlash against this course, I get the sense that people are concerned this kind of course will just spawn thousands of copycat vloggers that will up YouTube with all of their stuff that looks the same as Casey Neistatās.
The thing is, itās very normal to copy people when you start out in any creative field. Thatās just how we learn. Over time, hopefully you develop your own style and your own voice, through getting to know yourself better and gaining confidence in your skills. All that deliberate practice is what gets you there.
Iāve made music for a lot of years, and itās a good way of learning how to take inspiration from a lot of places without ending up sounding like you’ve copied one band’s sound. The reason Iām so rubbish at answering the question “who are your musical influences?ā is because I genuinely donāt think of it that way any more.
I’m more inspired by someone’s story, or the way that their song made me feel, than what the music actually sounds like. Keeping your influences varied and refreshing them from time to time is a really good way to help with all of this. You start filtering everything through the prism of your own experience, your own taste, your own values, and you keep the things that resonate with you and just sort of leave the things that donāt.
Most of the time I donāt listen to much music at all, because I find that ignoring what’s going on in the world helps me focus on trying to make stuff that I like.
So, why have I signed up to Casey Neistatās filmmaking course?
I only started this channel properly a few months ago, and that was in large part down to watching Casey Neistatās vlogs. Thereās something about how he shares his life and his experience and his thoughts that really appeals to me. Basically, heās already made me get over myself, get off my sofa and start making videos, so I want to see where the course will push me next.
I also want to be making videos all throughout 2022 and beyond, and I think this will really help.
Iāve got a lot of footage that Iāve shot over the years and never shared, and Iām really interested in trying to find out if thereās a way of pulling that stuff together into some kind of story that would be interesting to other humans, and I think this course will help with that too.
I want to film outdoors more – like this! – and I know thatās to do with overcoming laziness slash discomfort, but itās also about overcoming fear. What will people think of me? Standing here like this isnāt an easy thing for me to do, I feel really weird. When I was walking over from the car with all the stuff, I just felt like I couldnāt be bothered, but I know thatās to do with procrastination and fear, so Iām doing it. Look, Iām doing it! Look, Iāve done it!
Iām also fascinated to learn more about Caseyās thought process, and the technical details of what he does, how he sets up his shots, and just the decisions heās making on the fly, because I think thatās how you learn from other people, by watching them do stuff.
I think making videos is so similar to making music. It’s all about getting to know yourself more and more deeply, gaining experience at the thing you want to do to the point where you feel confident, to the point where no-one can take that away from you and you can communicate the things you want to communicate. Theyāre both about experimentation and finding your voice.
I don’t want to make videos that look like Casey Neistat’s videos. I want to make videos that look like my videos. I’m interested in his creative process and his structure, not his style. That’s his style, not mine.
These are so I can see!
So, Iām excited to start the course.
Itās time for fish and chips now, but before I go: online learning has become a big part of my life in the past few years. This video isnāt sponsored – I don’t have any sponsors yet – but there is an affiliate link down below for Skillshare.
I choose to pay full price for Skillshare membership every year because it’s become so valuable to me.
I’ve been making a podcast for two years, and have been harbouring a funny feeling that not everyone knows what a podcast is, how to find them and how to listen. So I made a video to help.
What is a podcast? Where to find them and how to listen for FREE TRANSCRIPT
Podcast. Podcast. Pod-cast. Podcast. I canāt even say it.
You say podcarst, I say podcast. Except normally I don’t, I probably say “podcass”, because I drop my t’s a lot. A loā. A lo’!
Anyway – Iām making this video to explain what podcasts are and – I can’t say it anymore! – and how you can enjoy them. Specifically, if Iām being honest, how you can enjoy *my* podcast.
OK, what is a podcast?
Apart from being a word that sounds utterly meaningless when you say it too many times in a row – podcast! – very simply a podcast is an audio broadcast.
Theyāre generally free to listen to, some of them have ads and some donāt, some podcasters get paid and some donāt, theyāre very easy to find and enjoy and I think you might really like them.
Fun fact: the “pod” bit comes from iPod. Remember those? A little piece of history…iPod. This does nothing. This is so old that this was never a touchscreen.
And then “cast” comes from broadcast. Podcast. I didnāt even know that before I made this video, so thank you as always for giving me the opportunity and the excuse to learn something new today.
So, a podcast was originally an audio broadcast you could listen to on your iPod via iTunes, but these days you can listen to them on your phone, various places around the internet, and even here on YouTube. Do they even make iPods any more? I wish they hadnāt put a phone in them.
iPod. iPod. OK, that word sounds meaningless now too.
Podcasts come in all shapes, sizes and genres. They can be independently produced – like my one is – or made by big companies, they can be long or short, sweary or not, and in a world stuffed with shiny images I think thereās something really lovely about focusing in just on audio. Some podcasts are monologues – just one person talking – some have multiple voices, there are interview podcasts, news podcasts, drama podcasts, sport podcasts. Podcasts!
There’s a whole world to explore, and itās so creative – the great thing about a format where anyone couldcontribute is that ideally you get people from all sorts of backgrounds talking about super niche topics and being able to connect with like-minded people through doing so.
Podcasts are kind of like radio shows, if anyone could make their own radio show, and if the radio show could be as long or as short as you wanted, and you could publish it yourself.
So, how do you listen to these magical audio broadcasts?
Good question! Allow me to demonstrate, using my podcast as an example.
Considering youāre already here on YouTube, the very easiest way to listen is to visit my channel and go to the Attention Engineer playlist. My podcast is audio-only, so you can easily have it playing in the background, and if you subscribe to my channel itās easier for you to find new episodes as theyāre published.
I listen to podcasts when Iām running, washing up, tidying up or driving somewhere, so for me it works best to access my favourite shows through a podcast app on my phone.
I recommend Pocket Casts, which is free for Android and iPhone users. You can find a show and just press play to stream it right then and there, or you can download it on your home wifi to listen to when youāre out and about later on and save data. Always remember to subscribe to your favourite shows though, because then the new episodes will show up in the app for you.
Other podcasts apps are available, of course, and if you have a different favourite from mine, please write a comment and let me know why you like yours.
I always recommend Pocket Casts because it just works, and itās available for iPhone and Android. Having it installed on my phone means I can browse all the other shows out there as well, or easily find one thatās been recommended to me by a friend.
If you want to listen at your desk, I think Apple Podcasts is brilliant. Iāve heard bad things about the iPhone app, but the desktop version works fine for me. So if Iām here in the studio and I want to listen to a podcast through my speakers, usually while tidying up, thatās how I listen.
You can also listen to many podcasts – mine included – on Stitcher, Spotify, Amazon Music and even Audible, if you have a subscription.
One final way you can listen to my podcast is to visit my website penfriend.rocks and go to the podcast page. Every time I publish a new episode of Attention Engineer I make a deluxe show notes page, with embedded videos and links to the artistās music, and thereās an audio player right there on the page that you can just click āplayā on, or if you want to download the episode to listen to offline, or put on your phone, or burn to a CD, or whatever you want, thatās also possible – but if youāre new to this and are getting overwhelmed by the options then just keep it really simple. Pick whichever one is easiest for you.
Now before you go and practise your new skills, let me tell you a little bit about my show and why I chose to make a podcast in the first place.
“Attention Engineer: Artists on creativity, grit and determination” is made in an interview format, where I speak one on one with fellow musicians and artists about the creative process, mental health, touring life, the pros and cons of social media and whatever else comes up around those topics.
Making music as a solo artist is a very solitary thing, and I donāt have a big group of friends full stop, let alone a big group of friends who are musicians. So, I decided to create a framework of questions that would enable me to have the kinds of conversations Iād always hoped to have when I was supporting bands on tour, but never got to have because thereās always a lot of equipment to carry in and out of the building.
I had a hunch that the kinds of questions that I would ask as a musician would be quite different to those that would be asked by a journalist, and as someone who is always striving to make their work deeper, more meaningful, more impactful – podcasting just seemed like the right format for this project.
I started working on the podcast in November 2019 and launched it in June 2020 so, honestly, itās been a real lifeline during a very disconnected time.
If you have any questions about my podcast or podcasting in general, please leave a comment below, because Iām making a one-off video episode of Attention Engineer to finish off the year, and I would love your help with shaping that.
