Amazing tips here, thanks a lot for these, you can never read them enough. Unfortunately for me, I missed out on your guide during my peak noobness but thank god others going through that phase have your guide to help them out with what theyre feeling even if it's just broad tips related to the mind frame in which music is made. I'd also like to add another general observation I made. The way I see it, if you're a hobbyist, you can keep going at it with the knowledge that you will eventually get better. For those of us wanting to make this our profession it's a little more complex I feel. At some point, you will have to re engineer your mental processes, your perception, your ideals to suit whatever is currently trending (and I don't just mean that in the bandwagoning sense but on the whole when we're talking about catering to certain existing markets and not just creating one out of thin air). Even if you may not think so, at some point, you will succeed in re engineering your processes and even though it may not seem like it, you will one day be surprised at how well you've adapted. Maybe it's obvious to many others but I feel this was for me, the biggest struggle in my life because naturally, everyone's wired to do different things, every human being has their own perspective and ideals but at some point the compromise really starts getting to you.