Picasso can teach you more about music production than you think
If there is one thing I learned over the last 3 years is that,
whatever niche you are in, you can always learn more by analyzing what’s happening in other industries.
In this week’s article, I wanted to take a look at Pablo Picasso.
If you don’t know him, he is a very famous Spanish painter from the 20th century, and the creator of Cubism.
In a way, we are very similar to him as he was an artist.
Recently, I came to realize that there was 2 important lessons we could learn from him.
Which is what I want to share with you today:
1 | How many paintings from Picasso can you name?
If I’m honest, I can only remember one: Guernica
But over the course of his 91 years life, he painted 13,500 paintings!!!
13,500!!!!!
Art enthusiasts might remember 5-10 but that’s it.
Not more.
Yet he produced much much more art to get to that level.
So what can we learn from that?
Not every piece of music you make is to go viral or to be remembered.
It is the reps you have to put in, in order to output a few masterpieces.
So next time you think your song isn’t “good enough” to release or to be considered “finished”, think about what Picasso would do.
Picasso didn’t get to the number of 13,500 by being a perfectionist.
He did it by putting in the work and getting the reps in day after day.
But this is where it gets even crazier…
There are 33,237 days in 91 years.
As he started to paint at the age of 8, let’s remove 2,922 days.
That leaves us with a total of 30,315 days where he could have painted.
As mentioned before, he made about 13,500 paintings…
…which is almost 1 painting every 2 days for his entire life!!! 🤯
2 | "$20,000 for a napkin drawing"
This is a story I recently read in the book ‘The Art Of Not Giving A F*ck’.
As an old man, Picasso was seating at a coffee table, doodling on his napkin while enjoying a cup of coffee.
He is Picasso, so a woman recognized him and was in awe at what she was witnessing.
When Picasso was done with his coffee, he crumpled up the napkin to throw it away…
The woman, in shock, stopped him and asked:
“Wait! Can I have the napkin you were just drawing on? I’ll pay you for it.”
Picasso replied: “Sure. Twenty thousand dollars.”
Shocked, she replies: “What? It took you like two minutes to draw that.”
To which Picasso replied: “No ma’am. It took me over 60 years to draw that.”
Oh what a beautiful reply!
So what is this story telling us?
When working for clients, don’t charge by the hour, charge by the value you provide.
Even if you get faster at making music, you shouldn’t charge less because it takes you less time, you should charge more because you got better!
In Summary
There is a lot we can learn from other artists, not just in the music industry.
If we take Picasso, he taught us to:
- Stop being perfectionists as this won’t get us anywhere. Repetitions and outputs will.
- Charge what you’re worth, not how long it takes you to do something.
I hope you enjoyed this different approach in today’s article.
If you did, I would love to hear your thoughts! Just send me a DM on Instagram to let me know 💌
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🎶 | Music Discoveries Of The Week
Where You Are – PLV Music
You read it correctly! I released a new song, which I had started in a previous YouTube video. It is so far THE one song that is the closest to what I feel would be my own sound and style, full on PLV vibes! ✨ If you liked ‘Gotta Be’, you will love this one!
Deep Focus – Spotify Playlist
This is the latest playlist I discovered and played on repeat this week. Perfect chill and slow instrumental tracks to stay focused when working on admin tasks or reading.
❤️ | My Favourite Resources For Music Artists
7 Steps To Produce A Track From Start To Finish [FREE Course]
I decided to update my free 8 steps checklist PDF into a 7-day email course in order to make it more digestible and actionable for you.
This way, every day for 7 days, you will receive the lesson of the day with specific action steps so you can produce a song from start to finish with confidence and escape the 8-bar loop trap once and for all!
Plus let’s be honest… if you ever downloaded that PDF, you probably forgot you even had it 
SoundBridge [DAW]
You know me, I am very picky with the DAW I use. But I recently came across SoundBridge, which surprised me!
Their goal? Making a simple DAW that removes all the unnecessary fluff so we can stay in our creative flow. For example, there are no right click menus or no close tab.
If you are looking to try another DAW or haven’t committed to one yet, I heavily advise you to try this one out. If I wasn’t already on Logic Pro, I would have picked this one!
The workflow is so simple, the UI pure, it felt refreshing to use a DAW like this!
There is a free version that you can try, and if you want to commit to it, it is less expensive than most DAWs.
🎬 | New YouTube Video
What I Learned From Failing To Finish 3 Songs In 3 Days…
I love music challenges. These are great to learn and push yourself outside of your comfort zone. But sometimes… you fail. But failure is a greater teacher than success. Here is what I learned ↓
Thanks for all the support you’ve given me to this point!
Keep learning,
– Aurelie (PLV) 
PLV
Music Producer & Content Creator
