A student wrote for advice because she feels like an imposter. Each time she works with producers (maybe 3 times), the final product disappoints her. In her email she positions this dilemma for she does not wish to hurt the feelings of the producer and concludes something is wrong with her. I never imagined anyone asking this. But darling you are the customer I think in my best Zsa Zsa Gabor voice. Who cares about the producers feelings? These songs are yours, not theirs. The grocery store raised the price of milk and you’re worried the owner might be offended if you don’t come back. Don’t you know for certain artists these songs or films or paintings are their children? Your job is to take care of the kids the feelings of others be damned. I should bring this up in future classes, probably others stuck with similar feelings.

Reading her I recall memories of being inexperienced and confused. Exactly why I started producing my work or the work of my friends. It followed Blue Rodeo hiring Terry Brown who was a big shot producer. Many people love Rush but I am not one of them. Never found anything musically interesting there which is quite an offensive opinion in certain circles; war actually. I hear the clicks of people unsubscribing to my feed. That was Terry’s claim to fame, he produced Rush. He was a nice guy, though he borrowed my VHS recording of Blue Rodeo’s first gig out of town (Kingston) and later claimed it disappeared. In his hands my preferred solo on Piranha Pool also disappeared but miraculously the solo he liked most survived intact, remarkable coincidence. The best part of that experience was realizing if he’s a producer than so am I. This is why teaching, like parenthood, is awesome. You might relive sequences of things that happened and understand them differently. Maybe even help a new person not spill tomato sauce on their white pants.

Back to the student – the business of producing music made her assume the producer is always right and she should alter her opinion. The brain can do such extreme yoga moves. I think her feeling to deny her real experience is an extension of what is regarded as wokeness, how Gad Saad discusses the parasitic mind or 4th way schools speak of being asleep. Trying to change any of that seems impossible. For instance the Democratic party many times messaged Biden will never pardon his son. No way, no how. That’s what people like Trump would do, they said. We are nothing like that side, we are absolutely different. Whoopi Goldberg protests to her co-host don’t use that word (the word being “lie”). Is it not incredible to view these things in real time? In the long run trying to change the world or other people is pointless. The better question, at least for me as a musician and a producer is can one change ones own reaction?