In this week's newsletter, I cover:

• Can You Overcome Imposter Syndrome?
• My favourite things this week
• Getting verified as an artist
• This week's release - Uke Percussion

The other day, I was working on a song (going back to my songwriting roots) and a thought popped into my head:

"This is rubbish, no one is going to like this and it's going to go nowhere. Face it, you're just pretending, you're not really any good and everyone is going to find out when they hear this!"

I'm paraphrasing here but you get the gist. And, I know, the voice in my head is a real d*ck!

Hearing that voice stopped me in my tracks and I filled me with fear and confusion.

Why was I hearing this voice?  After all, I'm a full-time composer, land lots of great placements, and I've won awards for my work...

F*ck. Even after all these years of success I still hear that horrible voice.

I thought it might have been a one-off, but I then got it again when I was writing the first issue of Going Platinum - a music-focused newsletter for my silver and gold subscribers...

"Do you really think you are in any position to teach anyone anything!?"

Then I remembered that this voice is coming from a place of fear, it was trying to protect me from doing and sharing things that I truly care about.

It didn't want me to get hurt.

The work I am doing at the moment actually means a huge amount to me and I am scared of showing it to the world in case I'm rejected.

So, I thanked that voice for keeping me safe and for highlighting that I'm on the right path.

I'm creating work that matters to me and is of service to the world - I have to share it.

I have to keep sharing, not just my knowledge but also the music/songs/drawings/writing that I create.

That's what is truly valuable, creating work that matters to you and sharing it with people that matter to you.

Thank you for being those people that I can share my work with.

🎧 I’m Listening To…

The Song Exploder Podcast Episode 153: Phoebe Bridgers and Marshal Vore discuss the creation of their song ‘Scott Street’. I love hearing how ordinary and almost mundane the origins of this song are, especially when Marshal talks about how he came up with the first lyrics.

Episode 153: Phoebe Bridgers

“Scott Street” View this post on Instagram A post shared by Song Exploder (@songexploder) on Feb 20, 2019 at 1:5

Song Exploderhrishikesh

🖼 I’m Revisiting...

Illinois by Sufjan Stevens. I used to listen to this album an awful lot in my last year at Uni (2006) and haven't listened to it again since then. It's been so nice to be immediately whisked away to that time of my life through this amazing album. This Pitchfork article is a good read about how the album was recorded too.

Illinois

Sufjan Stevens · Album · 2005 · 22 songs.

Spotify

📺 I’m Watching...

Dead to Me Season 3. Debs and I have loved the series since we first watched the first episode. It's a wonderful balance of humour and the macabre (sort of). If you enjoy a "light-hearted" comedy thriller then you'll like this.

Watch Dead to Me | Netflix Official Site

A hotheaded widow searching for the hit-and-run driver who mowed down her husband befriends an eccentric optimist who isn’t quite what she seems.

Netflix

🔥 I’m Learning...

About YouTube for Artists. I didn't even realise this was a thing; getting verified as an artist on YouTube. Having several different monikers that I write under I found this pretty exciting. So I am going to see if I can get my synth-wave moniker, Zac Rivers approved as a verified artist on YouTube. (Note: After having emailed and chatted to YouTube it turns out that my distributor is the one that applies - DittoMusic).

YouTube For Artists

YouTube For Artists is a free service/platform provided by YouTube that allows artists to get the most out of YouTube. The platform offers guidelines on how…

YouTube

🌟 New From Rich

Zac Rivers Official

I followed the article above and created a YouTube channel for Zac Rivers and uploaded the first video. I'm now going to contact YouTube and see if I can become a verified artist. Exciting. (Thought you might all enjoy my quick synth-wave profile pic mockup)

Zac Rivers

Another child of the 80s making nostalgic synthwave music.

YouTube

❝ Quote of the week:

“The gravity of the battle means nothing to those at peace” - Mo Gawdat

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Want to learn more from me? Check out my online video courses

The Ultimate Trailer Music Bundle → Learn everything there is to learn about Trailer Music

The Trailer Music Course → The perfect course to get you started writing trailer music

Trailer Music for Beginners → Learn to create trailer music with nothing but FREE samples

🎁 This Week's Release

By trade, I am a guitarist. A player of fretted stringed instruments. One of my favourite guitarists, who inspired me tremendously was the late Eric Roche, an old teacher of mine.

One of the things Eric introduced me to was using acoustic instruments as percussion instruments.

Seeing Eric play like that was absolutely mind-blowing!

This inspired me to explore all the other sounds that instruments can make.

One day when I was recording some music for an advert pitch I was playing my Uke and felt the need to create a little percussion Kontakt instrument to use on the track instead of me playing it badly live to the track.

Here is that little Kontakt instrument I created.