Recovering Like a Pro

Welcome back to the music interval theory podcast.

I'm Frank, composer for film, animation and video games.

And today, I want to share something a little more personal,

a lesson I learned the hard way after more than two decades

in this industry.

So here it is.

You're going to make mistakes.

You just are.

And weirdly enough, that's not the bad news.

That's just reality.

What really matters is how you handle those mistakes.

And even more than that, how well you understand the cost

that comes with them.

Because every decision we make in music,

whether it's in the writing room, in post-production,

or while dealing with clients, comes with a price tag.

Not always in money.

More often, it's your time, your energy,

your emotional bandwidth.

In creative work, those costs show up in ways

that are super familiar.

Like when you find yourself doing version six of a queue

and wondering if version two was better all along.

Or when you get halfway through a track

and realize it's just not working,

and now you're faced with the big one,

start over or try to fix it.

And sometimes you have to delete the queue

you were emotionally attached to.

Not because it wasn't good, but because it wasn't right.

Those moments sting.

Trust me, I've been there more times than I can count.

You sit there staring at the screen,

your hands hovering over the keyboard,

trying to convince yourself the idea could work

if you just pushed harder.

And in those situations, here's what I remind myself.

As long as I'm willing to pay the price,

whether it's reworking a section, losing an evening

or shelving a piece entirely,

then I'm still moving forward.

I'm not failing, I'm progressing.

Now, not every decision has an undo button.

That's where things get trickier.

There are a few kinds of mistakes

that come with a much higher cost.

Things like doing destructive edits

and saving over your only backup

or delivering something before it's really ready

just because the deadline is screaming at you

or maybe the hardest one,

damaging a relationship with a collaborator

because you were rushing, stressed or not listening.

Those are harder to walk back.

That's why I try to pause just a little longer

when I feel one of those decisions coming on.

You know the feeling,

when you're about to bounce a file and part of you says,

wait, maybe I should check that automation one more time

or when you're writing a frustrated email

and something in your gut says,

maybe don't hit send just yet.

That small pause, it can save you a lot of cleanup later.

But here's something encouraging.

Once you get a feel for which decisions are recoverable

and which aren't, your confidence grows,

you're not paralyzed by fear of making mistakes.

You know what you can afford.

You know what's worth risking and what's worth protecting.

That mindset shift made a huge difference for me.

It helped me take more creative risks, actually.

Because I knew I could walk them back if they didn't land.

I stopped treating every choice like life or death

and that gave me room to explore,

to try weird ideas and to grow.

And I'll tell you something else.

Some of my best music came out of recovering from a mistake.

I tried something that didn't work

and the fix let me somewhere way more interesting than I'd planned.

It's like those wrong turns opened a side door to something better.

So yeah, we are not aiming for perfection here.

That's not how music works.

And it's definitely not how a career works.

You build a body of work and a reputation

not by avoiding all mistakes

but by showing that you can adapt, learn and keep going.

If you're in the middle of a tough project

or your second guessing something you just wrote, take a breath.

Ask yourself, what's the cost of changing this?

If it's time and energy and you're willing to pay it, then go for it.

You're not starting over.

You're investing in clarity.

But if you feel that cost creeping into the long term stuff,

your reputation, your relationships, your peace of mind,

that's when it's worth slowing down, making space, sleeping on it.

So yeah, some decisions you can afford, some you can't.

The real skill is knowing the difference.

I hope that gives you something useful

to think about the next time you hit across roads in your project.

And hey, if you're looking for tools

to help make those creative decisions feel a little less random,

I've got a free guide that can really help.

It's called Five Spells Every Composer Needs.

These are interval-based techniques I use all the time

to shape ideas fast and with confidence.

You can download the guide at musicintervaltheory.academy-spells.

The links in the show notes too.

Until next time, keep writing, stay curious,

and trust that every detour still moves you forward

if you're paying attention.