In October 2022, two years ago, at the time of writing, I pivoted my career once again from being a full-time audio guy to being a developer. That road has been both interesting and challenging in its own right. However, there's so much knowledge I bring with me from my decade of experience in a creative field that I use every day at work. I want to shed some light on some of these qualities in the coming weeks, and up for today is problem-solving.
I'm still solving problems every day.
While working as a media composer, I fundamentally solved problems. Take the example of sonic branding (think McDonalds' jingle, Xbox's sound when you turn it on), where you try to come up with the essence of a company in a couple of seconds that will stick, be an earworm, and help cement the branding of company X in the ears of the customers. Now this is all very abstract, and in my daily job as a developer, I'm usually solving a lot more concrete problems for the client that already have been through multiple idea-stages before it comes to my implementation. I still have room for creativity, though, because there are always many ways to solve specific problems.
The honing of a craft
Yes, making music is creative work. But a lot of it isn't. A lot of it comes from thousands upon thousands of hours of practice, honing your craft. This goes for drumming, as well as music production, and definitely composition. The ability to recognize patterns in an arrangement to find a chord progression that will land that modulation. Crafting a specific bass sound to round out the frequency spectrum of a production. Meticulously planning a hi-hat pattern that'll complement the guitar riff without taking the spotlight from the main vocal.
I'm convinced that the fact that musicians are wired and trained to recognize patterns and apply concrete (or very creative) solutions to problems faced makes them incredibly valuable in the tech industry. I've seen more than a few from my creative network pivot (and thrive) as programmers and/or architects.