Imagine that this year was your most productive and creative year ever.

You'd probably need to get off to a pretty good start, right?

That's why I like to start every year with Jamuary.

Jamuary is a challenge to make some music every single day during the month of January.

It's not about perfection, it's not about making something great, it's about showing up and creating.

Making something and then sharing it.

I didn't invent Jamuary, but I've wholeheartedly embraced it and been doing it for about 7 or 8 years now.

And it's one of my favorite times of year and it's also a time of year I fear quite a lot, because it's a big commitment and it takes a lot of energy.

But it's not impossible, and every year I do it, I wind up with a lot of music I never had before.

And some of the music I've released and albums I've put out have been the result of things I started in Jamuary.

I think Jamuary is one of the most valuable things I do all year, and I really want to encourage you to join in and participate.

So I'm going to give you 7 tips that will help you have a successful Jamuary.

So the first thing you really gotta do is define what success even is.

And for Jamuary, this is all about showing up and making something.

And that's it.

You're just gonna show up and spend some time creating something that didn't exist before, and really try to embrace the magic of that.

You're creating something out of nothing.

It's kind of like magic, but without the trick.

There's no sleight of hand or diverted attention.

You're pulling rabbits out of a hat for real.

It's an amazing thing and if you focus on that, and each day realize that you're about to do something that's never happened before, it can really help get you excited about You want to focus on the process of just making some music.

And really, that's the only thing you can truly control anyway.

Think about your favorite artists.

I mean, even people that "write hit songs" and have these major musical impacts don't know they're doing it when they're doing it.

How many times have you heard people say that they thought other songs on their record were better, or this was the song that they were gonna not even record?

They don't always know when it's happening, so you can't even worry about that.

The only measure you need of success for Jamuary is that you showed up and you made something.

.0000000000291 Worry about nothing else.

My second tip for you is to focus on the habit of consistency.

Big things are really just the accumulation of lots of small things.

Right now, in fact, it's snowing outside, and each little snowflake is tiny but over time, it piles up and we've got a few inches of snow already in just a few hours and that's kind of like your effort in Jamuary.

You build up over time.

By showing up over and over again, you start building this habit of music making and it becomes a little bit easier every single time.

Your ideas start to flow.

I don't think you make music because you have ideas; I think you have ideas because you make music.

The more you're doing it, the more ideas you get to try.

This is kind of like a gym for your creativity.

You're showing up to build muscle.

You don't need to hit personal records every day to advance in the gym.

You might once in a while, and that's nice and you have your little breakthroughs, but it's not the point.

The point is showing up and doing it every single day, and that's the way we should think about Jamuary as well.

Just show up and do it, work on that muscle.

It's the daily effort that we put in that creates these big exponential returns.

Every jam is sort of like a brick in a castle you're building, or a drop in a bucket that's filling up over time, or a snowflake in a snowstorm.

It all adds up and that's what we want to focus on, is that we're building something little by little.

We might not see the growth day by day, but over time it will happen.

Tip number 3 is extremely important.

It's to lower your expectations.

Do not focus on making something great or intelligent.

Just make something.

And the nice thing is, if today doesn't turn out great, there's always tomorrow.

You dust yourself off, you try again.

.0000000000291 And allow that to be okay.

56 00:04:18,670.0000000000291 --> 00:04:27,540 We get creative blocks when we try to make something great, or we want to be intelligent, or we want to make a hit or impress people.

That's when we get stuck, because we are afraid we're going to make something bad.

Give yourself permission to make bad stuff.

It really doesn't matter, because you always got tomorrow anyway.

And there's a surprising truth about the pressure you're going to feel by making music every day.

You're not going to have a lot of time every single day.

There are going to be some days you only have a few minutes.

that pressure sort of gives you a built-in excuse, because you're feeling the pressure, you've got barely any time to do this, you're doing it every single day.

Nobody makes a hit every single day.

Nobody can make a masterpiece in just a short amount of time over and over again.

So you've got your built-in excuse.

You can really let yourself off the hook a lot by embracing the pressure and using it as your own way out of making anything great.

When I do my music production club Zoom meetings, we spend about 45 minutes making music and then we come back and we share what we made.

And it's funny how liberating that is, because there is a lot of pressure to make music in 45 minutes, but there's a release of pressure because you only had 45 minutes.

So when we lower our expectations, a lot of times we open the door for cool things to happen.

And even if we start out with something bad, a lot of times our own musical taste comes into play and we start to fix those bad ideas.

So don't worry about it.

Again, as I said before, you can't control this stuff, so just show up and make music without any real expectation of it being any good or worth anything other than just the effort it took to make it.

Those first 3 are more mindset type of things, which are very important because most of this is mental, but I want to give you something that's a little more practical too.

So tip number 4 is get a little bit organized.

Have your stuff set up, ready to go.

Find yourself a place where you can work so that you're not- spending a lot of time getting ready to make music, that you're not trying to move stuff around.

As much as possible, see if you can get yourself a little spot, doesn't have to be anything major, but just a comfortable place where you can work.

And it might also be helpful to try to schedule this in advance.

A regular time is great.

.0000000000582 If you know you always have 7:00 PM open, then make it 7:00 PM every day.

thing we wanna do here is not spend a lot of time wondering if we're gonna make music.

We wanna have it set up.

So, take a look at your calendar and maybe the night before make a decision like, "It looks like I have an opening here, so I'm gonna use that for my January time." Also, be a little spontaneous too, though.

If you realize you have an hour unexpectedly and you can spend some time making music, that's great as well.

Just like you might wanna have a time and a place ready, it might also be good to have some ideas ready to go too, maybe a type of music you wanna work on or types of instruments you wanna k- use or sounds you wanna use.

If you need some direction on how to s- get started, I've created a prompt for every single day of the month that you can use to make some music.

It's just something to get you going.

It has a little activity and a little bit of a philosophical mindset type of thing to get into too.

It's very similar to what I've done with my book, The 5 Minute Music Producer, where I give you an activity that takes only a few minutes to do, and it also has a kind of philosophical reasoning behind it.

So these prompts are a little bit shorter than that, but they're great for just when you need to get started.

"Try this, try this." It'll get you trying things you might not have tried before.

They might get you trying some things you've never tried before and maybe open up some new creative doors.

.0000000000582 Tip number 5 is one of my favorites and something I'm gonna focus on a lot, and that is to work fast and don't think too hard.

Making music is making decisions.

So, decide and then decide again.

Don't think about decisions, decide.

.9999999999418 Don't sit around deciding.

102 00:08:32,818.9999999999418 --> 00:08:35,120 I don't even like that word, deciding.

You either decide or you decided.

Deciding takes that long.

.99999999994179 It's an instant.

106 00:08:41,78.99999999994179 --> 00:08:49,760 If you're taking longer than that to decide, you're thinking, you're evaluating, you're calculating, and you're getting inside your head.

Spend as little amount of time as possible deciding.

Make it this, "I'm doing it, I'm not doing it.

I'm trying this, I'm not gonna do that." Whatever it is you're gonna do, make those decisions as fast as possible.

Try to be impulsive, musically.

Use January as an exercise in going with your musical impulses, going with your guts, without judging, without thinking too hard.

Most of making music anyway is reacting to what's happening.

So, if you aren't making those initial decisions, you have nothing to react to.

Make something, make a beat, and go.

Go on to the next thing.

Don't wonder if you made a good beat.

React to it.

If it's a weak beat, make the musical elements stronger.

A lot of times in music anyway, you have these sacrifices where you can't have everything going crazy and being super intelligent all the time.

You might need a very simple beat so that you can have something a little more complex in other areas of your song.

So, make those decisions, react, move on.

You wanna try to stay excited.

Don't worry about achieving your goals.

Don't worry about if things are good or not.

Just move forward.

.9999999998836 A lot of times, I'm trying to work so fast, often out of just time constraints, that I don't get a chance to decide if I like what I'm doing.

And I love that place to be, because it's kind of forced because of the pressure of the situation, but it's a good way to be when you're creating, to have this, like, open-minded feeling that every idea is okay, because the next idea is going to try to work with it.

But if you don't have those initial ideas, you can't make something work with it.

So think about it.

There's no such thing as deciding.

That's wasting time.

That's procrastinating.

Decisions happen like that, so make them and move forward.

Strategy number 6 is, in case things go wrong, you wanna give yourself a backup plan.

There are gonna be days that you really don't feel very inspired to make music, and that's completely normal.

Don't feel bad about that.

That's just how it is.

Sometimes lightning strikes you, but most of the time, it doesn't.

What I have found, though, is that inspiration tends to come when you're working, once you start getting into it.

It is kinda weird that something that we probably all love, like making music, can be so hard to get started.

And I'm notoriously talking about this, how I- I'll do my household chores before I make music.

I'll do everything else first, all the things I don't wanna do, almost like a way to avoid it.

It's because I really don't know how it's gonna turn out, and it's a little bit scary.

Once in a while, you're inspired, and then you just have to do it, but that doesn't tend to happen.

But I do find, and Jamuary has provided me with a lot of evidence of this, that once I get going, I tend to get inspired.

You get The making has to happen before the inspiration happens sometimes, and that's a good thing to teach yourself.

And Jamuary will teach you that, because when you are feeling a little low on inspiration, remember that doing it will get you going.

There's also gonna be days when you really don't know where to begin.

This is when some kind of backup plan will help.

.0000000001164 So what are you gonna do when you're not inspired or you're not sure where to start?

Do something that's relatively easy for you, that's low-friction type thing.

On those days, I tend to pick up a guitar.

Maybe I'll just play something on my acoustic guitar, or come up with something, and that'll be my jam for my day.

.0000000001164 And I'll give myself permission to have a less involved session if I want to.

157 00:12:33,680.0000000001164 --> 00:12:40,368 Maybe I'll just use some kinda groove box, or I'll play with a plugin for a few minutes and then render that out, and that'll be my jam.

I do allow myself the thought that maybe today is not gonna be a spectacular piece of music.

Sometimes, though, like I said before, you get inspired because you start making stuff and you start hearing things you like, but it doesn't always happen.

If you find yourself missing a day, don't sweat it.

Just try not to miss 2 days in a row.

If you miss today, try to show up tomorrow.

Make it a point.

Try not to build a streak of losing and missing days.

.0000000001164 So I created this calendar for the music production club for Jamuary, and I've been making these for the last few years, and I got my old ones hanging on the wall with the Xs all over them.

166 00:13:19,680.0000000001164 --> 00:13:23,536 Each day you show up and make something, you just put a little X on the calendar.

Over time, you start building a chain of Xs, and the longer that chain gets, the harder it is to miss a day you really don't wanna miss.

And if you happen to miss a day, the goal is not to have 2 spaces in a row that have no Xs.

I find this to be very motivating, because I look at it each day and say, "I really wanna put that X there.

.9999999998836 I really wanna get this thing filled with Xs." 171 00:13:50,819.9999999998836 --> 00:13:53,392 And sometimes, that's enough to keep me going.

This is a nice little way to get yourself inspired, maybe not so much out of the desire to make music, but just out of being a little bit stubborn.

Just keep in mind that it's likely things won't go as planned.

You may not have the space you wanna use one day.

You may not have the time you want.

You might not have access to certain instruments or whatever it might be.

Give yourself some sort of backup plan.

.9999999998836 Have an idea of what you will do in case things don't work out as expected, because it probably will happen at some point, so be ready for it.

179 00:14:27,339.9999999998836 --> 00:14:34,740 And the seventh and final tip I have for you is really a big part of how this thing got started.

It's to leverage the power of community.

A lot of us are working alone in a room, making music by ourselves.

It can be really helpful to share what you make and see what other people are making.

It'll inspire you.

.9999999998836 Seeing other people create makes you feel like it's possible to do it.

185 00:14:52,319.9999999998836 --> 00:14:53,020 It shows you.

It's proof it's not impossible.

Someone else did it.

They're doing it.

.0000000001164 It's like when you're at the gym or on a team and you're working out, and you're not gonna stop because the person next to you won't stop.

Use that.

Use Jamuary like that.

Share your work.

I think this is really important, and it is a big hurdle for a lot of people, you owe it to other people to share.

Think of the people that are afraid to share, maybe like you are.

195 00:15:18,819.9999999998836 --> 00:15:24,220 If you do it, you might just be that extra motivation they need to do it too.

When you share something, you can create these ripple effects in the world, and your posts and your music might inspire other people to keep going or even to get started, and that's a really valuable gift you can give somebody.

If you don't share, if you're not putting it out there, there might be people that are not gonna do it as well.

.0000000001164 So think of it as for other people as much as it is for yourself.

199 00:15:49,430.0000000001164 --> 00:15:51,600 Don't worry about being judged.

.00000000011642 Uh, almost nobody has negative things to say about it, and if they do, that's probably 'cause they're not doing it themselves.

201 00:15:59,180.00000000011642 --> 00:16:00,839.9999999998836 It's really a 202 00:16:00,839.9999999998836 --> 00:16:02,640 more of a statement about that person.

To shoot someone else down that's trying to be creative and trying to have fun and trying to improve themselves really says more about the person making the comment than the person being commented about anyway.

But that's a really unusual and rare thingYou're probably not gonna encounter it in the music production community.

The people are very supportive and you can really offer a lot to other people by sharing your work.

.9999999998836 And you can get a lot by hearing what other people are doing, finding out how they work maybe, or just trying to create something that was in a similar type of genre or style.

.00000000011642 There's so much that can happen because a community, and it can be the difference between making something and not.

208 00:16:44,84.00000000011642 --> 00:16:53,84.00000000011642 And speaking of community, I have to shout out the Music Production Club because that's probably the biggest reason I'm able to do this as much as I've done in the past.

209 00:16:53,84.00000000011642 --> 00:17:00,194 We have a Discord where we have a Jamuary 2026 hashtag thread going on, and everybody posts there.

.0000000001164 And it's really inspiring to show up on that Discord and see almost more music than I can listen to.

211 00:17:06,804.0000000001164 --> 00:17:13,824.0000000001164 And to participate in that and have people comment and react and talk about what we're doing, it, it's very exciting.

212 00:17:13,824.0000000001164 --> 00:17:25,3.9999999998835847 There's been so many times in the past few years where I've been thinking, "Maybe I'm not gonna do it today," and I go on that Discord and I see what other people are doing and I say, "I wanna be part of that too.

213 00:17:25,3.9999999998835847 --> 00:17:25,964 I wanna contribute.

.999999999883585 I wanna be part of this conversation." 215 00:17:28,43.999999999883585 --> 00:17:34,32.00000000023283 And it's got me to make music and sometimes some of my favorite things have come out of that level of inspiration.

.00000000023283 So whether you join the Music Production Club with us or you just do #jamuary2026 on Instagram or wherever, I really think it's a great idea to leverage community.

217 00:17:47,244.00000000023283 --> 00:17:50,164 It's so important, it helps you keep going.

And if you do join the Music Production Club, got the calendar that you can print out.

.99999999976717 I've got prompts for every single day of the month.

220 00:17:58,43.99999999976717 --> 00:18:01,964 I'll be giving some special downloads here and there to help you get going.

And there's also a special gift I wanna tell you about called Busifcation.

This is from Perform Module.

Animus and Vidius, who makes some incredibly deep Ableton Live packs and instruments and effects, especially, has created a huge set of effect racks that are really good for group tracks, auxiliary buses, the main channel.

And they do very complex processes really fast.

They're actually really perfect for Jamuary type works where you don't have a lot of time to do crazy mixing.

These devices do quite a lot for you and really make it easy.

And he's giving that away free during the month of January to the Music Production Club.

So it's normally a $35 pack and it's awesome.

.9999999997672 Uh, really happy and really thankful that Animus is doing that, and I think it's gonna be a big help to people on the Music Production Club side of things here.

230 00:18:53,563.9999999997672 --> 00:18:58,644 So if you wanna join us, go to brianfunk.com/mpc.

We'd love to have you there.

It's a great community of people and it gets really exciting during January.

But it'd be great to see you on Instagram or YouTube or SoundCloud sharing your Jamuaries.

I would love for 2026 to be your best year of music making, and so far, the best way I've found to start the year is with Jamuary to create and make stuff.

And in the Music Production Club, we follow that up in February with Finish February.

.0000000002328 So the idea there is to take something, at least, that we've made in January and finish it and hopefully release it in February.

237 00:19:40,744.0000000002328 --> 00:19:42,704 And a lot of cool stuff is coming out of that.

A lot of people have made some really great music.

.99999999976717 I've got an album or 2 that I've made because of this process.

It's effective.

So I really highly recommend you participate in Jamuary, and I'd love it if you joined us as well in the Music Production Club.

Thanks so much for listening to the podcast.

.99999999976717 It's The Music Production Podcast, and music producers produce music, so take January, take this new year to produce music, human music.

244 00:20:12,43.99999999976717 --> 00:20:13,264.00000000023283 We need that more than ever.

245 00:20:13,264.00000000023283 --> 00:20:16,016 Embrace your humanity, make stuff that's real.

It's more and more precious as the times change more and more.

So I would love to have you be part of that.

Thanks for watching.

Nice for listening.

Have a great day.