Meet Jordy Bruins

Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Jordy Bruins. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Hi Jordy, so happy you were able to devote some time to sharing your thoughts and wisdom with our community. So, we’ve always admired how you have seemingly never let nay-sayers or haters keep you down. Can you talk to us about how to persist despite the negative energy that so often is thrown at folks trying to do something special with their lives?

It’s actually quite simple. I believe that an artist’s vision is an artist’s vision. You can sharpen your brand or get new angles and ideas for your projects from others ideas. And that doesn’t mean any negative feedback is useless or not well meant. But if your vision is dependent on something that others disagree with than do not let yourself be distracted from the goal. Feedback can be used or ignored, both to your advantage, it’s your choice. And in the end it’s just art. Nobody is going to die because you taped a banana to the wall. A subjective or even objective horrible artistic opinion or view is not detrimental to other people. Hate and art don’t mix.

Thanks for sharing that. So, before we get any further into our conversation, can you tell our readers a bit about yourself and what you’re working on?

I’m music producer and DJ ‘Son of 8-Bits’ and I like to make and play electro and techno music. I’m currently working on a project to have my first vinyl release pressed and on the 3rd of March, 303, I’m releasing an acid techno EP through various webstores. No streaming services will be involved until later. I’m still working hard on getting it done on time and the stress is building! But I’m confident I can get it done in time. At time of writing there’s still 2 weeks left and I still need to make the artwork and finish one of the tracks. Looking at the previous question: Set the bar high and see how high you can make it. Don’t worry if you can’t reach that bar. You will always fail if you think you aren’t good enough. You’ll be tormenting yourself and that won’t help you reach higher.

There is so much advice out there about all the different skills and qualities folks need to develop in order to succeed in today’s highly competitive environment and often it can feel overwhelming. So, if we had to break it down to just the three that matter most, which three skills or qualities would you focus on?

Taking the opportunity to start working on my craft. I went through a pretty heavy burnout and noticed I could only relax doing what I like and know, or rather what I was curious to know. So my take is, 1, being mindful, by far the hardest one of the three. 2, perserverance, which comes quite natural if you’re following your passion. And 3, knowing your tools!

1) Being mindful isn’t always an option. This is how I got in a burnout in the first place. Not being able to move or change my trajectory. This is what capitalism is doing to us, we’re being forced into these roles we don’t know or like. When I was at home on sick leave I could really feel the improvement of my mental state just to think of where I’d like to go.

2) Perserverance. It’s simple, I have taken breaks from music, but I can’t stay away! I got boreouts in those periods so the signs are quite clear.

3) Know your tools! In my case fiddling around with all the various things music production has to offer was a very long and arduous study. Sometimes just slapping effects on a sound will make it sound good, but did it really improve? So get the sound right at the source and then use effects to further build upon that. But there was also synthesis, or how to make a sound you want or need using synthesisers. And then there’s analog and FM synthesis. Sampling can be used in various ways, just playing one-shots of sounds, or looping parts, but also as a way to synthesize a new sound. So at some points all these subjects felt like a never ending rabbit holes. Each with their splits in the tunnel leading to more rabbit holes. See point number two, haha!

Thanks so much for sharing all these insights with us today. Before we go, is there a book that’s played in important role in your development?

A management book called Getting Things Done by David Allen. It makes task management easy and quite fun actually. Its philosphy is fitting for creatives, though it seems to be aimed at office jobs. Because of simple things like, if you don’t feel like starting a big task at the start of the day, take a moment to do some short and simple things first to warm up and perhaps just have a cup of coffee. This really helps with the overwhelmed feeling artists can get when they are working on big projects. As a bonus book tip: Check out the works of Austin Kleon who has great ideas on how to deal with things like focus and distraction. Like in Getting Things Done, sometimes you gotta let yourself get distracted a bit by small things to actually be fully able to work on big ones.

Contact Info:

Image Credits

‘Studio 1’ & ‘Studio 2’: David van Egmond
‘Streets’: Ronald Pronk Photography

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