I feel this, but I don’t want to give up on it, because when it feels good, it feels really good. The few times a year I finish something I like, it’s some of my favorite music (out of any of the artists I listen to). The reward is huge, so I don’t want to quit.
I consider this “Type 2” fun - like climbing a long hill on a bicycle. I often dread it, but I don’t want to quit it.
I like this tip.
Stuck with meditation for several months and found I was happier without it.
CBD alone makes a small difference - it’s much stronger with some THC. Weed definitely helps with the fun factor, pulls me into “feel don’t think” territory, but the mix / technical side is always shit and i have a hard time sorting it out sober.
What are the others you mentioned?
Kind of reiterating what others said but for me what’s working is to work fast, not be too perfectionist about it and take time to just play around cause that’s where ideas come from. Like running, you want to keep it below max effort, start with short sessions, and do it regularly enough that it becomes a habit. It shouldn’t be a chore but a little discipline is helpful. When I’m tired or something, I make drones. 
And yeah, meditation doesn’t always work well for those prone to rumination! Anxiety brain needs to stay busy so flow state activities (varying by the person) can be a good substitute.
My boss taught me that’s it’s ok to do something good enough… everything you do doesn’t have to be perfect all the time… if you think that it has to, then it will ruin you.
Most of the times people who feel like they’re 90% finished with something aim for perfection.
So my question for you, what does the 10% consist of in your opinion?
Maybe, if you manage to rinse away the 10% that will make you feel less anxious towards music…
Edit: sorry I read your post as your tracks felt 90% finished… I guess the question is, what makes them feel unfinished?
Mindset
It sounds like worrying about improving is taking away from the initial enjoyment of sonic exploration
Maybe you are concerned with reaching the ‘next level’ instead of enjoyment of where you are now.
This seems to be an issue for many people for many things in life
Perhaps consider where your judgement is coming from, are you trying to reach expectations and where do your ideas of these expectations come from, your perception of other people’s standards of quality or your own desire to improve
Letting go of these things can not only help your enjoyment of the process but can actually help you reach further into improvement faster by taking away your mental block
Since you find books helpfull you might try this one
Zen Guitar
Some quotes
Stop thinking about the audience and what they may be thinking of your music. Just play the music.
A final word on self-criticism: Do not beat up on yourself. Even if you think you know your flaws, there is no need to advertise them. Most people won’t have noticed.
Do not analyze things to death. Sometimes the best strategy is, “Ready, fire, aim.” Do it first , then make adjustments. The answer lies in action-not in words.
So…
This book is not about technique or how to play but more about approach to mindset and could apply to your situation, any music and just life in general
Also Victor wooden had a good book
The Music Lesson: A Spiritual Search for Growth Through Music
Here is a quote that may apply to you
Okay, when I play at my best, I’m not thinking. I’m in the ‘zone.’ Music is flowing through me, but this flow is broken sometimes when I make a mistake. My mistakes are often caused by frustration, and making mistakes often causes me to become frustrated. Many times, poor technique is at the root of the problem. Poor technique robs me of free expression. It’s like I hear what I wanna play, but my technique doesn’t allow it to come out. “Now,” I continued, “in order for me to play freely, I need good technique, but I don’t wanna be thinking about my technique while I’m playing any more than I wanna be thinking about my mouth when I’m talking. So, when I practice, I use ‘concentration’ to learn what the technique is. Then I use ‘not concentrating’ to get completely comfortable using the technique. Combining the two concentration methods allows me to get a complete grasp of the technique.” I surprised myself. Somehow, I was finally getting it. I didn’t know where the information was coming from, but I was open to it and it was flowing through me. I wasn’t ready to stop. Feeling the energy, I kept talking. “If ‘not concentrating’ is where I want to end up, I need to add it to my practice routine. Combining ‘concentrating’ with ‘not concentrating’ is necessary to complete the circle. This, like you said, is yin and yang. Both parts are needed to complete the whole. We know how to concentrate and we know how to practice concentrating, but do we know how to practice ‘not concentrating’? I need to figure that out for the circle to be complete.”
Then just relax about it, because the attention span of “people” is fairly limited. They will probably listen to one or two songs, but that’s about it.
I do have a handful of things I am very proud of, but I want more
And feeling better about the process will help me make more, I think.
Quality comes from quantity ! Make more tracks, even unfinished. In fact, don’t set “finished” as a goal. Just record stuff. For every finished track, have like 10 or 20 unfinished projects.
Indeed, it’s not. And empathy is not in my wheelhouse either (shoudl I feel lucky ?). I’ve been doing this thing for more than 30 years now. Probably as a teenager I felt a bit of peer pressure, but no more. The (auto)satisfaction is huge now. which leads me to…
The few times a year I finish something I like, it’s some of my favorite music (out of any of the artists I listen to). The reward is huge, so I don’t want to quit.
If you’re proud of yourself a few times in a year, it’s already a great achievement !
It’s even ok to fiddle with your instruments without any result at all. You should really take the imperative out of your hobby.
THIS.
to start writing good tracks, one usually has to write some poor tracks first.
never managed to be fine with piano roll.
always using step sequencer plugins when working in a DAW.
Too right! Also, for consideration:
Perfectionism is not something to aspire to, it’s a disease that kills creativity. When you’re afraid of starting something for fear of its potential theoretical inadequacy the concern isn’t for bad art existing the concern is what you’re making means about you. You want to be the person that’s good at art you want to be a genius because you’re so special you’re like a first-born four-leaf unicorn next in line for the throne - essentially you care more about your pride than you care about the art - that’s not gonna prime a productive creative process that’s going to prime you bending over backwards to satiate your insecurities which you will never succeed in doing don’t try to satisfy your insecurities by trying to be perfect that’s like trying to cure an infection by crying don’t negotiate with terrorists your ego is a terrorist. When your fear of creating something stupid or bad prevents you from creating it you’re not serving anyone but your own feelings because everyone makes stupid and bad things that’s how you make good things everybody who’s blocked they’re committing the cardinal sin of assuming their job is to make something good.
– CJ The X, The Dialectics of Rick & Morty - Video Essay
I think for most people it’s normal to have loads of loops or ideas that dont get “published” or finished. By finished I mean in a state that I am happy enough to share with others.
Nice topic.
I started this journey into music making just on year ago, straight to hardware stuff, and never used a daw in my life yet.
As you can imagine the first steps I’ve made were like big jumps, discovering every day something new.
Now I’m starting to feel the need to refine my approach, and I started to focus on different kind of gear, like an Analog Heat or a more capable mixer, because I feel that I must work on other aspects than the pure melodic and rhythmic content, and this led to the first symptoms of frustration, cause I’m pushing myself out of the “jam for fun” routine into some kind of “finalize a track”.
I guess that is the normal path for everyone here and it’s interesting to read everybody thoughs on the subject, like watching into the future to see were I am going with this hobby.
My strategy to not get caught into frustration is to just take it easy. Everyday at work I think to my setup at home and then when I come back to it I often procrastinate to turn it on too, but you know what?
Who cares! I don’t have to pay bills from that, and that’s the same when I don’t feel to ride my bike in a nice sunny day, “wasting it”. I still have videogames to unbox from months ago… These are all stuff you do to feel better to yourself, if they start to feel like work, just do other things and don’t get sucked into the “I must do this or that”
Making music is full of different little tasks and nuances, today I spent hours on the same 16 step loop on my recently acquired MC-707, just refing that single plucky sound… Wasted time? Not at all: I discovered a bunch of stuff, I learnt better my new machine and I was also able to focus better on what kind of sounds I like more.
Yes, I didn’t even properly jam on it, go figure making a track out of it, but next time I’m going to turn the thing on I’ll be more efficient on it for sure and I’ll know better how to find “my” sound on other gear too.
So, just do what you feel, and take time to enjoy yourself, focus on the “here and now” more than on the final result you’re looking to achieve.
… And don’t be overlwelmed from all the things you see on youtube and IG, where everyone seems to spit out great stuff day in day out, that’s, at least for me, the first and foremost source of frustration and sense of inadequacy.
That’s a great Victor Wooten quote. Going to work on that. I agree. When i’m warmed up and i’ve been jamming all day (“concentrating”) then when I finally land on some material I like enough to develop, it comes out much more quickly on its own (“not concentrating”).
Good point 
I think more or less making a “mood board” (images, videos, sounds) can give yourself a lot of focus with in making a song… with out it there is this tendency to just drift aimlessly and bash your head against the wall in an attempt to make something cohesive. Sometimes it’s not bad to do this… sometimes, I think that struggle is healthy but yeah when I want to get and EP done it always comes back to the “mood board” type thing, even if I dont physically make one it is very useful just to have in mind.
The fact that you have an MC707 and I don’t is probably the only thing that helps me to be sure that this is not my post…. I waste a lot of time on this forum but for a moment there I had a frightening worry that maybe I’m doing it twice over with two accounts without even knowing…
100%
Why don’t you want to share it with others?
I know a lot of people in this community shit on social media… but Instagram in particular has really rearranged the meaning of music for me… 70% of the music I digest is in the form of social media. At first I was appalled by that realization, but then It dawned on me, that if I enjoy that medium, then why is it bad? Just because it is not a 10 track album doesn’t mean it’s bad… Maybe we can get fulfillment from those 1 minute clips as well?
I’m saying this because maybe the format you are currently using, is maybe wrong for you… maybe if you dialed back the “dark side of the moon” intentions and instead made ready for Instagram clips you’d get more enjoyment out of the music making process…
Nice humble attitude. Maybe you won’t get stuck this bad, though!
Totally agree with this approach. Most of the anxiety is that I spend too much time on this and not enough on creation. I definitely enjoy this, it just ends up feeling like a form of procrastination later on, though.
Good evening congratulations!very nice topic.i remember myself when i was studying in some music production school,how when we were in school we made music and when we went home nothing was going on.then the professor told us about this technique.of course it is also the amount of work you do with it.anyway i hope you unlock your creativity!
Separating the main creative part of the process (jamming, experimenting) from the technical stuff can be a big help. Just allow yourself time each day to enjoy playing and see what comes, without pressure. It might be a good idea to spend a while only doing that, in your case, just to feel some love for what you’re doing again. When you’re feeling it again, hit record when you think you might be on to something, and at some point you’ll have a bunch of stuff you feel positive about.
The technical side can be fun too, but there will inevitably be an aspect of slog to it. You just need to make peace with that. Worthwhile things don’t often come without struggle. Beat any procrastination or hesitation by committing to doing SOMETHING each day towards your goal of finishing tracks / an EP / whatever, even if it’s literally five minutes. That’s been massive for me… Keeps the momentum going without any overwhelming pressure. And very rarely will I ever do only 5 minutes once I’ve sat down and started
Hopefully you can create some positive momentum and get something finished. Repeat the process a few times over a year or two and you’ll have an idea if you’re getting somewhere, and if it’s a process you can enjoy. If it’s still bringing you little pleasure or satisfaction, I’d suggest adjusting your goals, and just playing for pleasure whenever you’re in the mood. Or finding something else to do that will bring you more joy
Have a look at Atomic Habits (James Clear) + The War of Art (Steven Pressfield). Good luck