Don't repeat. Iterate.
- Mar 31
- 4 min read
Updated: 4 days ago
How many times have you started yet another new project without taking any time to consider the direction you actually want to head in?
For the first few hundred tracks I made, I never stopped to ask myself that question, and it slowed my growth as a music maker in ways I only realised much later.
Don't just repeat. Iterate.
That statement might feel simple, but there's a massive difference between hitting the same motions on autopilot versus taking deliberate steps to grow.
One of the easiest traps to fall into is mindlessly repeating everything you have done before—especially during those first few years.
When I finally shifted my thinking from 'just do the same stuff again' to 'make something new and purposeful each time', the speed of my progress as an artist genuinely tripled.
There's a trap hidden in there too. You can fool yourself into thinking you're improving by just holding the idea of improvement in your head, but never actually changing your behaviour, it's still the same thing being created with different sounds involved.
Some people never take in any new information, never question their process, never re-evaluate what they want or enjoy. It's like running on a treadmill and expecting to get closer to the horizon.
So many of us end up stuck, feeling as if we're moving forward while actually staying in the same place—and not even having fun along the way.
Others watch a new tutorial on YouTube or pay for an online course and think they have progressed just because they consumed new content. If it is digested without intention, it becomes a kind of ‘mental masturbation’ where it feels good but nothing meaningful actually comes out of it: you open up a fresh project, but in practice do everything exactly as you did before. Nothing changes because nothing is applied.
It becomes an illusion of improvement that only exists in your head.
Some people take that illusion to an extreme, spending endless days watching tutorials without ever actually making music. They absorb far more information than they can implement, and barely dedicate any time to practising the skills they have 'learned' in theory.
I openly admit that I've done all three of these at various stages. The reality is that understanding how to genuinely move forward is a skill in itself. It only came when I became more deliberate, more aware of how I was operating, and more eager to measure my progress by actual changes in behaviour rather than the passing of hours in front of Ableton.
True knowledge shows up in how it changes your behaviour. If you soak in all kinds of fancy new information yet continue doing everything the same way, you have not really learnt anything.
This is where exceptional artists separate themselves from the pack. Innate talent can play a role, but their real edge usually comes from converting knowledge into consistent action.
If you learn five times faster than those around you, you might get five years' worth of growth packed into one. That is why some producers seem to reach unbelievable results in no time.
The good news is, you do not need giant leaps every week. Tiny 1% improvements each day will compound like crazy over time. Little increments can form an exponential curve.
'Don't just repeat. Iterate.'
If you take one simple mantra away from all this, let it be that.
To make it concrete:
Start by asking yourself what you want to improve. Direction matters more than speed: choosing a gentle path forward is far better than sprinting nowhere. You might just decide, 'I want my tracks to sound more like techno,' or 'I want to have more fun while making music,' or 'I want a track that truly feels like my own unique creation.' Each of those goals has you aiming somewhere more specific.
Deliberately decide to do something differently. Maybe you watch a tutorial, but you do so with the exact intention of learning how to use a new workflow to achieve that more 'techno' vibe, or how to inject genuine fun back into your sessions. A simple example might be ditching melodies for one track and focusing purely on an expanded drum selection, or deciding to beatbox random sounds into your phone to build your own raw sample pack. You are actively steering your process rather than drifting on habit.
Reflect on the results. Did it help? If it did, you have a new trick in your pocket. If it did not, you have learnt a lesson about what not to do next time. Either way, you win or you learn. By repeating this, you inevitably keep pushing forward, one step at a time, always guided by a sense of direction rather than blind repetition.
Repeat forever. By making sure you're moving forward, in the right direction, and never stopping... you guarantee that you'll get where you want to be. There is no other way.
I hope you take something from all this and decide to embed it deliberately into your next creative session.
Instead of defaulting to your usual pattern, try something that nudges you forward.
See how it feels, see what shifts in your track, see if it gets you that 1% closer to what you want your music to be.
Then carry on making music with a renewed sense of purpose.
Now, go make make some music (and deliberately improve something).
Big love
Eryk Kabay
Whenever you're ready, here are 3 ways I can help you make better music:
Watch my techno production masterclasses. Learn beyond the surface-level ‘how-to’ and get a deeper understanding of the 'why' and 'when' to make better decisions in all your future tracks. View the masterclasses here.
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