Craft, Creativity and Career (with Tero Potila)

If you’ve ever felt intimidated by songwriting or composing, then you are going to love this. Today I have an interview to share with you from our recent Guest Expert, composer Tero Potilo.

In our Meet The Team episode on Friday, with our Community Conductor Stewart Hilton, he mentioned he had got in touch with one of our Guest Experts to talk about collaboration and songwriting, and that was Tero.

So in this interview, we talk about the mindset and attitude you need to be musically creative. We talk about balancing financial needs and artistic creativity if you’re trying to make a career out of songwriting or composing. He shares the truly inspiring origin of his own creative pursuits, how he came to realize that he too could compose great music, and he also talks about the shift in perspective on songwriting that helped him see how he could continually improve at his art and his craft.

He also gave a little hint of the collaboration stuff he presented in his masterclass right after this interview, and I’ll be back tomorrow to share a little clip from that masterclass with you that I think you’re going to love. Please enjoy this mini interview with Tero Potila!

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Christopher: Today I’m joined by composer, songwriter, and producer Tero Potila.

Tero has had a fascinating and varied musical career so far, including co-writing hit K-pop songs, writing music for Red Bull, PGA golf, X-Box, and even scoring music for a Superbowl commercial and the 2018 Olympics.

We’re fortunate to have Tero in with us as our Guest Expert here at Musical U this month. He’s in coaching our Next Level members this coming week on collaboration, and today is presenting our monthly masterclass for all members on the topic of collaborating in music. Tero, welcome to the show!

Tero: Awesome, thank you, glad to be here.

Christopher: I would love to start with my favourite question to ask musicians, which is, what does musicality mean to you?

Tero: It’s a big question!

I guess to me personally, it means ability to connect to music. When you hear it emotionally, you feel what the writers felt when they had the music in mind and also ability to do the same the other way. So describe your ideas and emotional state with music and other people then able to connect to it through music.

That’s how I perceive it.

Christopher: Fantastic. I love that question because it’s remarkable the variety of answers we hear, and it brings out so much of each musicians or educators individual perspective.

I’m really keen to hear a little bit more about your own creative process and how you bring that emotional connection through in your music. But I’d love to go back a little bit to begin with because I think you have a particularly interesting story in that you started music very, very young, and you were clearly devoted to music from an early age, but you actually took your career in a different direction then and only a bit later made music your full time profession. So tell us a little bit about that backstory, how you evolved as a musician and how your career developed.

Tero: Yeah, so I was, when I was born, my dad was still teaching at a music institute, and he, he was very patient with kids. I have kids myself, and I have been unable to teach them so far. They’re two and five.

Anyways, he was very patient with children, and he was able to get me learning already. At very young age, I learned to play the clarinet, a few notes on it, two years old, that’s a picture of me playing, played my first gig with my dad at three years old and learned to read music at three years old. None of those things make you long term a better musician or something.

But it’s just I was already so interested that my dad saw the kind of the drive I had already for it. And so starting from that point, I was very much into all the music I heard around me. My dad’s big bands, choir practice, orchestra he played and all those different things he was involved in at the music institute.

And I was always at the concerts. And I remember listening to the orchestra when he’s playing a clarinet solo in a piece. I was so impressed, and I already knew that’s what I want to do.

And it just grew from there. I was able to just, like, daydream like a child daydreams about stuff. I was able to continue doing that to my adult life.

That, honestly is one of the key things, just being able to keep the let’s say the spark going from music, because as everybody who’s tried to make music more than a hobby would say, it is incredibly difficult to make any money from it. Definitely difficult to make a living from it, unless you just happen to get lucky.

And that’s very rare that just luck makes your career. It’s typically hard work, perseverance, and just sticking with it through thick and thin and that kind of, let’s say, imagination and being able to just zone out and be just obsessed with music kept that going. And I’ve always fallen back on that, even on the hard times and hard days. And that’s, that’s what laid out the career, really.

And along the way, as you move out of your parents and start your own life, you have to pay bills. And sometimes I was able to pay bills by touring with my bands and stuff. But, you know, overall, I still needed to do other work.

And, you know, I’m a tech nerd too, which seems to go well hand in hand with music nowadays, especially. So I got into programming, multimedia, online training, and actually created a thriving career in that too. And it’s not that I didn’t like it, I enjoyed that work too, but my heart wasn’t in it.

I still knew music is the career I’m going for. And so I was always doing that the same time I was, you know, when you’re young, single, live on your own, you got time. There’s no children who need your time or money.

So I was investing all my time and money into music, and I reached a point, I want to say, 16-17 years ago now, when I could not do both anymore, it was not possible. And if I was to make a full time move to music, I had to quit the day job. It’s as simple as that.

I wasn’t quite making the money for music, and so it was just trusting that this will work and just went for it. And overall, it has worked out.

There’s been, you know, it’s like being a freelancer in any business, but especially as unpredictable as music. There’s still interesting months sometimes I’m like, ooh, I’m raising a family on this. This is crazy, but it always works out. You just have to get back to, why am I doing this? Because I love music.

I go back to listening to something awesome, get inspired, get back into it, and then remember, what’s the alternative? It’s, you know, there’s nothing wrong with working in another career that pays your bills and provides for your family. That really is the honorable thing to do and everyone needs to do it.

However, if you’re able to go for what your passion is, it’s most days I’m not working and I’m doing 60 hours weeks regularly and I don’t feel like I’m working. I just go to my studio in the morning, come up with ideas, and then money shows up. It’s pretty incredible. And I’m actually very thankful I’ve done all the other careers along the way, and jobs.

You know, first of all, gives you a perspective of really appreciating, even on a hard day or a hard month, when you’re just making zero money and you’re like, oh, my God, how am I going to make this work? Gives you the drive and energy and the positive outlook that you need to find your next project.

If you get stuck in the negative mindset where you’re like, oh, my God, it’s not working, none of this is good enough, and you just let that cycle go, then you’re not going to find more work. I find that the, just like everything in life, you have to look at it from a positive angle. Then when you’re approaching people, they can feel your positive vibes, you know, especially us musicians, we can tell when someone’s very positive and they’re adding to your skillset rather than drawing from it.

And that’s how it’s always worked out for me. I just stay positive, go back to the main reason why am I even doing this? Especially when the business gets crazy.

And just focus on the love of music. As soon as you focus on money, the music starts sounding terrible and it’s kind of like lying. If you’re pretending, let’s say you’re writing a piece of music, that’s just because someone pays you a lot of money to do it, but you don’t enjoy making that kind of music.

It’s. It never works out. It just doesn’t.

So, um, yeah, that’s my backstory. And the tech career has ended up helping me a lot. Building my own studio, being able to do my own tech support, all kinds of benefits from it. And actually, I still keep in touch many friends from that industry as well. And it’s all around great.

I think that’s it. Other than, yeah, just every morning, wake up with that open mind, positive attitude for what I’m going to do today. That is key, I find.

Christopher: Fantastic, yeah, and definitely one thing I love about you, and one reason I’m really excited to have you present this masterclass today is that you have such experience and insight, both on the kind of practicalities of collaborating and having a career in terms of networking and relationships and that kind of thing.

And the psychology, as you’ve touched on there, with the positive mindset and the letting yourself daydream in an optimistic way. And also the creative side. Talk a little bit more about that creative side. How do you think about your creative process? You mentioned there the importance of not putting the money first and letting the music be the music.

How do you think about creativity? Or where did you develop your creativity along the way?

Tero: So, actually, I have a very interesting story for that. I was twelve years old, and I had not even thought about trying to create music yet. I just listened to music, learned music every day.

I was already studying at the music institute, also where my dad teaches, so I was learning music on piano, keyboards. I was starting to get into playing guitar, and I thought, you have to be just some crazy special person that I’m not that creates the music. I never even thought I could do it. Never even crossed my mind.

Then one day, this, I remember this was in the summer between school time off. So I walk over to my best friend’s house who lived across the street, and he also had gotten into playing guitar.

Really cool dude. And he was just like me, a regular guy who just got excited about rock music and started learning how to play guitar. So I walk over one morning and he’s like “hey, dude, you should sit down and listen to this. I wrote a song”.

I’m like “what? No way. Like, you wrote a song? Let’s hear it.”

And he played it, and, you know, it was like an instrumental on guitar with some cool chords and some lead parts that he was planning on and stuff like that. And I’m listening to him like, man, this is actually really good. And I could not believe it.

I went home after, I’m like, hmm, if he can write a song, he’s just like me. Like, I should be able to do it. And I went home and I just sat down with my guitar, closed the door, and I started trying, and it just… It was so difficult!

But eventually I came up with something that. Something that sparked more inspiration and felt good. And in the end, it was a. It was a decent song. I mean, nothing impressive, really, songwriting wise, but just a good start.

So I was super excited. I was able to write my first song. And that made me realize, actually, anyone can write a song.

You just need an idea, and then you just work on it, and you don’t actually even have to be good on your instrument to write a song. It helps if you’re good on an instrument, but you just need to know enough to get the idea out. At that point, I wasn’t thinking of, like, all these things, you know, putting in production and drums and bass and guitars and vocals.

I wasn’t even thinking about singing yet, but that is how it started, and I realized I can actually do this. So I started regularly doing it every day, and as I was doing it, I noticed it was getting easier. So a few weeks into it, I sit down with my guitar, and I’m like, wow, these ideas just keep coming.

Like, I remember how hard it was the first time. This isn’t that hard anymore. And later on, I got to learn, as I started studying this in school and I collaborated with others, I started realizing songwriting or composing is actually more of a craft than art.

At least I always imagined, like, probably most people who don’t write music, that you have to be in this special mood. You need something’s wrong in your life, and you bring that in, and you use that as an inspiration, and that can be true, but it doesn’t have to be that way.

You can actually have a perfectly happy, good life, and you can tap into a story you heard on TV. You talk to a friend who’s like, oh, man, I just broke up with my girlfriend, and he says something. A line.

You’re like, ah. Oh, okay. And you go home and you start working on that, and you can feel what they felt, because us humans, we can relate to each other’s emotions.

And so I’m like, oh, man, the world is full of ideas. I don’t actually have to torture myself necessarily. I mean, you know, life happens to us all, and we all have lots of things to write about from our own life as well.

But you can also write what you hear somewhere else, reading a book, anything. And so I started tapping into all kinds of things like that. And slowly, my styles, also of music that I started working on, were expanding, and, yeah, that’s how my creative process started, realizing that it’s kind of like going to the gym.

You don’t have to be Arnold Schwarzenegger to be good at the gym. Yes. If you want to be the best in the world, you have to be like him.

You can be a skinny guy like me. You can still go to the gym and work out, and you will get stronger. Right? Same with songwriting.

You focus on your strengths and keep making them stronger. And, you know, let’s say you’re not so strong in lyrics. Well, you know, you find a friend who’s really good in lyrics, you bring them in, let them do the lyrics, and you do the music.

And now you are bringing together a skillset that will most likely result in a better song than if you did it on your own. So that’s kind of how I learned the whole creative process on my own before I even really started studying. And then obviously going to school and studying more helps refine the process.

But really, it all comes down to that.

Christopher: Wonderful. And when you touched there on bringing other people into the process, I know that a lot of people watching or listening might have tensed up at the idea of, you know, working with someone else and sharing your work while it’s incomplete and so on, which is maybe a good point to ask you to share a little bit about what you’ll be covering in today’s masterclass for members. What are you going to be talking about?

Tero: So we’ll be talking about how to collaborate in music and how to both professionally and just for fun, I’ll cover all of it. But the big point of it is getting over your fears of doing it and getting over the imposter syndrome. Everyone has that.

I’ve never met anyone who doesn’t have that. They might not admit it, but they still have it. It’s just all in your head.

It’s crazy how much of this is in your head, especially because music is such a personal thing. You’re, even if you’re writing, let’s say you’re working on a song and the idea is based on a story you heard from someone else life, but it’s still you using your personal emotions, creating the music and putting it out there.

So now if you go to a collaborative situation, it’s a lot. It takes a lot to – I don’t want to call it safe, but, like, you are exposing yourself, you’re giving this idea out, and if someone shoots it down, it’s easy to take it personally.

So I’ll be talking a lot about those things and how to approach it in a way that, first of all, you sort of assuming that you have mutual respect with this person or people you’re working with in a session now, you don’t need to worry about it. If they say, well, I don’t really like that melody, can we try like this? So instead of thinking, oh, my God, he doesn’t like it, focus on, oh, yeah, let’s try your idea, let’s see where this goes. And just focus on the positive.

It’s a learning opportunity. That’s what collaborations end-to-end all about. It’s someone introducing ideas you would have never even thought.

And I mean, without an exception, every single collaboration I’ve ever done, the songs came out way better than I could have ever done. And it’s just, that’s the beauty of collaborating. So we’ll be talking a lot about that.

Christopher: Terrific. Well, I can’t wait. And I can see our members are already piling up in the waiting room, so we should wrap it up there.

If you’d like to learn more about Tero and his work, check out teropotila.com and we’ll have a link to that in the shownotes.

Tero, thank you for joining us for this quick pre-masterclass interview, and I hope to have you back on the show again soon.

Tero: Awesome. Thanks, Christopher!

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Christopher: Wasn’t that cool? I loved getting a glimpse into how he thinks and how he built his career.

And that masterclass that followed was just fantastic because, like he said at the end there, you know, it’s hard enough for most of us to create and bring stuff out of ourselves with the vulnerability it involves, but to do it with other people is a whole other thing. And in the masterclass, he really, he just nailed it.

And so it was quite hard for me to pick, I wanted to share a clip with you guys, and it was quite hard to pick!

But there was one bit where he just said one sentence.

And, you know, as I watched the masterclass back at the time, it stirred up all of these memories for me of when I was first trying to collaborate musically. When I was maybe 14 or 15, I was playing in a band. We were trying to write songs, and it was so uncomfortable.

And it was funny because I was older than the other guys in the band, not by a lot, but a bit. And so generally, I wasn’t nervous around them. You know, the dynamic wasn’t that I felt like the newbie or anything, but when it came to creating stuff together and sharing ideas, I was just terrified, quite frankly.

And there was one sentence in Tarot’s masterclass where if I could go back in time and have him say that to me back then, it would have just completely eliminated that fear for me.

So I’m going to share that segment of the masterclass with you tomorrow, and I hope it will have the impact on you that it can, I think, for any creative musician who’s excited about the idea of collaborating, but maybe still feeling nervous.

So stay tuned for that coming up tomorrow. I will see you then. Cheers!

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