My first public drawing has a title and a backstory, and getting here took three years, a handful of generous artists, and one very personal grudge against generative AI. Consider it the origin story

The industry everyone assumes you outgrow by twenty is now the biggest entertainment business on the planet. Average player age: 37.

Ten thousand Swedish twins later, the data says raw practice barely matters once you control for genetics. Read past the headline and it says something much weirder, and much more useful.

On music theory, deadlines, and why "rules are made to be broken" is almost always said by people who haven't learned the rules yet.

Everyone's making something. Not everyone's making art. A look at what separates the two, and why the brand-first generation might be producing a lot of very impressive proof-of-concept.

On the strange, invisible craft of writing music for moments that might never happen the same way twice.

Antoine Fuqua is a great filmmaker. "Michael"" is a great argument for why great filmmakers shouldn't let estates run the edit suite.

I used to finish things quickly. Then I learned what I was doing. Those two facts are related.

There's a good chance you know exactly who I'm looking for. Can you help?

I spent two weeks trying to market neoclassical music on TikTok the right way. Here's what the stats actually said, and why I ended up more interested in the question than the answer.

On confusing a full calendar with a creative life

Platforms don't just host your work. They rewire how you think before anything gets made. That's the part nobody warned you about.

I spent decades writing code and being told music was a nice hobby to have. Here is how that particular piece of advice turned out to be spectacularly wrong.

We keep our unfinished work out of shame. We should be keeping it as evidence.

The romantic version leaves out all the work she does.

On reception theory, meaning-making, and why your interpretation might be the actual work

I saw an ad today for a shiny new AI platform that claims it can analyze a video and instantly score it. Let's talk about why it's not a big deal.

We need to talk about the state of making music right now.

From where I am sitting, we are experiencing an absolute influx of creativity. Here's why.

If you ask me about my absolute favorite movie, the answer never changes.

So, someone recently slipped into my inbox with a very earnest question.

So, the US administration just directed the Pentagon and other federal agencies to release their classified UFO and UAP files.

Let me tell you about the exact moment I realized I had crossed the invisible, irreversible threshold into old age.

Just when you thought this story had been done to death.

It has been a solid twenty years since I started actively paying attention to the general public, and what a delightful journey it has been.

Alt: The Ron Swanson giggles

Music For Film | Nicolas Schuele Official Website