what happens between us
some thoughts on collaboration
I’ve spent a lot of time learning how to do everything myself.
I’m not an expert in any one area, but I’ve gotten to the point where I can competently write, produce, arrange, mix, and master my own music. I’ve built up enough of a skill set that I can take a track from idea to finished piece without relying on anyone else. That kind of self-sufficiency has been important to me—sometimes out of necessity, sometimes out of pride, and sometimes just because collaboration felt like too much of a logistical tangle.
This DIY ethos is partly economic, too. I can’t always afford to outsource production, mixing, or anything else, so I’ve learned to do it on my own. But it’s also creative: I want to make the music I want to hear in the world. And for the most part, I love the control and immediacy that solo work offers.
But here’s the thing I’ve been thinking about lately:
Relying on others can feel like a roadblock—but collaborating with others is often the best way to make something awesome.
There’s a tension there that I haven’t totally resolved. I’ve been back in the studio recently, working with a collaborator for the first time in a while, and it’s reminded me how different the process feels when someone else is in the room. More dynamic. More social. More frustrating. More alive.
It’s reminded me that while I can do everything myself, I don’t always want to.
Solitude and Sociality
After a long winter of creative solitude, I’ve started collaborating again. Just a couple sessions in, and I already feel the shift.
The last project I finished—mudchute tape—was born from a social experience, but the music itself was made alone. I produced it in my temporary Montauk studio with just a laptop and headphones. That solitude was necessary. It gave me space to reflect, to turn inward, to make something that felt honest. There’s a kind of narrowness that can be really productive when you’re trying to make art that reflects who you are.
But when you’re trying to make music that actually connects with others, that moves people—narrowness can also be a limitation.
Something opens up when you’re in a room with another person. You’re not just bouncing ideas back and forth—you’re participating in an entire layer of communication that goes beyond the music itself. The way someone reacts to a sound, the look on their face, the pause before they speak—those non-verbal cues become part of the creative process. You start to hear differently. You start to behave differently. You’re not making decisions in a vacuum anymore. You’re responding, adapting, tuning in.
Humans are social animals. We’re wired for interaction. And in a collaborative setting, that wiring lights up. You get information not just from what’s said, but from what’s felt. The vibe in the room, the rhythm of the exchange, the silences between decisions—they all shape the work.
Even just having someone else listen while you play something back changes how you hear it. You start noticing the parts where the arrangement drags, where your attention dips. That awareness—the shift in perspective—is part of what makes collaboration so valuable. It brings your music out of your head and into the world, even if the world is just one other person.
Friction
Some of my most cherished creative projects have come out of fraught interactions in the studio.
Not the ones where everything clicked instantly—but the ones where I felt uncertain, frustrated, or even a little bruised. Times when a collaborator and I couldn’t agree on a direction. Sessions where I produced multiple iterations of an idea only for it to be scrapped entirely. Working relationships where, in the moment, a collaborator’s request for another draft felt like a total waste of my time.
But it’s almost always in those moments—those low-grade interpersonal tensions, that friction—that something new emerges. Not your idea. Not theirs. But something between you. A third thing. A possibility neither of you could have accessed alone.
This kind of tension isn’t just creative—it’s psychological. Because collaboration doesn’t just challenge your ideas. It challenges your sense of control, of authorship, of taste. It forces you to ask:
How attached am I to this? What am I actually trying to say? Am I being understood—or just heard?
Learning to create with others is also learning to understand yourself with others. To notice what lights you up, what shuts you down, what you’re willing to fight for, and what you can let go. That kind of self-awareness isn’t just good for your emotional health—it makes you a better communicator, and ultimately, a better producer.
Because understanding what’s inside the mind of someone who is not you is not easy. It’s one of the hardest things we do as people, let alone as artists. But the work of trying—of translating, listening, compromising, negotiating—is often what brings the music to life.
It’s not always efficient. It’s not always pleasant. But it’s often worth it.
On Going ‘Bon Iver Mode’
Over the summer, I joked that I was going to go “Bon Iver mode” this winter—hole up alone and write something from a proverbial cabin in the woods. And in a way, I did. The music I made during that stretch of solitude reflects that space: internal, spare, wrapped in its own atmosphere. It didn’t sound much like For Emma, Forever Ago, but the impulse was similar—to make something alone, from the ground up, with a clear set of parameters and limitations.
That Bon Iver record is wrapped in a kind of creation myth: one man, heartbroken, in a remote cabin with an out-of-tune guitar, pouring his whole soul into an SM58. And I love it. But what I love even more is the work Justin Vernon did afterward—especially 22, A Million and i,i—where the creative world expanded to include other musicians, like Sean Carey, Chris Messina, Rob Moose, and BJ Burton. The textures get stranger. The palette widens. And still, it sounds like Bon Iver.
It doesn’t feel less personal. It feels more possibility-rich, like Vernon discovered that his voice could stretch further in the hands of others. It isn’t being diluted, but rather, extended.
To me, that’s not a departure from the idea of a brilliant auteur. It’s a deepening of it. A kind of authorship in context—a singular vision that welcomes other minds into its orbit. And those other people—the producers, players, engineers—likely wouldn’t have made the choices they made on those records unless they were specifically focused on realizing Vernon’s world. It’s collaboration with a gravitational center.
I think that’s a model worth holding onto: creative leadership that doesn’t reject help, and collaboration that doesn’t erase authorship.
Music is Between Us
Music can absolutely emerge from solitude. Some of my favorite pieces—mine and others’—have come out of long, quiet stretches of aloneness. There’s something potent about being able to hear yourself without interference. To follow a thread all the way to the end without explaining it to anyone else. There’s clarity in that.
But there’s a different kind of creative intelligence that emerges in collaboration.
Not better, not purer—just different.
More contextual. More dynamic. More relational.
When you’re alone, the feedback loop is internal. But when someone else is in the room, you’re in a shared atmosphere. A new weather system develops. You pick up on subtle changes in pressure—what excites them, what throws them off, what opens something in the room. It’s not just about ideas, it’s about behavior. How people move. What they say. What they don’t. Where their attention drifts.
Creative collaboration isn’t just “two people making something together.” It’s a state of heightened attunement. A shared moment of listening, responding, making micro-decisions in tandem. It’s not entirely rational. It’s part social instinct, part aesthetic negotiation, part psychological mirroring. When it’s good, it can feel like a current moving through the room—something electric, and slightly out of anyone’s control.
And in that space, authorship becomes slippery. It’s not that you disappear, or give yourself away. It’s that the thing you’re making starts to belong to the moment more than the maker. You can’t always say who came up with what. Or when. Or how. That ambiguity is part of the magic.
Like the weather, collaboration is a set of conditions that shape what’s possible.
It doesn’t guarantee anything. But it changes everything.
How to Enter a Collaborative Space
Here are a few bits of advice I’ve picked up from reading about collaboration and creativity—especially in the work of Rick Rubin and Jesse Cannon. They’ve both helped me think more clearly about how to create music with others, not just near them.
These ideas aren’t about productivity. They’re about creating the kind of environment where creativity can actually happen between people.
1. Build psychological safety early.
Creative risk requires trust. People need to feel like they can throw out an idea without getting shut down, misread, or subtly dismissed. That safety isn’t a given—you have to help create it. Be open. Ask questions. Don’t rush to correct or improve an idea right away. Let the room breathe.
2. Practice loving non-attachment.
You can love your idea and still let it go. If it doesn’t land with your collaborators—or doesn’t serve the project—it might not be right for this moment. That doesn’t mean it wasn’t good. It just means it’s not the one. Releasing attachment is hard, but it makes space for something better to take shape.
3. Serve the work, not yourself.
Great collaborations are driven by the collective desire to make the best thing possible—not to be right, or win, or get credit. When everyone’s aligned around serving the work, the process becomes less defensive, more curious. And usually, better.
4. Let consensus guide inclusion.
Not everyone has to love every idea. But if something doesn’t resonate with the group, it might not be ready. Aim for shared conviction, not bland compromise. It’s okay to argue. It’s okay to push. But the final version should be something everyone feels good about putting their name on—even if they didn’t come up with every part.
5. Be clear about roles—and generous with your attention.
Check in about what each person is hoping to contribute. And once you’re working, listen deeply. Sometimes one person leads while others hold space. Sometimes ideas emerge from a subtle shift in tone or body language. That kind of awareness is part of the collaboration too.
Collaboration doesn’t mean giving yourself up. It means inviting others into the process of becoming. It asks you to make room—for another person, and for something unknown.
Sometimes, when it’s really working, a new idea appears that doesn’t quite belong to anyone. It’s not yours, and it’s not theirs. It’s the third thing.
And that’s where the magic is.
Thanks for reading.