I can't sleep. Pain's at 7. Brain's doing that thing where it replays every awkward conversation from 2014.
But instead of staring at the ceiling, my laptop's open. GarageBand's running. And I'm dragging a piano loop into the timeline just to see what happens.
I'm not a musician. I took exactly one semester of piano in college before switching to computer science because code made more sense than sheet music. But at 3 AM, when my body's refusing to cooperate and my brain won't shut up, I'm not trying to be Beethoven.
I'm trying to make something. Anything. A beat. A melody. Three notes that don't sound completely terrible together.
And weirdly? It helps.
Not the way listening to music helpsâthat's its own thing, which I wrote about last time. This is different. This is about having control when nothing else in my body feels controllable.
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The Science Part (Because Ken Couldn't Help Himself)
Of course he found studies. It's 4 AM and he's awake too, probably three browser tabs deep into PubMed.
But he's not wrong. A systematic review of compositional music therapyâwhich includes songwriting, instrumental composition, and therapeutic approaches to creating musicâfound that it reduces anxiety levels and enhances positive emotional states in participants.1 We're not talking about professional musicians here. We're talking about regular people making music as a way to process emotions and develop coping strategies.
Another study looked at group music therapy for stress and anxiety. Participants engaged in activities like songwriting and improvisation. Results? Reduced anxiety, reduced depression symptoms, improved verbal fluency, even reduced pain perception.2
The mechanism seems to involve multiple pathways. Creating music activates your brain's reward systemâspecifically, it triggers dopamine release in the same regions that light up when you experience other pleasurable activities.3 But unlike passive listening, creating music requires active decision-making, problem-solving, and self-expression. You're not just receiving pleasure; you're building it.
Music creation engages both hedonic and eudaimonic well-being. Hedonic is the pleasure partâdopamine hits, reduced anxiety, positive mood. Eudaimonic is the meaning partâsense of purpose, accomplishment, identity formation.4
When you're composing, even if it's just three-note loops at 3 AM, you're engaging in what researchers call "facilitating self-development." You're developing skills, exercising agency, building confidence. The music itself doesn't need to be good. The process is what matters.
For people with chronic conditions like fibromyalgia, this matters more than for healthy populations. When your body feels like it's constantly failing you, creating somethingâanythingâbecomes evidence that you still have capability. You still have control. You still have a voice that works, even when your body doesn't.
What Creating Music Actually Looks Like (Spoiler: It's Messy)
I need to be honest about what "creating music" means in my context. I'm not sitting at a grand piano composing symphonies. I'm not even reading sheet music.
What I'm doing is:
- Opening GarageBand at ungodly hours
- Dragging pre-made loops into a timeline
- Occasionally tapping out extremely simple melodies on my MIDI keyboard
- Adjusting tempo until something feels right
- Layering sounds until they don't sound completely chaotic
- Saving files with names like "untitled_23" and "maybe_this_one_v7"
Some nights, I use my phone's voice memos app to record melody ideasâjust me humming into the microphone at 2 AM, hoping I remember what I was thinking when I listen back later. (I never do.)
Other nights, I open a lyric-writing app and type stream-of-consciousness sentences about pain, about Kona's steady breathing, about the way the bay looks at dawn. Not poetry. Just words. Sometimes they rhyme. Usually they don't.
The research talks about "instrumental composition" and "therapeutic songwriting" like they're formal processes.1,5 In practice, at least for me, it's more like organized play. I'm not following rules. I'm following what sounds right, what makes my nervous system exhale a little.
The Equipment Barrier (Or Lack Thereof)
You don't need much. You really don't.
What I use:
- MacBook (GarageBand comes free)
- $50 MIDI keyboard from Amazon (25 keys, USB-powered)
- iPhone voice memos app (free)
- Headphones I already owned
What you could use instead:
- Any computer with free software (Audacity, LMMS, BandLab)
- Any smartphone (tons of free music creation apps)
- Literally just your voice and a recording app
- An actual instrument if you have one (I don't)
The barrier to entry here is surprisingly low. The barrier is mostly in your head, that voice saying "I'm not a real musician." Neither am I. We're making this anyway.
What Happens in My Brain When I Create
There's a shift that happens when I move from passive consumption (listening to music) to active creation (making music). It's subtle but real.
Listening to music: My brain relaxes. Anxiety decreases. Pain sometimes decreases. I'm receiving something helpful.
Creating music: My brain engages. Not in the anxious, ruminating way. In a focused, problem-solving way. I'm choosing. Adjusting. Deciding. The pain's still there, but I'm not just enduring itâI'm doing something despite it.
The research describes this as "agency" and "self-efficacy."4 Fancy terms for "I did a thing and I have proof."
When you live with chronic pain, so much of your life feels out of your control. Your body does what it wants. Flares happen without warning. Sleep is a negotiation you frequently lose.
But when I make a three-minute track at 4 AM? That's mine. I chose the tempo. I picked the sounds. I decided when it was done. And when I listen back to it later, there's tangible evidence that I created something, even on a night when my body felt like it was creating nothing but pain signals.
I can't control my pain. Can't control when my nervous system decides to fire alarm bells at 3 AM. Can't control whether tonight will be a 4-hour sleep night or a 7-hour sleep night.
But I can control the tempo of this piano loop.
I can control whether this melody goes up or down.
I can control the name of this file: "actually_kind_of_like_this_one.wav"
Small choices. Tiny agency. But agency nonetheless. And some nights, that's enough.
The Dopamine Thing (And Why It Matters)
Ken sent me a study about dopamine and music that I keep thinking about. Researchers pharmacologically manipulated participants' dopamine levels while they listened to music. When dopamine was enhanced, people experienced more pleasure from music and were more willing to purchase songs. When dopamine was blocked, musical pleasure decreased.3
The study was about listening, but the implications for creating are even more interesting. When you create music, you're not just receiving dopamine hits from pleasant sounds. You're getting reward signals from:
- Making choices (agency activation)
- Solving problems (how do I make this sound better?)
- Achieving small goals (finished a loop, created a melody)
- Expressing emotion (externalized something internal)
- Building competence (I'm getting slightly less terrible at this)
Each of these micro-events triggers tiny reward signals. String enough of them together over 20-30 minutes of creation time, and your brain's getting a sustained dose of "hey, you're doing something worthwhile."
For people living with conditions that chronically dysregulate mood and reward processingâhello, fibromyalgiaâthis matters. I'm not replacing medication or therapy. But I'm adding a tool that activates reward pathways in a way that doesn't require my body to cooperate. My hands can hurt. My back can ache. I can create anyway.
INCIDENT SUMMARY:
At approximately 03:22 hours, unusual sounds emanated from the glowing rectangle. Initial assessment: potential threat to nap schedule. Further investigation revealed human designated "Toni" engaged in what she refers to as "making music."
OBSERVED PHENOMENA:
- âą Repetitive pressing of small white rectangles (keyboard)
- âą Peculiar sounds: sometimes pleasant, often questionable
- âą Human appears calmer than during standard 3 AM ceiling-watching sessions
- âą No treats produced during this activity (disappointing)
IMPACT ON OPERATIONS:
Minimal disruption to sleep schedule. Volume levels acceptable. Human seems less restless, resulting in fewer disruptive movements. This may benefit overall household stability.
RECOMMENDATION:
Activity may continue under current conditions. However, I will maintain supervisory position on laptop tower to ensure quality control. Will also investigate whether "making music" can be leveraged for increased treat distribution. Initial findings: unlikely.
(dictated but not reviewed because nap time)
How to Start (When You Don't Know How to Start)
I'm not going to give you a step-by-step tutorial. There are thousands of YouTube videos for that, taught by people who actually know what they're doing.
What I can tell you is how I started, fumbling my way into this at 3 AM with zero musical training and a body that wouldn't sleep.
Week 1: Just Open Something
First night, I opened GarageBand and stared at it for ten minutes. Closed it. Tried again the next night. Dragged one piano loop into the timeline. Played it. Thought "that sounds nice." Saved it as "untitled." Closed the laptop. Done.
That was the whole session. Five minutes, maybe. One loop. No melody. No structure. Just proof that I could open the software and do something.
Your version might be:
- Download a free music app and tap around for five minutes
- Record yourself humming one melody into voice memos
- Write three lines of lyrics about how you're feeling
- Find one sound you like and just... listen to it
The goal isn't to create a finished product. The goal is to prove to yourself that you can engage with creation, even for five minutes.
Week 2: Add One Thing
Second week, I started adding layers. Piano loop from week one. Added a soft drum beat. Adjusted the tempo until it felt calm instead of anxious. Saved as "untitled_2."
Still no melody. Still no lyrics. Just... slightly more complexity than last week.
Some nights I'd add nothing. Some nights I'd delete what I added and start over. That's fine. The practice is in trying, not in producing.
Week 3: Follow What Feels Right
By week three, I stopped following any plan. Some nights I wanted something calm. Other nights I wanted to layer aggressive sounds because I was angry about pain. Both were valid.
I started saving files with actual names: "bay_window_rain.wav" and "angry_but_productive.wav" and "kona_breathing_rhythm.wav"
Naming them made them feel real. Like actual things I'd made, not just untitled experiments.
You don't need to be good at this.
You don't need to show anyone what you make.
You don't need musical training, perfect pitch, or expensive equipment.
You just need curiosity and five minutes at a time.
Everything you create counts. Even the stuff you delete. Especially the stuff you delete. You tried. That's the whole point.
What Creating Music Gives Me (Beyond the Science)
The research talks about anxiety reduction and emotional regulation and dopamine pathways. All true. All measurable.
But what creating music feels like is harder to quantify.
It feels like having a conversation with myself that doesn't require words. It feels like proof that I'm still capable of building something when my body feels like it's only capable of breaking down.
Some nights, creating music gives me a focal point that's not pain. My attention shifts from "why does everything hurt" to "does this melody need to go up or down here?" It's not distractionâit's redirection. And on high-pain nights, redirection is survival.
Other nights, creating music gives me evidence of time passing. When you're in pain and can't sleep, 3 AM to 5 AM can feel eternal. But if I spend that time making somethingâeven a two-minute loop I'll never listen to againâI have timestamps. I have files with creation dates. I have proof that I existed and created during those hours, rather than just enduring them.
Participatory music engagementâwhich includes creating musicâsupports mental well-being through four pathways: managing and expressing emotions, facilitating self-development, providing respite, and facilitating connections.4
Toni's hitting at least three of those. She's expressing emotions (even if it's just frustration with pain). She's developing skills (learning GarageBand, building competence). She's providing herself respite (redirecting attention from pain to creation).
The fourth pathwayâconnectionsâmight seem absent since she's creating alone at 3 AM. But there's a connection happening: with her past self who chose music, with her future self who'll listen back, with the version of herself that exists beyond chronic pain. The music becomes a bridge between those selves.
This isn't poetic interpretation. This is what the qualitative research on music and well-being consistently shows: people use music creation to maintain a sense of identity when illness threatens to erase it.
Last Night
I made something last night.
It's not good. It's barely coherent. The melody wanders. The tempo shifts awkwardly halfway through because I was adjusting my heating pad and accidentally hit the wrong key.
But it exists. And I made it. And for 40 minutes at 3 AM, my brain was focused on creation instead of catastrophizing.
I'll probably never listen to it again. That's fine. The listening isn't the point. The making is the point.
If You're Reading This at 3 AM
Maybe you're like me. Maybe your body's refusing to sleep and your brain won't stop and the pain's too loud to ignore.
You don't have to make music. But if you want to try, here's what I'd tell you:
Start absurdly small. One sound. One loop. Five minutes. That's enough for night one.
You don't need to show anyone. This can be entirely for you. Private creation. Evidence that you're more than your pain, even if no one else sees that evidence.
It doesn't need to be good. It needs to be made. There's a difference.
Use what you have. Phone, laptop, actual instrument, your voice. All valid. All sufficient.
Give yourself permission to quit. If tonight's not a creation night, that's valid too. Not every 3 AM needs to be productive. Some nights are for surviving, not creating.
If you're awake when you shouldn't be
Your body's not cooperating. Your brain's too loud. The pain's winning again tonight.
Maybe open something. Maybe try making a sound. Maybe just sit with the possibility that you could create something, even now, even like this.
You don't need to be a musician to make music. You just need to be someone who's tired of only enduring.
Press record. Or don't. Either way, you're doing your best.
It's 11:58 PM now. Earlier than usual for me. Pain's at 5 tonightâmanageable. GarageBand's open. New project file. Blank timeline.
Kona's at my feet. Samba's supervising from the laptop tower, as is proper. Ken's probably reading studies about neuroplasticity or quantum something-or-other.
And I'm about to make something. Maybe it'll be good. Probably it won't be. Doesn't matter.
I'm pressing record.