THE ADAM STONE PROJECT

A Side Quest in Music, Creativity, and Permission to Be a Rookie Again

For most of my life, my work has revolved around performance — measuring it, coaching it, demanding it, and helping athletes unlock the version of themselves they didn’t think they could reach. My world is strength, conditioning, speed, power, and readiness. Metrics and intent. Reps and rhythms. Whatever you want to call it, it’s built on mastery.

But mastery has a dark side. You forget what it feels like to be a beginner.

You forget what it’s like to suck at something. To fumble around. To hear your own work and cringe. To make something so terrible that the only rational instinct is to delete it and pretend it never existed. That’s the exact reason this page exists.

Introducing Adam Stone

My Creative Alter Ego

Between airports, hotel rooms, late nights with a team on the road, and the rare quiet moments in my own head, I found myself craving a creative outlet that wasn’t tied to sport science, coaching, or performance data.

So I built one.

Adam Stone is the pseudonym, the alter ego, the creative mask I wear when I open Ableton and try to produce music. He’s not polished. Not elite. Not even good.

He exists purely to experiment; to create without judgment, without the pressure of being “the expert,” without the weight of needing to execute perfectly.

Adam Stone is the side of me that gets to play.

He’s the permission slip I give myself to be messy, unrefined, ridiculous, and wildly curious. He’s the version of me who doesn’t care if the kick is weak or the bassline wanders or the arrangement falls apart halfway through.

Why House Music?

Why Ableton? Why Now?

No deep meaning; just a genuine love for the genre and a desire to build something completely outside my normal skill set.

Sport Science is structured.
Sport Coaching is intense.
Sport Performance is measurable.

But Music? Music is chaos, texture, emotion, randomness, and flow.

I love House music because it’s rhythmic, driving, and built on patterns — and patterns are something my coaching brain understands instinctively. Reps, rhythms, tempos, progressions… the structure of it just makes sense to me.

But it goes deeper than that.

I grew up in the 90s listening to Paul Oakenfold, early trance, and the House artists who shaped that era. Those sounds were the backdrop of my teenage years — the long drives, the late nights, the way music could wrap around you and carry you somewhere else. There’s a nostalgia to it. A familiarity. It feels like home soil.

So choosing House wasn’t random. It was natural. And as for Ableton?

That choice was easy. It’s the industry standard; the playground, the operating system, the space where creativity actually moves. If you want to learn this world, you learn Ableton. It’s the gym, the weight room, the practice facility of professional music production.

Tech House is the perfect mix of instinct, nostalgia, and challenge. Ableton is the tool. Adam Stone is the experiment.

But the real reason is much simpler. I wanted a side quest. A place to wander. A domain to be terrible. An outlet to explore during those hours in airports, hotel rooms, buses, and anywhere the coaching schedule drops me.

The Journey Will Be Bad

Let’s be honest: most people only share the final version; the polished product, the curated result, the highlight reel. This project is the opposite.

I’m sharing:

The rough tracks, the failed ideas, the messy half-formed loops, the finished songs; even if they’re ugly. I’m going to document the growth, the process, the learning; plus all the cringe, the chaos, and the beginners’ reps.

Because here’s the truth:

Everyone starts somewhere. Every coach, every athlete, every creator, every producer. The early reps are supposed to be bad. The first attempts are supposed to sound awful. You don’t earn mastery without surviving the messy middle.

This project is my way of practicing what I preach. Do the work. Publish the work. Own the work; even when it’s not where you want it to be.

Especially then.

What You’ll Find Here

This page will be a living, evolving archive — a place to store the journey.

You Can Expect:

Early drafts and final tracks under the Adam Stone name
Notes on what I’m learning inside Ableton
Mistakes, failures, breakthroughs, and experiments
Behind-the-scenes thoughts from airports, hotels, and anywhere I find time to create
The steady progression from “what the hell is this?” to “hey, this isn’t terrible”

And if you’re reading this, you’re officially part of my side quest.

Because hiding the early work only strengthens the fear of starting. Because vulnerability is a skill. Because coaches preach growth mindset, but we rarely model it in real time. Because documenting the process keeps me accountable