Feeling disgusted with myself musically

[Sendy]

Writing what i just did, i also realised i did everything right intuitively when starting out with computer music a decade ago...had a blast with every single shabby track.
Seems like the elements creating frustration only crept in at a later stage.

+1 To both your posts.

The frustration that has crept into people just starting out these days, I think, stems from the homogenization and commidification of music. It's turned the creative, mad-scientist "make do and push boundaries" origins of bedroom production into a consumer-based system, where if you can't do something you need to, instead of learning to kick arse, you're told you need to buy another product. Buy construction kits, buy glitch presets, buy risers and stabs, buy buy buy! Then just assemble the parts like you're on a production line, and hopefully you'll have a "product" you can get leverage on the market with.

f**k that shit, f**k it to all possible hells in all possible realities. f**k it until every atom of it's being has been ground to dust so small it starts randomly teleporting around because of quantum mechanics.

[DJ Warmonger]

where if you can't do something you need to, instead of learning to kick arse, you're told you need to buy another product. Buy construction kits, buy glitch presets, buy risers and stabs, buy buy buy! Then just assemble the parts like you're on a production line, and hopefully you'll have a "product" you can get leverage on the market with.

f**k that shit, f**k it to all possible hells in all possible realities. f**k it until every atom of it's being has been ground to dust so small it starts randomly teleporting around because of quantum mechanics.

Oh yes, that's what I say. Gear can help the artist, but can't replace one. Buying sample packs or other stuff is just ridiculous. Try to keep your studio minimal, but know your tools.

[The_Hidden_Goose]

f**k that shit, f**k it to all possible hells in all possible realities. f**k it until every atom of it's being has been ground to dust so small it starts randomly teleporting around because of quantum mechanics.

[The_Hidden_Goose]

Only time I get disgusted with myself in music is when I think I've made something I think is great, and then the next day hear it and it sounds crap to me.

It's annoying having that high sullied by the following low. But that just bothers me into making it better, or scrapping it in a short-lived huff and making something else that's better. Most of the tracks I start end up dying before they're finished. Some of them end up being returned to, but more often I'll steal motifs or sounds or effects that I like from them and incorporate them in something else.

I've got a mate who learns seemingly any instrument exceptionally well - super talented - and keeps buying new instruments to learn and play. He never writes anything with them. Not a criticism - music can be great to just play spontaneously, but I know he wants to write and make songs. He keeps getting sidetracked with new ideas of working with such and such a person and doing such and such great project. Never just writes music - tries to build up grander and grander ideas and never really tries to fulfill them.

As a parallel, one of my sisters is similarly talented at picking instruments up at quite envy-inducing speed but rarely plays anything, and just sings (very well - not my cuppa tea tho), and is constantly writing and making music - and she's got 4 kids and very little time on her hands! She's got some focus, is the point I think I'm trying to make.

[JoeCat]

Writing what i just did, i also realised i did everything right intuitively when starting out with computer music a decade ago...had a blast with every single shabby track.
Seems like the elements creating frustration only crept in at a later stage.

+1 To both your posts.

The frustration that has crept into people just starting out these days, I think, stems from the homogenization and commidification of music. It's turned the creative, mad-scientist "make do and push boundaries" origins of bedroom production into a consumer-based system, where if you can't do something you need to, instead of learning to kick arse, you're told you need to buy another product. Buy construction kits, buy glitch presets, buy risers and stabs, buy buy buy! Then just assemble the parts like you're on a production line, and hopefully you'll have a "product" you can get leverage on the market with.

f**k that shit, f**k it to all possible hells in all possible realities. f**k it until every atom of it's being has been ground to dust so small it starts randomly teleporting around because of quantum mechanics.

+1 inner and outer quotes

The commodification of music frustrates me on a level I hand't foreseen: I don't begrudge those who use construction kits, etc., especially the many talented people who work on are producing commercially and have deadlines, etc. However, it reminds me sometimes of the software industry (and most engineering/creative industries) - it's the process that attracted us, not just the end result. So while it's great to have good tools, if you're not challenged to create something unique it's not fulfilling, and at some point if the lay-tools are such that 90% of what you do can be done without utilizing that creative process, you've lost your motivation.

I guess what it comes down to for me is that virtually every time I start "from scratch" I realize I could have just put the thing together from cheap parts, and while there's still some joy in the process, it's like planting individual seeds of grass while all your neighbors put down sod - at some point, you gotta step back and ask "why"?

Not to be so nihilistic; it's still possible to create original art and design, but the boundaries of what's original and exciting are harder to reach. Photography is a great example of this: anyone with a decent eye can now easily create what a few decades ago would have been high-art. Like anything else - it's great that everyone can participate, but now the value of the work is diminished for all but the few working outside the boundaries.

But I rant, and essentially just repeated Sendy without the conciseness...

[The_Hidden_Goose]

I'm still coming across original and exciting music. Now more than ever. I still listen to more new music than I could ever make. It's a passion. Possibly an obsession. I'm not jaded by the amount of homogenised crap that's out there, as I don't actually have to wade through it to find what I like now (it's always been out there, there's just more of everything now - we're swimming in it, and I'll happily drown in it!).

Commodification...yeah...that's always been a b@st@rd, and it's gotten dramatically worse and more in-your-face over the years. But if you get so bogged down in that side of things, it's surely going to be depressing - especially when you're not getting paid. Your passion should exceed your desire to make money from it, regardless of where you stand on that, imo. If not then I couldn't care less how sad (or happily rich) it makes you.

[jancivil]

Only time I get disgusted with myself in music is when I think I've made something I think is great, and then the next day hear it and it sounds crap to me.

I expect that, at least with things that are more fluid or 'experimental', there will be a stage where many ideas come and I am functioning at a sort of higher rate as I perceive the whole; I have an instinct now for a stopping point where I know I will have to step back, and let my unconscious mind do some work. Literally sleep on it. For me, a lot of the time when there are ideas that are hard to shape properly in this stage these are the really interesting ones.

It's annoying having that high sullied by the following low. But that just bothers me into making it better, or scrapping it in a short-lived huff and making something else that's better. Most of the tracks I start end up dying before they're finished. Some of them end up being returned to, but more often I'll steal motifs or sounds or effects that I like from them and incorporate them in something else.

I've scrapped but one thing in the last five years. It had one worthwhile idea, which I could not realize because of certain limitations in the 'voice' I was relying on. There was some total crap surrounding that so there were two reasons to just scrap this one.
I've abandoned three or four really solid ideas during a project where I was hot, and these were paths to lead me away from the main goalpost(s). I would maybe advise to give yourself some slack on the 'low', or the bipolar nature of that.

[extra-topical rant]
I got a computer after a couple of decades understanding that computers would be the salvation of a composer that isn't likely to hear her ideas through the regular channels. So, while I made some ill-considered choices, I am directed by having an idea. I had ideas for many years before I saw anybody with a computer in their home.

I find starting out with music on a computer, absent prior involvement with music, suspicious. That isn't a top-down ideology/first principle, that follows observation of what people here do, since I started lurking ca 2005.
Quite some people have really deluded themselves, I think; some of the arguments have just astounded me, trying to justify what is essentially a laziness and arrogant entitlement.
If you're never made a beat with your hands, you have no business whatsoever 'making beats'. You don't know. You do not have the sense or sensibility for the job. You'll rely on the machine to take your first steps for you, which you may never take, and in a number of ways it's giving a false sense of achievement; you're never forced to obtain actual competence.

Once upon a time, to be able to produce any music, you had to have a musical skill, albeit even a rudimentary achievement out of it. Now, you don't (and when you totally don't, it tells on you. You won't be 'unconventional' absent musicianship, always using loops; you may be confusing 'convention' - like it's a bad thing - with 'competence'.).
Except now there are many people that respond to a super-amplified clock like it's groovy, and call this 'dance music'. And it's like 'electronic music' is now a term to encapsulate such a narrow band of experience; I have to say it really bugs me to see it here 99% of the time the term is used. Morton Subotnick is electronic music, you know.[/rant]

[The_Hidden_Goose]

I would maybe advise to give yourself some slack on the 'low', or the bipolar nature of that.

Yeah it's a short lived involuntary reaction. I'm inclined to mentally slap myself round the face and snap out of it usually.

I find starting out with music on a computer, absent prior involvement with music, suspicious.

I'm one of those really, although I got the bug playing around with a borrowed DX27 and a sister who was naturally gifted at a young age, playing on a cheap yamaha entry-level kb - made me realise it was possible to get ideas into reality, where before I had no idea how all those wonderful sounds could've been made and put together. But the computer has always been my instrument in all honesty.

If you're never made a beat with your hands, you have no business whatsoever 'making beats'. You don't know. You do not have the sense or sensibility for the job. You'll rely on the machine to take your first steps for you, which you may never take, and in a number of ways it's giving a false sense of achievement; you're never forced to obtain actual competence.

I'm inclined to agree with this for most part - of course there will be exceptions to the rule: there are certainly masters of beat programming that started with programming, but most probably had an innate sense of what they wanted from it - composers of beats, perhaps. I've shied away from percussion as I don't want to just stick some beats in there to make it danceable without having that working knowledge - percussion is something which definitely benefits from that I think. It's something I'm working on, but won't bring it to any production until I feel I can perform it with some competence - especially after some discussions on here regarding that and hearing how others have created some stuff I've liked - yours included in that, if I recall rightly.

Morton Subotnick is electronic music, you know.

As is Wendy Carlos, Karlheinz Stockhausen, Daphne Oram, the early French musique concrete artists and a great many early pioneers. I'm thankful to my parents who have always had a varied interest and record collection to introduce me to a lot of those, along with the Tangerine Dreams and JMJs of this world which are closer to a more obvious link to what most people probably think of as modern electronic music.

[datroof]

I think it's worth noting that the frustrations involved with the creative process are not unique to musicians. Anyone in the arts has to deal with similar issues: facing the blank canvas, learning how to finish, managing your time/energy/motivation/insecurities & inner-demons, etc. For me, it's mostly a matter of forming good habits. After awhile, your habits start to reward themselves, and form their own momentum. It's like getting into a workout routine. On the days when you feel unmotivated/uninspired, the momentum of your habits and routine can carry you through. And in the big picture, even if you're just going through the motions, even if the only thing you've accomplished is keeping your habit and momentum alive, that's much better than nothing.

[jancivil]

If you're never made a beat with your hands, you have no business whatsoever 'making beats'. You don't know. You do not have the sense or sensibility for the job.

I'm inclined to agree with this for most part - of course there will be exceptions to the rule: there are certainly masters of beat programming that started with programming, but most probably had an innate sense of what they wanted from it - composers of beats, perhaps. I've shied away from percussion as I don't want to just stick some beats in there to make it danceable without having that working knowledge - percussion is something which definitely benefits from that I think. It's something I'm working on, but won't bring it to any production until I feel I can perform it with some competence - especially after some discussions on here regarding that and hearing how others have created some stuff I've liked - yours included in that, if I recall rightly.

Well, there is a whole world of phenomena that come from being actually percussive by hand; tone and response of drums and things that inform rhythm, the weight of things, that only ever selecting a velocity by a pencil tool is not a promising way to avail yourself of. A drum controller and a good library isn't the worst, but...

Your 'master beat programmers' is probably not going to be my takeaway exactly, but it doesn't serve anyone to push the argument further. I realize I'm being kind of absolutist, I don't have to do demolition.

And the whole 'quantize it' is just avoidance.

[Hink]

these threads will never stop ...not many words needed...DO SOMETHING ELSE

there are plenty of people with the passion that I have for playing, I play for the love of playing...I play for me...with that said an important thing to know once you learn to play is when not to play. Everything is balance, if you're feeling it you're not in that cycle...that's great do something else. Sometimes to grow we need 'growing room', sometimes we take things in but we need inactive processing time...so do something else. in this case we have someone frustrated because they disgusted with themselves, maybe it's an overload...do something else.

If I could jump back 30 or 40 years and tell myself some things one surely would be "dont worry, your passion is not going away". Okay so this may not hold true for everyone but it has for me, but if it's your passion it wont go away IMHO...but you NEED to do other things in life so...do something else.

I wish I could give people a number on this, but I have tons of tracks I have given up on because I hated it and I stop working on it. I go back months or even years later and ask myself "why did I quit this song?" Here is a case where once again I did something else but I was still working on music I just found something more inspirational.

So to sum it up, IMHO the best thing to do when you feel this way is...DO SOMETHING ELSE

[Sendy]

I had writer's block for around 2-3 years in the late 00'ies. I did write some stuff, a couple of good tunes, but mostly I was just panicing and flailing. I honestly thought I'd lost all of my talent and aptitude. To make it worse, my partner of the time told me that if I could lose my muse that easily, perhaps I wasn't a real musician at heart, and he gave me the example of songwriters using anything they can - napkins, toilet paper, to write music.

Interestingly enough, when I dumped him, I got my mojo back almost instantly

So, sometimes, even when music is the very thing that keeps you alive, you will get writer's block, and if you don't have any other avenues (I was very isolated at the time), that can be a big problem.

[nasenmann]

Only time I get disgusted with myself in music is when I think I've made something I think is great, and then the next day hear it and it sounds crap to me.

I expect that, at least with things that are more fluid or 'experimental', there will be a stage where many ideas come and I am functioning at a sort of higher rate as I perceive the whole; I have an instinct now for a stopping point where I know I will have to step back, and let my unconscious mind do some work. Literally sleep on it. For me, a lot of the time when there are ideas that are hard to shape properly in this stage these are the really interesting ones.

Yes! Thanks for putting that into words nicely.
Coming up with the really interesting stuff has a lot to do with learning to trust in the process more and more. I wanna get better at seeing the beauty in things that don't really work yet, but have some raw quality and originality to them. That involves letting ideas simmer for a while. I've gotten a bit more patient compared to a couple years ago.

[Jace-BeOS]

f**k that shit, f**k it to all possible hells in all possible realities. f**k it until every atom of it's being has been ground to dust so small it starts randomly teleporting around because of quantum mechanics.

That was a priceless jewel Belongs in a "classics" thread

[rtkeeling]

f**k that shit, f**k it to all possible hells in all possible realities. f**k it until every atom of it's being has been ground to dust so small it starts randomly teleporting around because of quantum mechanics.

That was a priceless jewel Belongs in a "classics" thread

It belongs in a song builder loop set that we could all buy and use and... Oh, I see...

Roy