What do you make music for? 🎹 🎶 🎸

[enroe]

to use up the time between dream states.

Ohh wonderful world!

[cryophonik]

Not a huge n, but the results are interesting. It would be very interesting to see how many of the 51% who chose option 5 have actually made music professionally, but prefer just making it for themselves. As for myself, I think I mentioned in an earlier post that I was a professional gigging/session musician decades ago and, more recently (2005-2015-ish), had songs signed to labels, did some ghostwriting, demo songs, etc., but that wasn’t as fulfilling for me as just doing my own thing on my own time and terms. Part of that is being too stubborn to compromise sometimes, and another part is that I really don’t want to dedicate the time and effort to all the self-promotion that it takes to get your name and music out there. That takes away time and energy that could be spent on making music (that nobody hears because I don’t promote it enough )

[cptgone]

I have a need to be creative. I can do without for a while, but in the end that gets me down.

I went through burnout and depression, and what kept me going were my cats, my medicin, and making music (esp. improvising on guitar: that is so wholesome!)

I used to be focused on getting projects finished. Not anymore. When I have my medicin, I start at least 1 new project every day, or improvise on guitar.

Voted option 5 - but if I could make money from what I do, I sure could use it - unless it comes at the cost of getting famous.
When I was 16 OTOH, I couldn't wait to go on tour with a band of friends, be critically acclaimed as a trailblazer, and have all the sex, soft drugs and rock 'n' roll in the world

[harryupbabble]

for the challenge
writing a good song is very hard

plus, it's the other thing to do when i get sick of speed scrabble
the thing is...
i rarely get sick of speed scrabble
so, i do the things related to songwriting while waiting for a game
and there's a lot of slow players
so doing music stuff in between slow players's time too

[zerocrossing]

I tried to make it as a song writer/guitarist in a pop band, but oddly the more success I had, the less I liked any of it. Dealing with the business end of things, personal politics between band members, and the traveling to gigs was all wearing on me. At one point, we lost our drummer to a country band. We limped along for a bit, as the lead guitarist was quite a good drummer, but that was the beginning of the end. We had lost our singer the summer before and I’m not really a great singer.

I then bought a workstation keyboard (Ensoniq TS-10) and an audio looper (Lexicon JamMan). I started doing a totally different type of music, more in the electronic-ambient way. I started doing solo shows, and then hooked up with a friend of mine. We just did little shows in cafes and art openings and the like. It was, by far, the best musical time of my life. It was all the stuff I loved, and none of the stuff I hated, though I still wasn’t a big fan of breaking down my rig and schlepping it around NY.

Eventually I realized that I liked doing my thing at home more than in public, and that was that. I still do it to this day, basically for myself, but during the years I got an opportunity to do some music for a game. The client liked it so much that it became my main job, though I’m still called on to do graphics and UI work from time to time.

I think about this sometimes, how I “made it” to some level of commercial success, when I wasn’t even trying, and in a way that I had never thought of. Hell, in a way that didn’t even exist as a thing when I started. If I had totally given up when my original dream fell apart, I would not have been in the right position to take the game job. That was never really an option, though, as I am compelled to make music, and quitting looking to it for a source of money was not quitting making music. I’m pretty lucky, but if this dries up and ends, I’ll still have the music.

[enroe]

@zerocrossing: Interesting - and somewhat unusual - story!

[harryupbabble]

i was in a band once
it lasted a few hours
everyone in the band were slackers
we concluded we all sucked
not only that
in that couple of hours we had disagreements
the singer was drowning out everybdy
the guitarist (me) was saying that the bassist sucks
what do i know to be saying that?
in restrospect, nothing really, hahaha
so that was that

i later decided that to do it alone is the way to go
doing it alone skips the "mojo" that you get if the band is good
but hey, if there are good songs to play...
session players could give songs that "mojo"
just like in steely dan

[FranklyFlawless]

I play music for self-expression and to unleash my full potential. It is about a journey of self-discovery, purpose, progress, innovation, challenges, ambitions, knowledge, power, proficiency, and mastery. I only derive joy from it with progress alone now, but before I used to play for fun.

[jancivil]

Dealing [..] was all wearing on me. At one point, we lost our drummer to a country band.

I had a country band, with a drummer. He played standing up. I have no idea why. He wasn't a drummer by trade or anything but friends with our singer. He was married to someone that started the whole ironic country trend in SF way back when, Jill Olson, singer with Red Meat. I've been corrected on the first name before but I just googled it.

But we did it first. I had 'Green Green Grass of Home' as the finale to "The Green Show" in 1986 and it came off amazingly (context had everything to do with that) w. me singing lead. But I sang the Hank Williams Sr numbers in the far more narrow group (with a pedal steel player who knew where to get China White), once I found I could do that sort of yodelly crack in the voice - in the key of D, nowt else - I musta thought I can do more with it. It was my first and last C&W-oriented project. We sold t-shirts though. because it was a pretty great t-shirt, the front man worked in a silkscreening factory. We told people we were from Waco, Texas, The Brazos Balladeers. actually the whole thing was avant af.

[BONES]

So the exact question here is: What is the motivation behind it?
Is it personal vanity and the fight for attention: "I'm something
special: I make music, I'm a star!" Or is it more the process of
composing and inventing itself that provides satisfaction?

That's all very self-centred, don't you think? I do it because music. I want my music to be well known, I don't care whether I am or not. Unfortunately, it's pretty much impossible to have one without the other but all the satisfaction would come from the music being popular, not me. I would see that as the price of getting the music out there. That's why I've always worked under a band name, even when I was doing it all solo.

i.e. to convince myself that i'm not a total waste of space and time.

Is that important to you? It's not to me. I have a competitive streak but, ultimately, I am a lazy slob who has pretty much squandered any and all advantage I may have had over anyone else because I just couldn't be arsed putting in any effort. I'm completely fine with that.

When you get into music as a young person, you have the hope and goal of "making it big" and thereby achieving fame and
financial independence.

That has literally never crossed my mind. There has never been a time when I thought what I do could be something to make a living from. All I have ever wanted out of music is to be well known enough that I could get a gig whenever I wanted one. After almost 40 years I am yet to achieve even this lowly status, despite other achievements that I would never have even dreamt of when I started.

Ultimately, though, I do it because I have to.

[VOODOO U]

Ultimately, though, I do it because I have to.

No you don't. You do it because youre afraid to face what would happen if you don't do it.
I don't have to eat. But I do it because I'm afraid to face the consequences if I don't.

[machinesworking]

As far as the poll, none of the above. I was young, heard a bunch of music I really liked, I could hear songs in my head that were inspired by that music, that added to the lexicon. Fame, all the ego stuff is really off putting to me, I only liked the artists that seemed to want to give comfort to weirdos, not to impress them with how edgy or cool they were. Mostly I want to realize the songs I hear in my head.

At one point I was in a band that was doing Electro Industrial, and there weren't really any bands doing it, so we did think we had a solid chance of making a living off of music, but looking at all the BS other bands had do deal with as far as the fame part was really off putting. I can't put anyone on a pedestal and would hat to put on one.

At this point decades later I do music because I'm compelled to, it still inspires me to write songs. I've come to terms with the fact that I really hate deadlines, so writing for film or anything like that is not as fun as it seems on paper. I'd still love to score a horror film, but I don't know if I would like doing it for a living or on the regular.

[cptgone]

i make music because it's the only skill i have. so i guess, for validation... i.e. to convince myself that i'm not a total waste of space and time.

I'm sure that, upon reflection, you'll agree that is beside the point (at best).

Imagine, for a sec, a lifeless universe.

You are valuable.
You simply are.
Everyone is.
Just by existing.

Like you said:
"'an act of music is like an act of worship"'
That really resonates with me (I'm a romantic at heart, I wouldn't recommend the illusive romantic view to anyone (except masochists) but it's what I am)

[machinesworking]

Ultimately, though, I do it because I have to.

No you don't. You do it because youre afraid to face what would happen if you don't do it.
I don't have to eat. But I do it because I'm afraid to face the consequences if I don't.

I don't know if you meant it like this, but to a degree I think you have a point, if your point is that music production is a pattern that soothes some perceived need, like a drug that once was effective it might not even mask that "need" anymore, but the idea of it doing so still exists.

I think there are worse identities to have, I would rather hang out with the guy who smokes too much weed and noodles on a modular or in Max/MSP than someone who has masculinity issues, a jacked up pickup truck, MAGAtt and NRA bumber stickers and reminisces about bar fights from days gone by.

It's a drug to finish a song you wrote you actually like, and to play it well in front of an appreciative audience is in some ways better than sex. I don't think that has to be attached to ego or rejection of ego.

[alexfalcao]

I make music because I love music. My first contact with music was when I first saw a violin at age of 3, it was one neighbor that came to our home with it and of course he didn’t allow me to touch, my father promised one but it never happened. I grew up in the 70s and every money I got was towards buying vinyl records, mostly Rock, Progressive Rock and the beginning of electronic such as Jean-Michel Jarre, Kraftwerk, etc..When teenager I started to learn classical guitar that I quit after getting married, but kept playing for fun, I had a cassette 4 track recorder that I recorded some tracks but only for fun. So I started to make music in 2004 after I purchased a copy Ableton live 4.and Arturia CS 80, then came Spectrasonics Atmosphere and many others. I uploaded some of my songs to an extinct site called GarageBand and I was even contacted by a Studio in Denmark that asked for my songs. A CD with 50 songs was sent to them and a contract was signed. But it was in 2007 when the stock market crashed and they lost most sponsors.But I kept uploading my gongos for some internet rádios at the time. I did for fun and continuing doing for the love of music.