What's not to like about your own Awesome Music?

[stonestreet]

So guys have any of you had your Ipod on random to hear something that you thought was neat, only to find out afterwards that you made it?

[mevla]

So guys have any of you had your Ipod on random to hear something that you thought was neat, only to find out afterwards that you made it?

That would be cool. Nevertheless I try to hear at least if it blends well with other stuff and witht he person listening. Eg. if the mix is way too rough and stands out because of that, that's a no go, for instance.

[ghettosynth]

From time to time I get a comment that gets accross as if the listener really enjoyed the piece. Not just a simple nice comment, but more. Or like someone that says that many times he leaves the soundcloud page rolling with my tunes and it creates a good feeling. My sc page will not jump to other people material unless the listener makes the choice.

So from time to time I get the kind of feedback that confirms that yes, there are people out there with which it can be possible to share sounds. This is even more important since I'm not doing any commercial or trendy stuff. Now, if only it was possible to reach from 1000 to 3000 of those people for whom their ears and feelings can like what I do....

Yep, that's what I was talking about earlier.

I make about 100, 120 sketches a year, not much. Not all of them have potential for expansion but many do since after all you can make anything.

I rarely revisit my stuff for "expansion." I have used my own stuff as raw source material and I have remixed my own stuff, but, once it's done, it's done. I find it helpful to just let go of old work and move on to the next thing.

Also, I only use hearthis.at/soundcloud to release things that I'm either not sure if I want to put it in an "album" (hate the word, it carries so much pretension, but whatever), or if I'm using it to signal to my six or so followers that I'm almost ready to release a new album.

[justin3am]

I rarely revisit my stuff for "expansion." I have used my own stuff as raw source material and I have remixed my own stuff, but, once it's done, it's done. I find it helpful to just let go of old work and move on to the next thing.

I do the same thing. I've gotten to the point where if it takes more than a week to finish one of my own projects, it goes in the pile of projects which will become sample food or will never be looked at again.

The fun part for me is sound design and tracking. I still enjoy mixing but I've grown really tired of doing any kind of detailed editing.

I've gotten to the point where finishing something is not as important as focusing on the fun parts. I think there will be a point when I decide that I really want to put together a collection or anthology of songs (how's that for pretentious?) and I'll hunker down and get a bunch of songs properly edited and arranged but I'm certainly not there now.

[ghettosynth]

I've gotten to the point where finishing something is not as important as focusing on the fun parts.

Said slightly differently, I just let the fun parts become the finished parts. I've adapted my methods to make sure that I capture my playing around and then I give that thing a label, i.e., a title, and I call it done. Mixing it becomes finishing it. If it needs something more but I can't think what that is, I just make it shorter so that I can get away with less.

I think there will be a point when I decide that I really want to put together a collection or anthology of songs (how's that for pretentious?) and I'll hunker down and get a bunch of songs properly edited and arranged but I'm certainly not there now.

I have tried to distance my thoughts from the industry fueled connotations of what an "album" should be. For me, each album is just a container for thoughts and ideas that I might have at some time. They become an organizational tool to connect my output to my past. When I get an idea for an "album", I create the page on Bandcamp and leave it unpublished, of course. Then I add "tracks" to that as I feel like working on that idea.

Some finish quickly, many linger for months. Sometimes I have second thoughts about the album and I combine previous ideas into one album. I've found that having an album close to release inspires me to come up with something new to add to it so I can get it done.

When I create a new album I give it a cover right away. The visual stimulus also helps in keeping my ideas organized in my mind.

[jancivil]

I finish things. Some things are finished but I'm not going back and I'll be glad to have them disappear from sight.
It isn't that the ideas were not good, it's just the execution was poor. Sloppy/erratic performance, pisspoor mixage...

I'm hard-headed. I have one thing in 8 yrs I totally abandoned. This was an uninspired period before I got used to being ill, then an inspired moment but the library I was using made it impossible to make the most out of this moment and the rest was just completely deletable. I've taken long 'moments' which were pretty dull and then, BOOM it exploded into something specifically happening.


I'm not usually surprised by comments. I don't get a lot of negativity. Yesterday I apologized to a guy for dissing Sex Pistols. I'm not all that nice but there's nothing good in that.

Musos will tend to recognize what I'm doing as what it is.

EDIT: no good way to say some things. If you saw it, it is what it is.

[ghettosynth]

....

Yeah I am sure that my lungs and heart would go out of sync if that were to happen

No man, it's not like that. First, if the people you know don't like your music, that's ok, they probably listen to different kinds of music. You want to find strangers who listen to music that is like yours. Then you like and comment on their tracks, but only honestly. When you do this for a little bit, other people find your stuff.

I guarantee it!

Cheers, I guess being wrapped up in my bubble I forget the world is a big place.

Yeah man, you can find your audience, or, as that's not really the thing that moves me, per se, you can find others that are engaging in similar creative endeavors and who can at least appreciate what you're doing.

If I may be so simultaneously hipster cliche and passe, your tribe.

[DocAtlas]

Except that it becomes not-so-awesome once you progress further as a musician/producer/whatever-the-heck and those "awesome" tunes that you made a few years ago now make your own ears bleed. Prime example of this being me.

Yeah, that is very true. I have things that not only won't I listen to, I won't let anybody else hear them either.

Overall, what's not to like about my music? That I haven't been able to make a living doing it. I can make money playing covers, but it's just not quite the same.

[mevla]

Re: getting thoughtful comments from time to time.

Yep, that's what I was talking about earlier.

You mentioned commenting on others' material. So far I only told myself to take the time to listen to the people who liked my tunes, but never got to do it yet. I should get down to it for starters, and then take time to hear other things on soundcloud that are alike and comment. So, you found that by commenting some kind of synergy took place in which people got interested in your material ?

I rarely revisit my stuff for "expansion." I have used my own stuff as raw source material and I have remixed my own stuff, but, once it's done, it's done. I find it helpful to just let go of old work and move on to the next thing.

To each its own. Sometimes perhaps late at night before calling it off, I go on a riff and then half an hor later I have a basic tracks that sketches an idea. I take notes, and sometimes forget about it. Then later it comes up as a surprise as I go through the sketches and at that moment it's liek hearing the whole thing for the first time and it gives ideas for where it could go. This is funningly inspiring.

Somewhere else you wrote:

I'll tell you this. I didn't like my own stuff until I stopped trying to do stuff that I thought other people would like. This came after I realized that the only stuff of my own that I liked was the stuff that wasn't really interesting to other people.

Very true. Not trying to please, but being honest with oneself in the expression of sounds and emotions. I also found that what I really like other people do not seem to like, but I'm working on that.

What was that?

An exhibition ? We need emotional content. (1)

(1) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4O9o4CKTGzQ

[ghettosynth]

What was that?

An exhibition ? We need emotional content.

Ah, no, I was commenting about Simon Cowell's signature comment "What...was...that?"

[foosnark]

So guys have any of you had your Ipod on random to hear something that you thought was neat, only to find out afterwards that you made it?

While we were cleaning up the office/studio in preparation to rearrange things and replace the furniture, my spouse put Winamp on "shuffle everything." There's Viking metal, reggae, anime soundtracks, some Appalachian stuff, bellydance music, 80s ambient and a variety of other things.

I was off in the other room and started to hear some really weird but cool shit going on in there, so I stopped to find out who it was. And it was me. Something I did more than 10 years ago.

[Aloysius]

foosnark's greatest hit!

[Numanoid]

I think many bands/artists really don't like to listen to their own music when they have time off, that would be like a busmans holiday.

I mean, when recording, producing, mixing, they must hear the tracks probably 100 times over, over and over again.

When Francois Kevorkian was working with Depeche Mode on Violator, he spent a couple of days getting the sound right for a hi-hat pattern. I would be crawling the wall after the first day having to work with such kind of sticklers, even if it was my own track we were working on.

And then when you have put out the album, you need to go on tour and perform exactly the same tunes every night for months on end, every night a new groundhog day.

[harryupbabble]

foosnark's greatest hit!

Gee, mister, you're mean. Or funny.

[stonestreet]

So guys have any of you had your Ipod on random to hear something that you thought was neat, only to find out afterwards that you made it?

While we were cleaning up the office/studio in preparation to rearrange things and replace the furniture, my spouse put Winamp on "shuffle everything." There's Viking metal, reggae, anime soundtracks, some Appalachian stuff, bellydance music, 80s ambient and a variety of other things.

I was off in the other room and started to hear some really weird but cool shit going on in there, so I stopped to find out who it was. And it was me. Something I did more than 10 years ago.

Nice When it happened to me it was not a track but a synth with sequenced modulation that I had recorded as a "get to know my instrument" experiment. It was a cool moment for me all the same.