My Music Sucks

[katshinka]

I quoted this in another thread a while back, but I think it's relevant

Thank you for this quote, I have the same problem, and it helps.
It's things like this that kept me from giving up all those years.

I was actually lucky to have had similar encouragements from friends and teachers, encouragements that helped me decide that I wanted to make music my profession.

However, there's something that stills stops me and I was wondering if I could have your thoughts on that.

Finding the fun of making music makes the huge quantity of work and training it requires more bearable, but this is something I struggle with.

Most of the time, it is painful for me to make music, even when I have an interesting or exciting idea I can work with.
I don't believe I'm that way inherently, nor do I buy into that romantic approach to inspiration, where the Artist Must Suffer for His Craft Until Heavenly Voices Move Him etc.

I just get stuck, and this is what's so painful to me. I don't think the process of making a track should be constrained by strict guidelines, but that's exactly my problem.

Having to choose from an infinity of directions makes me confused and ultimately, lost, discouraged, leaving an unfinished and useless sketch.

What I'm clumsily trying to say is that if working more is the answer, then sign me in ! I know what motivates me, that is making awesome and original music, performing live and having people trip on my music till their necks are sore. But damn it how do I stay on track ?

[room732]

"...all of us who do creative work... we get into it because we have good taste... (...)Do a huge volume of work... because it's only by actually going through a volume of work that you're actually going to catch up and close that gap... and the work you're making will be as good as your ambitions."

GREAT and VERY RELEVANT.

jonatan spang olsen said(Danish actor and stand-up comedian):

"Being creative is NOT NICE. The people who think that being creative is nice and cosy, are the people who are not creative."

vbfischer, now I get curious. Show us something!

[sammy24]

mgpqua1-great post, as others have already acknowledged. I've always felt that being able to see that something needs improvement is the first step to getting where you want to go; if you think it's perfect, you'll never make it better than it already is (and chances are it is far from perfect )

That being said, some periods in musical development are more frustrating than others. Just when you think you've got it all figured out, you find out that you've only just begun to scratch the surface. Also, at the earlier stages you can often see improvement on a daily or weekly basis. As you keep improving, it becomes tougher to notice your continued progress. So I guess you just have to keep reminding yourself that, (as long as you're working hard at it,) you're definitely improving constantly, and you just have to keep at it.

(I find that working at something like music on a consistent basis is a really good lesson in how to approach other things in life, as well. We should consider ourselves fortunate to have something to work at, as well as to look forward to. As somebody said before, if there's no frustration and hard work, it doesn't really mean that much in the end.)

[katshinka]

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"Being creative is NOT NICE. The people who think that being creative is nice and cosy, are the people who are not creative."

Great quote ! Actually got me out of a creative slump.

I imagine most of you know the great tutorial website http://tweakheadz.com (http://tweakheadz.com)

The guy actually wrote an article about the myths and realities of inspiration. (http://tweakheadz.com/musical_inspiration.html (http://tweakheadz.com/musical_inspiration.html))

There's one part that bears repeating here imo.

Igor Stravinsky had this to say about inspiration. "An accident is perhaps the only thing that really inspires us"" he writes in his Poetics of Music" written at Harvard in 1942. "A composer improvises aimlessly the way an animal grubs about. Both of them go grubbing because they yield to a compulsion to seek things out...he is in his quest for pleasure"

[jancivil]

right, it isn't nice, it's pain, it's work, but you have to be a glutton for that punishment in search of that pleasure. inspiration comes from loving the work, loving the learning involved. there isn't any hurry. if you were prodigious you would be expected by someone to have an accelerated experience, but you're talling a different story than that; there is nothing wrong with taking decades to become a musician.

[littledrummergirl]

the more you practice the better you will get. It is easy to look at great musicians and feel inferior. just think you are looking at them as they are succeeding, not as they are young, struggling, practicing, and getting better.

[train_ear]

you always have to compete with yourself. this is a good approach. keep making music, good results will come one day.

[Nanakai]

Hope this is the right forum to post this. I admit it, my music sucks. I want to be a good musician, but I couldn't write a song to save my life. Don't get me wrong, I have a great time banging on the keyboards, recording short loops of something I think sounds good. But I can never put it all together.

Sometimes, I start with drums. I find it challenging to get a good drum part going. But, when I do, I find it difficult putting anything on top of it. Its like I spent so much time on the drums that it just overpowers everything I'm trying to do.

Sometimes, I start with sounds. I can get lost playing with sounds. Experimenting, tweaking, etc. But I can never stop myself and try to put a melody down.

Sometimes, I just start with a melody in my head. I get something down, then I obsess about what sound to use, or can't figure out how to fit drums in there.

But I have a good time doing it. I'll never be a pro at this, but it is a fun hobby. Just sometimes, I wish I could have something that I'd feel comfortable showing other people.

For all the money I spend on gear, the only way I can write any music is if I sit with some manuscript paper and get it out. You don't have to learn to read staff music, but definitely figure out SOME way of getting your ideas down before having to stress about the sound. Once you have a solid beat/melody, then adding effects and changing instruments takes on a whole new dimension. Plus, aside from the low-tech immediacy, the more I have exercised my imagination this way, the easier GOOD music has come to me and I am more able to listen to music critically*.

If you can spare 15 minutes a day with a pencil and some paper, I really suggest just writing down simple beats or melodies. Maybe only allow yourself to program them in once you have 8 bars of material or something. It's the best investment of time I have ever made!

*Disclaimer: I still suck

But I love what I do

[OzoneJunkie]

Good stuff so far here.

I think when "we" are younger, we have a tendency to "just go for it" - and try anything/everything, knowing that we suck in a way, and therefore just produce without ego. Later in life when we have some skills, I think it's actually easier to get tripped up on stuff, because of expectations, ego, and other things. I listen back to stuff I wrote years ago - I actually like it. So to the idea of "produce a lot of stuff" - I'm with that.

Secondly... whoever your inspiration is, they probably went through some similar phases, but may not have gotten tripped up in the ego-phase where we slow down. Don't know. A thought.

Lastly, something that I've been applying not only to music, but to life: picture your ideal self. Figure out the steps to being that person. Then walk the walk. It's a pretty remarkable thing... has been for me.

EDIT: oh, and this:

Don't fear failure. We often learn more from failure then success. Learning from failures is invaluable. Don't let it get you down - let it energize you! Also, this strengthens your ego's ability to regroup after a failure.

[jancivil]

definitely, feel free to make a lot of mess and don't feel you have to succeed, creativity is an extension of childlike wonder. I saw somebody say the other day, that the growth in human creativity really took off when societally we were freer to extend the time of childhood, rather than have to be productive earners at once, during adolsscence and even childhood. seem like a sound thesis to me!

[jancivil]

I think the notion of getting away from the computer might be valuable. I don't notate so much anymore myself but when I didn't have access I had to find a system of notating melodies and the rhythms on paper in a shorthand that I could recognize later. and not having that access forced me to think purely in terms of getting the tune, per se.

I found that singing melodies over whatever, the drone that a shower makes, all the time thinking about music in a pure way was very valuable.

[tapper mike]

The computer is the great and the great evil for me. Mostly because it's the center of my universe. I work on it play on it get everything I need to get by through it.

I have a desktop and a laptop though the laptop has seen better days and I'm not up to replacing it right now. When I was smart I used my laptop for music only. No surfing, no work no videos and the only music on it was the music I created. Mostly I just used it as a host.

One thing I found is that If I listened to less of other peoples music I could concentrate on my own. Even times where I dont have access to an instrument. Like Jan in the shower. When I'm driving or walking somewhere I don't have a radio/mp3 player going. I found If I could hold a musical idea in my head and just "think" my way through it I had to practice it less. Singing doesn't hurt either. (well it doesn't hurt me, listeners disagree)

[Voltaire27]

Great thread

I agree with the majority of comments on here. You can't dwell on it too much. If you sense yourself getting frustrated or stressed, walk away. Do something that has nothing to do with music. Disconnect and let your mind wander around for awhile. When I try to sit down with the intention to write a song, I get nothing. Unless I try to force a song out, and that's exactly what it will sound like, forced. I hear this type of "musical constipation" on the Billboard charts all the time now, with the over compression and gigantic production that attempts to compensate for uninspired material.

For me, the process usually begins with a melody, could be a verse, chorus, etc., that simply "pops up", like an uninvited relative. Usually while I'm doing menial tasks (brushing teeth, showering, driving, about to fall asleep, driving while falling asleep:) not thinking about writing songs at all. I carry a small handheld tape recorder around so whenever inspiration strikes, I'm prepared. Even if it's four in the morning. Then I work out the chords on guitar or piano and sing the melody. I think if it isn't strong enough to only require these two things then the song isn't good to begin with and it's back to the drawing board. This is all done before I even glance at my computer.

It's been said that artists long for limitations and I've found this to be true on a subconscious level. With every new technological advance, we tend to become solely reliant on that technology and less on our creativity within. Learning how to use software, practically becoming engineers. Where as, before, we worked from the inside out. Cultivating an idea, then finding a means in which to attain it. Try the latter process, not the former.

[jobromedia]

I wasn't satisfied with my music at all 10 years ago. It sucked big time to tell the truth. But it really comes down to what gear you got. In my case back then I had a sloppy computer, a few free tools that sounded quite awkward. I used Fast Tracker / Impulse tracker back then, as well as a lot of mediocre samples that didn't have the quality I craved. I tested Buzz, and MadTracker. Both are pretty good sequencers, but it wasn't until I started to build my studio from the ground up that I got the results I wanted.

[hungryman]

One of the things that helped me improve my music was by first, improving my focus. When I set aside time to write music, I used it for that and only for that. I disconnected the Internet, turned my phone off, turned the TV off, and left all my worries and thoughts unrelated to music at the door.