If you don't seem to be going anywhere, should you just stop making music?

[arkmabat]

This is kinda random but,

Zebralette - atlantic swell

Great pad.

[HeidiLikesEBM]

There have been plenty of musicians who were never popular in their lifetime, and later someone found some of their stuff and it got big. Music isn't, and shouldn't be, a popularity contest anyways, and I don't care if I have no fans and people come to me asking me to stop, if I keep getting enjoyment out of my music then I'm going to keep doing it

[V0RT3X]

I make music i like first and foremost. I still post it up in the music forums even half finished and hardly anybody leaves a comment except a few of my regular listeners which I absolutely appreciate tons!

Shout outs go out to

- Ntom
- Seismic1
- Frantz
- Allomerus
- triumph1
and the rest of the people who have kindly listened to my stuff. It is you people on KVR that helps keep me inspired! Still even without them I would still keep putting out music because this is just what I do.

I would much rather have someone from KVR who posts regulary critique my work than some random "Bro" off soundcloud.


Before this i would post tracks up on other sites and not get any feedback because my stuff never really fit a particular genre. I didn't let that hold me back, i know the sounds i want to create.

Truth is I had to make about 100 shit tracks before I made 10 or so I actually liked. Did i stop? no i kept on going because i figure by keep on going i can make some more shit and some gems.

Not everyone is going to like my music, this is normal. If i post up a track and for 3 weeks it only gets one negative comment i'll shrug my shoulders and take it down and share a different one. If the person who leaves bad comments makes worse music to my ears then i dont feel so bad.



Music is a long ass process and for me I think it was about finding a workflow where I could pump out a fast "WIP" track to keep me going, much to my listeners frustrations.

I am not formally trained by any means. I do everything by ear using midi loops in Ableton live and for me this works! I am not trying to write a classical sonata like beethovan so not being able to is not a big deal to me. It would be nice to write a classical piano piece one day but right now this is not my main priority.

I could give two f**ks less if some musical bigwig says "oh you lack counterpoint, or blah blah" my reply is "So what?"

I will just read the comment, decide if it is worth investing in and learn more, and if it is something i know i need work on i can ignore it knowing i will improve eventually. If i see like 10 comments saying it is really dissonant and not going well even though i think it sounds good i might look into why.

I honestly am bad at putting something out that is 40% finished, but by doing this I get some feedback which i appreciate and it inspires me to keep going. Also i think a big part about mucking about with music is trying to find your "sound". At least that was a big part for me, I did not want to copy DADA life and try to crank out #4 beatport stuff using sausage fattener.

Sure some people do this and it is a form of learning but I kind of went somewhere else..

Again workflow and knowledge of production techniques can definitely keep you going! I don't think i would be cranking out as many tracks as I do now if i did not use Ableton Live. However because this works for me it might not work for someone else so go find your workflow!

To the OP please keep going! Keep working away and soon or later you will what you are looking for.

[fedexnman]

@V0RT3X nice comments !!

[trimph1]

@V0RT3X nice comments !!

[ghettosynth]

Surely there's a simple distinction here. I don't think anyone said anything about being a "real" musician, however, being a "pro" certainly means that one is making at least some part of their living "as" a musician. In fact, I would say that to most people, the thing that separates "pros" from "amateurs" is whether or not they earn their living with the skill in question.

If words had no nuances that would be true. But you don't have to spend more than 5 minutes at a place like kvr to realize that the word 'pro' is imbued with all kinds of subtle nuances that are only tangentially related to 'making a living'. To many people, not being 'pro' means 'not good enough to be pro'. It seems worth pointing out that someone who chooses not to play in cover bands for a living doesn't necessarily make that choice because they 'aren't good enough' to play in cover bands for a living.

And what of someone like Milton Babbitt, who sold almost no records in his life, and made but a few pennies off of performance royalties, but who taught music at Julliard for over 20 years? Was he a 'pro'? Obviously he was, but would kids trying to find 'that PRO sound' be satisfied doing something like teaching at Julliard? I doubt it.

Academics are professional...well, academics. But really, this is getting far afield. The op expressed concern about an outflow of income towards gear that was not even generating interest, let alone an influx of income.

Either you view (your) music as a business enterprise, or you do not. Certainly, you can view part of it as such and the remainder not, I'm not suggesting otherwise. However, if one expresses concern about money spent on X without return then the implication is that they are thinking at some level in business terms.

So put whatever damn label on it that pleases you. Sorry if people take offense, but if you are working in LA in "food service" trying to become an actror, then, well, you are professional waitstaff and, at best, an amateur actor. Similarly, both the IRS and I agree that I am not a professional musician.

I was responding to what I interpreted as an attempt to blur the distinction. I think that it's helpful to decide what role music plays in your life and set your goals accordingly. If you have some notion of being a rock star, well, then get to work. If music is just a limited part of your life then you're free to accept that you're blowing money on gear just because you like it.

Unfortunately, most of us must think in these terms about something. Either we're paying the rent with music, or we're paying it with something else. So, although nobody's suggesting that you must sell music to be a "legitimate" musician, I am saying that you must be selling either music or musical skill to be a "pro", and, for most of us, if you don't make that choice then it's automatically a choice to be a "pro" at something else. Whether that's a good deal or not depends on the individual.

That's what I was getting at when I said it would depress me to imagine myself a pro, go to school to be that person, work most of my life at it, and then fail to achieve even a modicum of success. Music is not my entire life, it's just a small portion of it and I'm ok with the similarly small, ok tiny, minuscule even, success that I've had.

Was it Jobs who said "real artists ship"? I think that there are very few "artists" who are so far ahead of their time that they are not appreciated in their own lifetime. These are not examples to project onto oneself. I imagine the vast majority are simply forgotten as irrelevant. If you imagine yourself to be a working musician, then, work at it and figure out who's going to buy your music. Is it more of a compromise to play in a cover band, or to work at Denney's?

Sometimes I think that I would produce more music, in fact, if I did treat it like a business even though it's just my hobby. No new instruments until I've created enough work to justify the gear that I already have. Hell, you don't even have to make it real. Just assigning a dollar value to listens, say a penny a listen. Then force yourself to market your music enough to get people to listen to it enough so that you can buy the next plug. You want that hot new synth for $99, not until you've generated 9900 listens.

It might work for you, not for me though. I'm just a consumer who buys music gear because it's fun to play with. Every once in a while I manage to finish some output and make it available in some form. Sometimes it generates pennies, or a few dollars, but mostly it generates disinterest and obligatory platitudes.
In fact, I'd say for interest relative to effort, my writings on KVR yield better results than my music does.

I'm ok with that.

[trimph1]

eh...I just record the music for myself ... I can't be arsed worrying about what others think about it...

[ghettosynth]

eh...I just record the music for myself ... I can't be arsed worrying about what others think about it...

Yes, but the op asserts:

So, it's years and thousands of dollars invested and all I have to show for it is a free Soundcloud page. I really don't feel I have the 'fire' I had when it comes to making music. Nobody buys anything. Barely comments are posted and I feel -for what?

So, some people seem to care what others think. In a sense, I think that we all do to some extent. Maybe we don't care what "everybody" thinks, but I suspect that, if we're honest, when we write music in a particular genre that we get something out of the approval of our "peers."

But the point was, that if one does care, and one is lamenting how few views their music gets, perhaps one should spend more effort in drumming up interest.

[kritikon]

I've always just made music I like, and not cared what anyone else thinks.

Nobody buys anything. Barely comments are posted and I feel -for what?

So refer back to the original quote: I remind you that you wrote:

I've always just made music I like, and not cared what anyone else thinks.

Which makes...

Nobody buys anything. Barely comments are posted and I feel -for what?

...irrelevant.


Sure, we all get bored of music for periods. I went several years when the thought of picking up a f****ing stupid mouse sent me running. I still hate the actual [process of sitting in front of a PC screen. Even though I finally set up all my old h/w again, I still go off it occasionally. But it comes back and it makes me happy. Probably similar with you. Pack it away, give it a rest. It's daft to sell it though, until you really know you're not ever going to make music again.

I remind you once again...

I've always just made music I like, and not cared what anyone else thinks.

You need to decide if that's really true, because if it really is true, you wouldn't even be trying to sell it or garner fans. I played along with the idea of selling music when I was much younger. When we actually got a deal, it ruined the pleasure of making music for me. I bailed out quicktime because it was obvious making music really was a pleasure and I didn't give a monkey about who else liked it, and having deadlines etc made it miserable. The moment I stopped trying to make it commercial was when I restarted enjoying making music again. To the point of even my missus rarely hears my music. It's not for anyone else - it's for me. Is it for you, or are you really trying to "make it"? That's two entirely different things and always will be.

[SampleScience]

...there's something about producing with a particular piece of gear that's inspiring. I think you're more apt to work hard at a tune using some old rhythm box played through a tube amp than to pull up a Kontakt library of the same, knowing there are hundreds more like it a click away.

BTW - @SampleScience - "Hand Shaking" -

Thank you! Yesterday, I focused on a old sampler, the Roland JS-30. I sampled vinyls and FM radio. The JS-30, when not expanded, is 8-bit sampling!! And if I want to sync loops together, you have to adjust the pitch of each loop and sync by ears!

When I was sampling, I realized that computer samplers aren't sampler at all. Sampling, especially with a 8 bit sampler, is an art in itself! So I'm learning at lot at the moment on how to get the most out of this old sampler. I might have something done eventually, probably abstract ambient and very low key with public domain dialogues clips and slow drones. This is a challenge, considering I have 22 seconds of sample time!

While it might sounds stupid to limit yourself like that, the tracks I have done over the years that I'm the most proud of are the ones I did with very little gear. They are also the most originals.

I've also read something that was a real eye opener for me, it's a quote from Noam Chomsky (I'm translating it from french, there might be a few grammatical errors here and there, sorry about that!):

There's an interaction, a complex relation between constraints, the rules and the creative behavior. If there's no rule system, no constraints system, no form's whole, then the creative behavior becomes unthinkable.

I did not want to copy DADA life and try to crank out #4 beatport stuff using sausage fattener.

Amen! The "I want to be a musician to be famous" is really getting tiring and leads to various forms of shallow business practices (for instance: buying plays on soundcloud).

[herodotus]

Academics are professional...well, academics. But really, this is getting far afield.

At kvr? No way!

The op expressed concern about an outflow of income towards gear that was not even generating interest, let alone an influx of income.

Confession: I don't care what the OP was about. I rarely care what the OP is about, as some of the most interesting threads I have seen here have had nothing to do with the OP.

So put whatever damn label on it that pleases you.

But that is just the point for me. I HATE the way everyone just 'puts whatever damn labels they please' on things. It results in endless and quite pointless confusion about just about everything. And it can be especially bad in the case of music, where everything is hard to understand in the first place. Words mean things. I like to remind people of this. Sorry if it chafes at you.

Sorry if people take offense, but if you are working in LA in "food service" trying to become an actror, then, well, you are professional waitstaff and, at best, an amateur actor.

Yes, I get it. You are a hard-nosed realist who will countenance no prevarication or self-deception. Bully for you.

But you do realize, I am sure, that many actors may work part time? That while they can't depend on their acting to career to pay all of their bills, they still depend upon it to pay some of the bills?

I was responding to what I interpreted as an attempt to blur the distinction.

So was I.

I think that it's helpful to decide what role music plays in your life and set your goals accordingly.

Perhaps it is helpful for you, but not a single musician I have ever had any admiration for looked at music that way. Most of them just did their thing and accepted the consequences. Some people like that are successful. Some live on the fringes of success, and some, like say, Conlon Nancarrow, never make a damn penny off of their work. But they worked with the same determination regardless of the results. This is a totally different way of looking at music, and I like reminding people that it exists, as most seem to be unaware of it.

If you have some notion of being a rock star, well, then get to work. If music is just a limited part of your life then you're free to accept that you're blowing money on gear just because you like it.

See, this is a perfect example of what I am talking about. You present a dichotomy here between people who have 'some notion of being a rock star' and people for whom 'music is just a limited part of your life' as if it were exhaustive. It is not, as even a cursory glance at the history of early 20th century music would reveal.

Unfortunately, most of us must think in these terms about something.

I agree, it is unfortunate.

Either we're paying the rent with music, or we're paying it with something else.

Yes. Shrewd but dull.

So, although nobody's suggesting that you must sell music to be a "legitimate" musician, I am saying that you must be selling either music or musical skill to be a "pro"

Now this is where it gets a trifle contentious, because I believe that many people 'suggest' this over and over again.

That's what I was getting at when I said it would depress me to imagine myself a pro, go to school to be that person, work most of my life at it, and then fail to achieve even a modicum of success. Music is not my entire life, it's just a small portion of it and I'm ok with the similarly small, ok tiny, minuscule even, success that I've had.

I am glad that you are OK with yourself. I agree that you are not cut out for the life of someone like Schoenberg or Bartok or Webern or Ives or Ruggles or Nancarrow or Varese or Cowell or Russolo or Satie.

Was it Jobs who said "real artists ship"?

You are quoting, or rather, paraphrasing, a businessman about the true nature of art? I really don't know what else to say to that.

I think that there are very few "artists" who are so far ahead of their time that they are not appreciated in their own lifetime.

Have you ever heard of Nicolas Slonimsky's Lexicon of Musical Invective?

It is nothing but a collection of documented examples of people not being appreciated in their lifetimes. The examples Slonimsky adduces aren't obscure or atypical, they are respectable and well-paid reflections of popular taste.

Slonimsky's list of composers since Beethoven that were excoriated by the popular press of their own time is:

Bartok
Beethoven
Berg
Berlioz
Bizet
Bloch
Brahms
Bruckner
Chopin
Copland
Cowell
Debussy
Franck
Gershwin
Gounod
Harris
D'Indy
Krenek
Liszt
Mahler
Milhaud
Mussorgsky
Prokofiev
Puccini
Rachmaninoff
Ravel
Reger
Riegger
Rimsky-Korsakov
Ruggles
Saint-Saens
Schoenberg
Schumann
Scriabin
Shostakovitch
Sibelius
Strauss
Stravinsky
Tchaikovsky
Varese
Verdi
Wagner
Webern

Now needless to say, many of these people managed to do OK in a financial sense when they were alive, but many people on that list, a full 35% as I count it, did not. And there are many more who aren't on that list. Is this 'very few' in your estimation? Because all of these names are featured heavily in histories of music.

These are not examples to project onto oneself.

Unless, of course, you happen to like their music.

Right?

I imagine the vast majority are simply forgotten as irrelevant.

Well, you don't have to imagine, though. There are these things called 'Histories of Music' wherein you can find out for yourself how many of the people who were unappreciated in life were appreciated much more after their death.

You might be surprised by the number of famous people who never made a penny off of their fame until they were dead.

And if you were to leave Music and enter a field like Philosophy, you might be truly shocked to find out how very little the writers of the Great Books of the Western World earned for their efforts.

[Bhan]

I've made music both standing and sitting still... I don't really have to go nowhere...man or anywhere for that matter.

[mcnoone]

If you're not going anywhere.
Should you just give up living?

[ghettosynth]

I think that there are very few "artists" who are so far ahead of their time that they are not appreciated in their own lifetime.

Slonimsky's list of composers since Beethoven that were excoriated by the popular press of their own time is:

Yes, you put the entire list into a kvr post, that's sufficient evidence that there are few, as I stated, but, more to the point...

These are not examples to project onto oneself.

Unless, of course, you happen to like their music.

Right?

Wrong, that has nothing to do with it. The point is, nobody here is on that list and I can predict with high certainty, that nobody ever will be. It's arrogant fantasy to think that your music on soundcloud isn't selling because you're ahead of your time. It's not selling because you've done nothing to sell it. The probability that anyone here is worthy of historical recognition is vanishingly small. The probability that ability will set you apart from the pack is also equally tiny. The reality is that action will set you apart. That action takes time and you should decide honestly what your commitment to music is.

[ghettosynth]

There have been plenty of musicians who were never popular in their lifetime, and later someone found some of their stuff and it got big. Music isn't, and shouldn't be, a popularity contest anyways, and I don't care if I have no fans and people come to me asking me to stop, if I keep getting enjoyment out of my music then I'm going to keep doing it

What is the point of this lottery mentality? Have you (the reader) done the work to be Bach? Or perhaps you're someone more like Clyde Stubblefield, he doesn't read music, but plays one hell of a funk beat.

Why would you go unrecognized today? Are you ahead of your time? Really? You mean to say that in today's world of zillions of genres and outlets of music that nobody likes your music and you're just a misunderstood genius?

Don't you think that it's far more likely that one of the following scenarios is actually true:

1) You just haven't reached the right audience for your music.

2) Your music just isn't interesting.

Don't you think that if you really were a genius, that you could/would get someone's attention? We aren't living in the 19th century, it's pretty damn easy to get your music in front of people's faces.

Suppose you are a genius, then don't you think that you could articulate why your music is genius material? You don't think that you could get any attention, really?

DJ Baby Chino, is managing to get some attention, at least some gigs.



Is he more musician than you?

It's just naive to think that music isn't a popularity contest. You are competing for people's time and attention. Your music may not be as good as someone else's, but if you grab their attention, you might be able to get them to listen to your stuff instead of that other guy's. If you don't he might get their attention.

Really, I don't believe that the fantasy of the undiscovered genius applies to anyone here. I don't think it applies to any of my friends that have substantial formal training and experience. I think it especially doesn't apply if you are doing any form of pop music.

Suppose I'm wrong, and you win the lottery, you are a genius, and it won't be known until after your death. How does this help you live a great life now? Is that comforting to know that your life sucked for success you'll never enjoy? Do people actually enjoy projecting this martyr for artistic integrity persona on themselves?

I don't often agree with jancivil, but she's right. You're not going to become a musical success selling records from your bedroom and there hasn't been a time where this was really true. Most successful electronic producers DJ and that's how they test out their tracks and get known. Rock/Pop artists gig, that's where they hone their craft.

This thread feels a bit like an emo concert at the local junior high school. Where are the cutters, someone keep an eye on the cutters damn it!