should we stop

[ontol]

[HydrogenHuman]

I saw this thread and thought about my own interest in producing music, and here is what I came up with:

Answer these two questions with complete honesty. In other words, after you read the question what is the immediate answer your brain gives you, since that will most likely be the accurate answer.

1. Will you still produce music even if you don't earn any amount of revenue from it, ever?

2. Will you still produce music even if no one ever listens to the music you make?

If you can truthfully say "Yes" to both, then I would not quit music production. If you even doubt a "Yes" answer to either question, then I would start re-thinking your approach to music creation.

Granted I'm no expert, and I've been at this for over 10 years and still haven't made a song that has satisfied me yet, but I had to learn to just enjoy making music because I love it.

[Vintage73]

I would never encourage anyone to outright quit music. Step back? Maybe. Change your methods? Perhaps.

Maybe you don't focus on being "successful" or maybe you don't devote all your time to it, but if you get any enjoyment out of it at all, don't give it up completely.

[kritikon]

Obviously we (me to) aren't really successful at it.

Who cares? Is that why you personally make music? If not, then it's utterly irrelevant. If so, then give up.

What's the use?

What use was music ever? If you find it useless, again...give up. Personally I have lots of uses for it, none of them including commercial success. I don't personally see myself as a loser, because I don't enter the competition. Different for you maybe?

I mean I can only truly speak about myself. With all this time it cost me / us, is it worth it? Is there anyone beside me who would regret it if I'd stop this hobby? I guess not. Or would I get addicted to porn or booze or cigarettes or coke as a substitute for making music if I'd quit? wait .... lemme try first

Anyway ... the reason i'm posting this
Is there anyone who's tried to quit?
Did it help?

If I get bored of music, then I give up for a while. It usually doesn't last too long, and I'm not sure of the question - did it help with what? It stopped me being bored with my own music, yeah. Did it stop me being bored with music in general - no. But I don't get bored with music in general just because nobody else wants to play. That's not (I imagine) why most musicians do music. If it's a serious question, you really need to take a long look at why you do music. If it's anything to do with a career choice, there are easier ways to make a living. If the only store you set by your music is how many people buy it, and if they aren't buying it, then it's a bit futile to carry on for decades, failing all the way.

Personally I think it's a really weird way of seeing music. I read it often here - as if being a commercial success is the only benefit of music, the only way of ranking it. Why do you have to rank it anyway? Do you really not enjoy making music at all?

[lotus2035]

If you don't enjoy making music then should definitely quit. If all you're worried about is being a commercial success you should quit as well.

+1

But I guess that means that 80% of those employed in the music industry at the mo', really should go looking for a new job

If it wasn't for the tens of thousands of mouse clicking "producers" out there thinking they will be the next hot shit rabidly pumping their money into Hardware/Software companies and hanging on for news of the next version of whatever-the-f**k we might very well not be so far along in terms of available music production technology and software.

It's like Ghostbusters 2 with that pink slime under New York City that fed off negative energy which in turn made people even more negative as it grew and spread. We created this monster together.

[highkoo]

It's like Ghostbusters 2 with that pink slime under New York City that fed off negative energy which in turn made people even more negative as it grew and spread.

But the toaster though...

Pling.! Ploing.!

[seismic1]

In my experience, commercial success is the ability to persuade the missus to go shopping when I turn on the computer.

[Zombie Queen]

Nah, that's commercial disaster.

[dgkenney]

You don't quit music. Music quits you.

Dan

[Hink]

You don't quit music. Music quits you.

Dan

I wasn't going to post in this nonsense thread at all but I have to say that I could not disagree more, sorry dude...yeah it sounds catchy, is quite funny and in a thread like this it fits but the truth is music never quits you. Sadly I know many who have quit music and at my age I see many of them saying they should never have stopped. Of course what's right for one is not always right for another and we all must choose different paths but music never quits you.

Whether it's that ear worm you can't shake or the memory of a song you haven't heard in years, perhaps a song that makes you sad or makes you happy...music never quits you. Or I should say that at 54 years of age many times have I wondered when it will be my turn or if I have crashed....then I hear a song or I play and I realize it just evolves along with us.

It may need to take a back seat to kids and a family, but then one night you find yourself singing to your baby because music never quits you. One day we all leave this planet, surely for each of us there are people who will say "you know who liked this song?" or "you know who would have liked this song" and then they will play the song in your honor because even when our bodies quit us, music never quits you.

This is the gift of music.

[rp314]

The main problem is young Wolfgang Amadeus and the rest of those past greats whose works are in the damned public domain!

Last night's Family Guy was a rerun of that episode that contains a minor homage to Amadeus. When you consider that Mozart composed that Symphony when he was 18, two years before the Declaration of Independence, and the tightwads that produce these shows keep using stuff like that instead of some new works, well, there's a good deal of your problem right there.

We're all the children of Salieri. God's against us trying to make it as professional musicians...

[debra1rlo]

I think you should always press stop when you've finished recording.

[dgkenney]

I wasn't going to post in this nonsense thread at all but I have to say that I could not disagree more, sorry dude...

Then my nonsense work here is done

Dan

P.S. nice post btw