How long do you pursue a failed idea?

[HaganeSteel]

jancivil's really right.

I'm going to add to that because a lot of people may not understand how to stay detached.

When I say "you", I'm referring to people in general.

You're more than your music.

You do other things, you have done other things, etc.

Music is not anyone's only accomplishment, and for the most part, I see a lot of people on KVR who study multiple disciplines. That makes you educated, even if your education isn't formal. If your education isn't formal, that just means you're succeeding against the odds.

You love things other than music, right? Those things make up who you are too.

I've thought about giving up music. Not because I feel like a failure, but because I'm trying to decide if it's really what I want to do.

I'm pretty successful at music, but I'm successful at other things too.

You have to do what makes you happy, not what makes you "good".

It's that pursuit of validation that makes people think they fail when they really haven't.

Everyone needs validation, but you stay detached by understanding that other things in your life validate you besides music.

And the trick to finding those things is examining the things you love. Not necessarily love to do, but just things you love in general.

I like 90's Playstation games. Resident Evil: Director's Cut is my favorite game and I love talking about Shinji Mikami's true vision of a survival simulator first and horror game second.

Makes me feel good. I'm privileged to have experienced that game and I'm privileged to understand Shinji Mikami. Focusing on what you love makes you feel good, generates good feelings, and ultimately self-acceptance.

It sounds insignificant, but little stuff like the above adds up.

Then one day, you realize you failed, and you realize it's because you're not trying hard enough anymore because you stopped caring what other people think somewhere down the line.

Got all that?

Probably not. No one reads my posts.

[chaosWyrM]

i never delete anything. the way i look at it...theres something there that i wanted to do, if i cant find a way to do it now...ill let it sit and come back to it later. ive had projects sit unopened for over a year just to be completed in one sitting. i think of it as putting them in a "track bank"...to earn interest until the day theyve matured enough to be withdrawn.

once i decide its not happening now...i refuse to open it again until such time as i dont remember what it sounded like. then when i do open it its like hearing it with fresh ears, and whatever preconceived notions i had about it before are gone...giving me the freedom to continue.

i cant tell you how many times ive felt uninspired, and been saved by an old forgotten project in "the bank". it happens all the time for me. it doesnt cost anything really to hold on to them, and they could pay great dividends in the long run.

[Mister Natural]

really interesting responses here & most all are correct : there is no pattern that leads to trash or not to trash the whole.
Sometimes you keep an element of the lousy, frustrating piece, sometimes two . . .
In my latest exercise; I put a different drum line down that had a completely different feel than what I started with & hmmmm . . . that made it much more interesting(to me)

Just don't ever stop creating

peace

[crashedthecar]

Great thread.
If I take a wrong turn, that version gets lodged in the brain and my creative energy gets drained. I don't delete it, I store it ona hard drive and start working on something else.

[VicDiesel]

the thing to do - [...] - is know when to cut your losses

Yeah. My answer to the original question would be: I don't pursue failed ideas. I pursue any idea that occurs to me, until it fails. I may give it another 5 minutes, but usually I can figure out what doesn't work, and if after sleeping on it for a night I see no obvious solution I ditch the project.

Victor.

[robogone]

Surely if you're still pursuing it, it hasn't failed? It only fails once you stop pursuing it...

[SODDI]

No, it was dead and floppy long before I consigned it to the bozo bin.

But I DO retain all samples. I should probably figure out a way to go back and rename at least the percussion bits with appended BPM from the original Cubase arrangement. Some of that would be invaluable for building up loops.

[arkmabat]

Surely if you're still pursuing it, it hasn't failed? It only fails once you stop pursuing it...

Yes.

I once heard a quote along the lines of: "take the worst part in a song and turn it into the best part".

These can be applied to life in general, too. Thank you for sharing this.

[debra1rlo]

how long?

until I've finished the album. obviously.

[samsam]

So summing up, you gotta know when to hold 'em, know when to fold 'em, know when to walk away, know when to run.

[ZenPunkHippy]

Since I first powered up a synthesiser about 12 years ago

how long?

until I've finished the album. obviously.

[robogone]

how long?

That's pretty much your 'go to' question really, isn't it...

[debra1rlo]

how long?

That's pretty much your 'go to' question really, isn't it...

it's not the length but the girth that matters

[softegg]

The strategy which I adopt with projects that reached a dead end is to render the couple of bars which I really like as one short loop and discard the rest. By now I have a huge collection of loops generated that way.
From time to time these loops end up in some other projects either chopped up mangled, beyond recognition, and are actually a huge source of inspiration.

[foosnark]

Sometimes if I have a track that isn't working out, I will:

-- save it, go do something else, listen to it tomorrow to see if I've changed my mind or if there's something good in there to save.

-- try changing the time signature and making the groove work.

-- find one or two parts I like. Throw away the rest. Do something completely different with the fragment I saved. (That could involve throwing away all the MIDI and just keeping one cool patch I made. Or it could be one rhythmic pattern.)

-- render the track, delete the project, and start something new using the rendered audio as raw material. Maybe just tiny snippet samples to run through a granulator, or maybe heavy processing on the whole thing, or sample a drum part and slice it up.


Um, as far as how long I stick with something that's not working? I guess it depends, really. As soon as I feel like I can't do anything good without changing direction, I change direction.

And sometimes when I was working on something that sounded cool last night, this morning it's crap and I delete the project or drop it into the "fail" folder.