Lost as an artist

[Arglebargle]

Just want to share my feelings. I haven't written any original music for 3 years. While I've kept myself occupied other ways, I feel adrift when it comes to being an artist. There has never been a genre I felt like I wanted to occupy, and while experimenting in various styles has been a lot of fun over the years, it has never given me a sense of identity. It's not that I CAN'T write music these days, I just feel, "why bother"? I never cultivated a "fanbase" and am frankly too lazy to do it, so I don't have any other people to write music for. And writing for myself, I just feel like all my ideas have been tried before by me or others.

The thing is, if I hadn't spent SO much money on this hobby I would just say, ok, experiment has run its course, haven't spent much dough, time to pack things up. But I do like to create music, it gives me a feeling unlike anything else. I just look back in the last decade+ and feel like it hasn't amounted to anything important... I barely know myself as an artist now any more than I did 12 years ago. I just feel an overwhelming sense of "meh".

Is anyone else where I am? Have you been there?

[polyslax]

Not sure what to tell you... you've been around long enough that surely you've seen similar threads dozens of times. If not, the answer is a resounding YES - we've all been there, some are living it now, some have come out the other end, and some, I suspect, have given up.

Lots of us create for ourselves. I've been doing this since pre-www days, during which I time I wrote and recorded for an audience of one. Today, that's still pretty much where I'm at. Sure, a handful of people listen and comment on my tracks... not exactly a fan base, and I doubt there'd be any kind of uproar if I stopped making music. I'm ok with that. I get a big charge out of it, though admittedly time is so scarce these days that I don't get to it much.

So, if you can't even interest yourself in your music, well, maybe you need a break. Don't open a DAW or synth... don't even look at music fora, for a month or two and see if it brings back some of the curiosity and desire that initially made you want to create music.

Another thought - you mention having spent a bundle on gear... perhaps narrow your focus down to one or two tools and try to create something. Don't fret about genre, don't think about an audience or try to perfect anything... don't even worry about a final product, just enjoy the moment and let some raw creativity flow out of you.

Those are my thoughts. Hope you get back on track.

[chaosWyrM]

i hear ya.

im in a simillar situation...not the same...but close. i havent made much of anything for the past 2 years...though my reason is simply time. im the primary care giver for my daughter (who turned 2 in october) and just do not have time to sit and make music. by the time shes asleep for the night...im just too beat to expend energy on making music. besides...i still like to spend time with my girlfriend...which means only a couple of hours at night at most. more often than not, my gf falls asleep before the baby does (she gets up for work at 5:30 and doesnt get home till 7:30 or later). so after a 12-15 hour day of taking care of a toddler and making food and trying to not let the apartment turn to shit and all that...im spent.

you say you like to create music...and id say thats the one and only measurement you need. do it because you like to do it...no other reason. dont worry about genres or fanbases...all that crap is meaningless. it doesnt need to "amount" to something other than an activity that brings you joy. make music because you enjoy making music...and if you stop enjoying it...stop doing it

you can always start up again when the desire comes back.

[xoxos]

i would buy more things, and cling indignantly to the thought that you are engaged in a privileged first world recreational activity, and everyone would envy you if only they knew how much fun it is to sit by a computer and recreate your favourite state approved media content themes. you're fully authorised to have a good time.

it's as much fun as dancing before nescient exascerbated teenage sex, and everybody can't afford it.

and, you get all the beeps you want!

heck, just make things, we desperately need more stuff. perhaps we can totally occlude a meaningful world with a giant pile of stuff. make stuff, and decorate. things are pretty with extra things all over them. or at least confusing. get busy, forget you can't find meaning and continue to think of it as pleasurable and just say you're too busy to "do what you enjoy" and it will sound sensible.

[Jace-BeOS]

You've gotten good advise here already that I won't repeat. I'm in a similar place for different reasons, and I've bitched about it many a time on these threads, and I won't repeat that either.

You are not alone. Do what pleases you and don't expect more of it than that.

[jancivil]

No, I have never felt like that. The reason I have all this stuff is because I tend to have ideas and they bother me to the extent I work them out into some kind of shape, if I can. I used to put pencil to paper, never hearing most of it. I had the good fortune to be able to acquire a nice DAW today. It was important to me to purchase the things following that I think I have something to say, and that I understand the tools fairly well going in, from my experience and study. Something to say to myself, primarily. And to my friends. That belief in myself is not top-down, I built myself into someone that 'writes music'. I was a musician for some years before I really featured that I would 'compose'. I didn't major in it.

"Why bother" is a depressed affect of the psyche, it seems to me.

I never cultivated a "fanbase" and am frankly too lazy to do it, so I don't have any other people to write music for. And writing for myself, I just feel like all my ideas have been tried before by me or others.

Well, my impression of these things as a whole is, 'writing for other people' sets up 'all my ideas are other people's ideas already' in kind of a syndrome.
What in your life formed the belief that you should be having novel musical ideas? Most people in music do not.

I don't have masses of fans either, and I'm feckless in addressing that. There are a few people that recognize what I do and to my view that's natural, what I do is 'good', to me so why wouldn't it travel to others 'like me'? I don't have a big desire for people that stick to more pedestrian fare to 'like' me.
If I wanted to have hits I would have a wholly different modus operandi. If I had a great drive for it I suppose I will have built myself differently than I did.

[foosnark]

I have dealt with, and still occasionally wrestle with, all the things you mentioned.

I frequently go for several months at a time without really doing much musically. While it's hard to accept sometimes... that's okay. There are cycles. You don't have to constantly churn stuff out (unless it's your job, and even then, there are cycles of writing, recording, practicing, gigging, promotion, whatever).

Don't not play music because of a "why bother" attitude about other peoples' music. But it's okay to not play music just because you're not actually into doing that at the moment. It's better to be honest in art, isn't it?

"Don't worry about it" is both the most true and most useless piece of advice anyone has ever given anyone, but it applies here. You don't have to attach guilt to your hobby or your equipment or whatever. Most people have equipment sitting around for hobbies they don't actually spend much (or maybe any) time in.

(Although: I find that entering events like NaSoAlMo and/or FAWM usually gets me going, and sometimes I get some feedback and listeners that way. But by the end of that month sometimes I might be forcing myself to do it instead of reading a book or playing a video game or something.)


Genres: heh. I know this one. Two roads diverged in a wood, and I tried to take both of them at the same time. I am big into drumming, crazy artificial rhythms and natural ones, and just hitting things in general. I also find myself making creepy dark ambient about 60% of the time. I like powernoise and electronic industrial, but I can't make myself stick to them long enough to put together more than one album's worth of material and usually not even that long.

I still fight this one, but basically: trying to stick to one genre is more of a marketing, image, identity thing. It doesn't necessarily reflect badly on you as an artist if you can't pick one thing and stick to it. It does make you less commercially salable, but if you're into weird music like I am and hate (self-)promotion like I do, that was hopeless from the start anyway.

A way to sidestep that would be to give yourself multiple personalities as an artist. Make some music under name X and others under name Y. I almost did that and decided to just stick to one thing (even though I kind of want to change the name now).


Fanbase: eh. This really depends on what you want. Building, keeping, and selilng to a fanbase takes work, not just making music.

I like it when people tell me they like my music. It doesn't happen a lot. But really... I like it more when I like my own music, whether it's immediately or next week or 10 years later.

For a couple of years, I was in a taiko drumming group. The big shows for the year have a few hundred people in the audience, some of whom drive for 4 hours to get there and are willing to sit through thunderstorms, mud, blazing sun or whatever. People would come up to the stage afterward or see us in costume and tell us how awesome we were. That was pretty nifty. I quit after a while though -- this was 9 hours of group practice every week, exercise and drilling and rehearsal and trying to nail choreography (which is hard for me) and trying not to look tired (which is hard for everyone) and so on -- just to play other peoples' music. And with that fanbase, even with merchandise sales, the group didn't make enough money to operate without grants and sponsors and membership dues. Overall, the main thing I enjoyed wasn't being told how much of a badass I looked on stage or that my solo was awesome or that everyone was sharp and precise -- no, what I really loved was literally just jamming, feeling the music for as long as we wanted to and soloing for good long durations, and pouring ourselves into that. And that wasn't something we got to do very much of. A typical amateur drum circle is much better for that. (If only they had drums you could throw your whole body weight into...) I don't regret that experience at all, and it definitely had some fun moments, but it taught me what I really love about music -- and it's mostly not the audience.

[Numanoid]

I haven't written any original music for 3 years.

So do like painters, do a retrospective exhibition

Do like Benge, wade through some old tapes, call it something like "an exploration of home recording techniques" and put it out!

http://zackdagoba.bandcamp.com/album/forms-2-earthmoves

[el-bo (formerly ebow)]

find out what you don't like about the process, and get rid of that for a period

it's become the norm that we wear all caps these days; we are the composers, arrangers producers, engineers, mastering engineers, cd-printing houses, graphics designers and promoters. it's hardly a surprise that it might not be much fun anymore

i haven't recorded anything for quite a while, but i have been playing more. i enjoy jamming on sounds, but always with the intention of one day recording. but the minute i hit record, i am then chasing the perfect take. if it is not good, then either i have to keep going over and over again, or i have to 'up' tools and start moving coloured blocks around a screen. i can literally feel the energy drain out of me, and i just close the daw and do something else. that's not to say that i don't enjoy producing, but just that it's not what i am enjoying so much at the moment

as for trying to work in genres ?? unless you are sold on the idea of gaining a market, why bother. make the music you want to make when you want, and don't worry about not being able to be pigeon-holed, labelled or tagged

one other thing...deadlines. i tend to respond well to having the pressure of a deadline. i have been at my most productive within the framework of the 'rpm challenge', which i have completed twice now. i am thinking of entering this year, but am not sure whether i can spare the time. it still keeps calling. maybe it's what you need to break out of a rut

http://www.rpmchallenge.com/

[Fraser M]

Try doing a cover version of a favourite song - maybe completely change the genre but just make the song. You might get half way through and find something original within what you've started that you can go on and explore.

[SODDI]

But I do like to create music, it gives me a feeling unlike anything else.

You already gave yourself the only answer you will ever need.

[Numanoid]

Do like Biosphere, grab your recorder, spend an afternoon chilling in the mountains while recording the "ambience".

Release it as a field recording.

[SODDI]

(If only they had drums you could throw your whole body weight into...)

Wouldn't that be the o-daiko? That's a battle drum, used to send orders across a crowded field.


I've seen performers like Bill Leeb (Frontline Assembly) and Ronan O'Snodaigh (Dead Can Dance) play great big ass marching bass drums laid horizontally on a stand. They can be real loud and to play them is real physical. But they're not great on portability.

[Arglebargle]

thanks guys. This is a state of being for me now, so I figure things might change in time. I just wanted to share my feels and get all emotional and stuff.

[Frantz]

while experimenting in various styles has been a lot of fun over the years, it has never given me a sense of identity.....I just feel like all my ideas have been tried before by me or others.

I think you are unmotivated because you haven't found your voice or "sense of identity" as you call it. Once you figure out what you want to say musically, I think your motivation will naturally return. Try to think about music that got you excited as a teenager. Could you somehow put your own unique spin on that even if it's not commercial? What kind of music would be fun for you to do?