Recognizing and owning up to your own arrogance.

[VariKusBrainZ]

I cant believe Dead Parrot have never done a reconstruction from this forum

[whyterabbyt]

Definition of arrogant: having or revealing an exaggerated sense of one's own importance or abilities.

But what is the word that has this meaning: having or revealing an accurate sense of one's own importance or abilities.

And this meaning: having or revealing a doubtful sense of one's own importance or abilities.

if only there were websites which could search all the other websites for stuff like that.

[harryupbabble]

There are. Here'one: http://www.onelook.com/reverse-dictionary.shtml

And when I copy/pasted "having or revealing an accurate sense of one's own importance or abilities" into the search box, this is the top 10 results:

1. self-important
2. pride
3. meaning
4. conscience
5. ear
6. sensible
7. modest
8. sensed
9. sensing
10. arrogant

And when I copy/pasted "having or revealing a doubtful sense of one's own importance or abilities" into the search box, this is the top 10 results:

1. self-important
2. meaning
3. pride
4. conscience
5. sensed
6. sensing
7. modest
8. arrogant
9. sensible
10. find

[harryupbabble]

On further investigation, by Googling "arrogant rock stars", yes there seems to be a lot of arrogant musicians in my music collection(assuming the sources got it right and I think they mostly did):

Keith Moon
Ozzy Osbourne
Iggy Pop
Nikki Sixx
Eric Clapton
Liam and Noel Gallagher
Axl Rose
Michael Jackson
John Lennon
Gene Simmons
Madonna
Robert Plant
Chris Martin
Jon Bon Jovi
Morrissey
Richard Ashcroft
Anthony Kiedis
Mick Jagger
Ian Brown
Jim Morrison
Billy Corgan
Mozart
Beethoven
Bob Dylan
Adam Duritz
Mike Love
Pete Townshend
Jimmy Page
Kurt Cobain
David Bowie
Ted Nugent
Henry Rollins
Sinead O'Connor


And presumably many, many more. How about you guys/gals... any arrogant musicians in your music collection?

[VariKusBrainZ]

There are. Here'one: http://www.onelook.com/reverse-dictionary.shtml

He was being facetious

[harryupbabble]

There are. Here'one: http://www.onelook.com/reverse-dictionary.shtml

He was being facetious

Maybe I am too. I should make use of the smileys more often.

[Aleatoriac]

Of course!

I'm an incredibly arrogant bastard - WORSHIP my noise, you mere mortals. For I am your GOD.

And PAY for my damn music, we must cultivate a sense of capitalistic urgency!

[Functional]

But but but, I just realized... there's quite a lot of possibly arrogant musicians in my CD/MP3 collection. If I were to go by this thought "No arrogant musicians will be in my music collection" I am guessing my music collection would be empty. But maybe "arrogant" is not the right word.

Definition of arrogant: having or revealing an exaggerated sense of one's own importance or abilities.

But what is the word that has this meaning: having or revealing an accurate sense of one's own importance or abilities.

And this meaning: having or revealing a doubtful sense of one's own importance or abilities.

I don't think it was implied that musicians cannot be arrogant. Rather it seems that especially ripe musicians will have long-lasting impacts with their early arrogance (behavior that lacks humility to learn lessons from people who have the experience and knowledge), because it might hamper their development as musicians. Personally I think that is what is being implied.

[harryupbabble]

But the thing is, with maybe rare exceptions, it seems like the best works by those "arrogant" musicians were almost always done in their youth, when they were less experienced? And as they got older, they became less "arrogant" and their works began to suck? That's my observation at least. Plus, I'm still not quite sure if "arrogant" is the right word.

[thecontrolcentre]

Most of the "pro" musicians I know are pretty arrogant. Especially the more successful one's. Comes from being told "you're a genius" all the time, by sycophants and hangers on.

[rifftrax]

I feel a bit the same way. Here's my personal list of "welcome to reality" audio/music related experiences in not necessarily chronological order:

/litany of disappointments

Sounds like an episode of Maron.

LMAO. That's the best thing in this thread afaic.

Huh, never actually heard of this so I guess I'll have to give it a look.

My last two cents is that working in the toy industry completely cemented the reality that audio engineer does not equal acoustic engineer.

Knew a senior sound designer that would put like 3 L1s on every track. Easily 10db of crap-radio-limiter gain reduction on everything. No wonder toys sound shitty. Everyone would then proceed to blame it on the sigma-delta DAC + PWM amplifier stage of the specialized playback chip. No-one knew what a THD measurement was or had ever even heard of Audio Precision gear. If you talked about a frequency response data file they would look at you like you were from outerspace. I was f**king dumbfounded by some of these people (all world-class professionals mind you).

Here's the thing, people will tell you don't know what you're doing and then turn around and do some super asinine shit. You have to realize that in the end, everyone is pretty much f**king around with things they don't actually understand unless they programmed it or hand-built the prototype themselves.

[Jace-BeOS]

(...) Needless to say I basically have given up pretending that I will accomplish actual f**k all with music at any point. The truth is I don't have a f**king clue where the line between actual work/talent and just getting balls-to-the-wall lucky lies. My experience professionally with music is that it's a complete shit show that occasionally rewards something besides nominal ability and simply being in the right place at the right time.

This was an awesome post. I haven't had these shitty experiences you've had (and I'm sorry you had them), and yet my assessment of the business is the same. Just reading the stories from the actually successful people was enough for me to decide I wanted no part of it.

For a brief time, when I was driven by pharmaceuticals, I had made a plan to go away to a production school in London(?) Canada. I toured the facility. When I got back home, I found out I got my limited contract job turned into a full time position as an instructional designer, so I didn't do the production school. I don't know if my life would've turned out better or worse, since that job was the end of my working life and was 60+% responsible for my current disability status. The school marketed their students as sleeping on couches in the studio to get projects done... that's not my idea of a pleasant existence. I'm not impressed by subjecting one's self to abusive employers, clients, or unhealthy lifestyles for the sake of "career commitment".

[jancivil]

It is an irritation to me that due to the internet, it takes up all this space. A consumer forum such as this promotes 'making beats', loop packages.

How do you mean this? It's annoying because it promotes making the beats (i.e. hogging up space from other, more interesting and presumably helpful discussion) or the waste of potential when people are focusing into things they shouldn't necessarily focus at (due to certain kinds of expectations) which might result slower development or even complete frustration eventually? Both?

Well, yeah, you're sensing me accurately, & vis a vis the dynamics here... all of that.
But this forum doesn't owe me anything. (I'll be arrogant and take up some space here though)
And, hey, I'll celebrate Festivus a little bit, why not. ("I got a LOTTA PROBLEMS with you people..." )

The couple of guys that decided to toss 'you *are* arrogant' (well, one and the other piled on, schoolyard stylee) at me must be on a real different path than I expect musicians to be.
Dot jon took the opportunity to tell off those of us who indicated to a developer of the chord that a whole lot of chords were spelled wrong. He told me that I know about music theory but have no idea what to do with it, just out of me insisting that chords made of thirds should be spelled as thirds. It was "retarded", what we were doing. Useless, nobody needs that anymore.
I have never seen a more arrogant pile of crap in my life. So he has beef with me, donno, doesn't matter, just sayin'. Unbelievable, it's a sick joke him calling me arrogant.

This is demonstrably NOT a music forum. It is a consumer forum, for plugins and other offshoots of DSP development. And some tangential boards, DYI, hardware.
Very little discussion of music happens here. The thrust is Production = Music. Maybe there shouldn't even BE 'Music Theory' board.

I clarify muddy waters there, that's my thrust. I like threads which really stray and get into more interesting aspects once the OP has vacated the thing. But what I have provided amounts to whole books of knowledge up in there. Is that an arrogant statement? I don't owe these characters a thing here.

Now, I said I have an acute sense of where I am, in a room, in a virtual room here... that also means I know where I come out on top. In other opinions of it here, that seems to be enough to assess 'arrogant'. I don't do false modesty. Doesn't happen in here much, but I'm called genius regularly. And sometimes by non-musicians who have pretty regular habits. I have been called 'the best in the world', I don't agree even a little with that.
I don't think a self-assessment of that is worth pursuing. I work at it, I always worked at it.

Frank Zappa was asked in an interview not long before he passed, 'Are you a genius?' "Maybe."
I didn't go around calling myself composer until I'd heard it some from other people. I didn't embark on composing until I was around 24, and I'd been playing, really playing for 10 yrs.
Musically, I was always humble. There is always someone that I could learn from for the duration, that has done more with a thing than I have. There's no gain in having an illusory sense of self.

[Jace-BeOS]

...music "can do so much" - the myriad, multivarious intents of human communication. music can be used with the intent to confuse, bewilder, and create a state of fascination.. to impress, dazzle..

this may not be something that truly resonates with the composer, if eg. they are conveying some other quality in their music, fascination may not be a part of that, and therefore lacks the apparent appeal, attraction of composition that is intent on drawing, seducing, luring the listener.

it seems to be widely acknowledged ("lie to me, like they do it in the factory") that the industry has some implicit intent to appeal to the consumer (...) on the surface, how can an honest person compete with a prostitute? especially if they have a finite amount of attention in which to present themselves to the audience. there are imo wider issues, but consider.. someone who wants to be kind to their audience may be at a disadvantage in appeal to someone who is only interested in using their audience.

The above, especially the last paragraph, while off topic, was actually quite a good point to make about the purpose of music. Do we make for self expression, and relegate ourselves to receiving zero (or near zero attention), or do we attempt to dazzle for attention and success?

Still, even if we aim to dazzle, what dazzles is often subject to the extreme fickle nature of fads. Luck and networking still has a huge impact.

[Jace-BeOS]

But but but, I just realized... there's quite a lot of possibly arrogant musicians in my CD/MP3 collection. If I were to go by this thought "No arrogant musicians will be in my music collection" I am guessing my music collection would be empty. But maybe "arrogant" is not the right word.

Definition of arrogant: having or revealing an exaggerated sense of one's own importance or abilities.

But what is the word that has this meaning: having or revealing an accurate sense of one's own importance or abilities.

And this meaning: having or revealing a doubtful sense of one's own importance or abilities.

Excellent distinction. I was going to say something similar and now i don't need to. Good job

IMO: some people are perceived as arrogant when they're simply demonstrating an accurate assessment of their (relatively higher) knowledge. The insecurity, or the anti-intellectualism, of the person assaulting them with the label "arrogant" is where the real problems lie.