What Exactly Is/Was Your Ultimate Ambition?

[harryupbabble]

Mine is to some day get good enough at writing pop music that the buskers play my songs forever and ever. If you write all that complicated prog rock stuff, the buskers can't play it properly. But I bet most buskers could play the stuff made by the ultimate busker: Bob Dylan.

The problem is I can't seem to not suck at writing lyrics. So my revised ambition is to write Ramones-like lyrics and copule that with porno music. I'm not good at writing porno music yet but it can't be that hard to learn? Porno music is just another name for disco, right?

Edit: I thought about it some more and have this to add:

I have a bad habit. I start a thread and then later on I do more research that I should have done in the first place. So, I hastily went Googling using these search words "list of popular songs for buskers"... and today's Google's second result is this forum (http://www.acousticguitarforum.com/foru ... p?t=249378) and these bands and songs were mentioned on that site's first page, and yup as expected, lotsa Bob Dylan songs but not one Ramones nor disco song. I guess I will revise my previous already revised Ramones+Disco music ambition again. Also, I noticed that not one prog rock song is in the list. Also, most of the bands in the list are Americans. Not even one Led Zeppelin song. Shucks. Perhaps different sites will have more varied results.

Damn, am I the only so-called music-maker (I flatter myself because I do so little of actual music-making, lotsa questing and experimenting though) that is methodical about what music genre to dabble in? Do other music-makers know from the start what genre their music is and do they stick to that decision for life? Anyways, here's that list of songs that four buskers say they perform:

Feelin' Groovy - Simon and Garfunkel
With a Little Help from my Friends - The Beatles
Summer Breeze - Seals and Crofts
Sunshine on my Shoulders - John Denver
Have You Ever Seen the Rain - CCR
Sister Golden Hair - America
How Sweet it Is - James Taylor
Someone Like You - Adele
Firework - Katy Perry
Thriller - Michael Jackson

Heart Of Gold - Neil Young
Nobody Knows You When You're Down & Out - Clapton's version
Layla - Clapton unplugged version
Dead Flowers - Rolling Stones
Knockin' On Heaven's Door - Dylan
Proud Mary - CCR
Norwegian Wood - Beatles
I'm A Believer - The Monkeys
San Francisco Bay Blues - Clapton's version
You Ain't Goin' Nowhere - Dylan/The Byrds

'Back Home in Derry' - Christy Moore
'Drift Away' - Dobie Gray
'Like a Hurricane' - Neil Young
'Lyin' Eyes' - Eagles
'Rose of Cimarron' - Poco
'Hey Mr Tambourine Man' - Dylan
'Frankie's Gun' - Felice Brothers
'Dear Abby' - John Prine
'Galway Girl' - Steve Earl
'Wagon Wheel' - OCMS
'Redemption Song' - Bob Marley

Take it Easy - The Eagles
The Times They Are A Changin - Bob Dylan
Blowin In The Wind - Bob Dylan
Maggie May - Rod Stewart
Streets Of London - Ralph McTell
The Boxer - Simon / Garfunkel
City Of New Orleans - Willie Nelson
Folsom Prison - Johnny Cash
Galviston - Glen Campbell

[SODDI]

At this point in my life, music genre-watching looks kind of pointless, actually. I've listened to a lot of music in a very indiscriminate manner.

I LIKE my random button on the .mp3 player and car, I LIKE that at some point I'm going to go from Wire to Aimee Mann to Captain Beefheart (which should really be called The Magic Band, as Van Vliet was just the front man. John French is a drum god.)

[Aloysius]

My ultimate ambition is to have an ambition, man.

[pljones]

My first goal was to be a programmer. Got there two years out of school. Took a while to work out that my next goal was going to be harder: stay a programmer... It took ten years to get out of management and back into coding, including having to get a MSc (well, that's one year, rather than three for a BSc and a degree was necessary). Now I just focus on keeping everything being fun, with the serious stuff in life only what's needed to keep life fun (e.g. fun = staying alive = eating = having an income = working... but somewhere that's as fun as possible, not the best paid).

[jancivil]

I don't do genre. I have ideas which are what they are, or I start with no idea, in the dark.
I never really thought to be a songwriter. Probably the first time I got high on pot, I heard a stream of music which wasn't memory of other music in my head. I didn't start writing music extensively for another 10 yrs or so.
I don't know about any 'ultimate goal', I was moving towards being a musician from about the age of 10. So I did the thing.

[SODDI]

That thing that lurks out their in the soundlessness or on an empty page or the unstarted chapter. Gotta get that f*cker.

Otherwise I'm just riding the electron curl until it crashes.

[EdSevered]

I wish I could say that I have ever had a clear ambition. Life always seems to get in the way of plans any bigger than making a living while having a little time left for a hobby or two. All-in-all, I have nothing to complain about, I make a decent living, for now, having taken advantage of the opportunities that presented themselves along the way. But in retrospect it appears that I've left alot of my life's progress to chance. Like living in a bumper car, when some event attempted to force me off of the trajectory I was on, I evaluted my options and generally went with it. I've heard the idea of "living a purposeful life", which I interpret to mean identifying some state of heart and mind that passes for an ambition, and then determining how to get there. Like this post, I think I have simply meandered through life, hoping that whatever I might do leaves a positive footprint, while still finding some joy and satisfaction in living. For now, there's too much data to sift through and not enough time or insight to define or measure success.

And lastly, with regards to music, this is a music related thread after all, while most of us, including myself, have dreamt of being a rock star, at one time or another, for me, it's just a hobby. I have no illusions of ever realizing anything beyond that.

So there, another thread effectively killed. My work is done here.

[highkoo]

So there, another thread effectively killed. My work is done here.

Well, maybe. But fwiw, I was just having similar thoughts as I read the thread. A lot of everything in life is up to a chance in the chaos we pretend is organized. And a life 'well lived' does not have to have some grand intent behind it, imo.
Almost no one ends up where they thought they would be at any one moment in their lives, do they?

Seems like the intent of the thread is musical ambitions, and that is a little easier to talk about.
The only specific musical ambition I remember ever consciously realizing was having a track on vinyl. I came from DJing, and having something on real wax always had some special significance.

[SODDI]

“I begin with an idea and then it becomes something else.” Pablo Picasso

[jancivil]

“I begin with an idea and then it becomes something else.” Pablo Picasso

^This, pretty much can count on it

[highkoo]

“I begin with an idea and then it becomes something else.” Pablo Picasso

Odd thing, I was involved in visual art for most of the first part of my life, and while that quote is generally true, it is SO much moreso with audio, for me.

Really often when I hear an older track of mine and immediately pick out the five seconds of the orginal idea sound that is.., buried under a mess..

[incubus]

I achieved mine. I became the ultimate poster of KVR

Then I had my name changed (well kinda) to see if I could do it again

[samsam]

I achieved mine. I became the ultimate poster of KVR

Then I had my name changed (well kinda) to see if I could do it again

Well done!

[harryupbabble]

I have no idea how difficult people's ambition is/was. But what if it wasn't ambition, what if it was a goal? Aren't goal and ambition two different words?

I had many goals that I achieved, like growing a Salvador Dali mustache, hahaha, and reaching a certain scrabble rating, and living in a van for a year (through an entire winter too). Child's play some would say. I agree. I never thought that it was ambitious to have a certain mustache, or live in a van, or reach a certain scrabble rating.

Isn't the word ambition suppose to mean something like "the act of trying to succeed at something that is nearly impossible to be achieved by you"?

[AsPeeXXXVIII]

To make a full-time career out of my beloved music hobby.