Do You Produce Music for Fun or Professionally?

[ATS]

I write music that I want to listen to

I always love mine at first and then I hate it about two weeks later.

[DJ Warmonger]

I produce music to make the world better place.

Also, would like to do it professionally. Hopefully that's not far from now

[Apratim]

i love music
thus music has become a fun for me which pays me

[Woodgardens]

For fun, but I recognize what is written here: usually I would produce some awesome track, the next day it would not sound that awesome, though.

I also tend to make things far too complicated. However, after 4 years of occasionally working on different projects, I gathered a lot of ideas and I think I got the basics down. Now I can concentrate more on song structure.

That said, I really had a hard time getting through all the technical details. It's that kind of voyage where one has to stay positive

[aMUSEd]

Neither; it's part of who I am

[mgw38]

Exclusively for fun and for myself (although I obviously would not mind if it would pay off my mortgage ). The fascinating thing is that when I started I worried if people would like it but it turns out that I could not care less about what other people think. I am my own audience and I am completely ok with that. I still want to be and sound as professional as possible though.

[AsPeeXXXVIII]

Purely for fun, although I'd ideally like to make some money off of it. Not necessarily to the point of it being my entire livelihood, but enough that I'd have to work only a part-time job on the side.

[hivkorn]

Because i can , i know , i have to , i must do it for myself

[Zexila]

I'm doing it for my own enjoyment and almost all of my outcome ends up commercially. It seems that my own thing/taste isn't that far away from good and I really never bother if something isn't really promising or resonating. I hate that filler tracks that are around one hit on album, I'm all for having hit after hit, even if that means making few tracks only, my time is well spent on them and I actually enjoy listening to that after few days, months and years, I pour my soul into this things.

[Harry_HH]

For fun professionally.

[ATN69]

I am just doing it for fun and I have no plans to put out any music for commercial purposes. I know this might sound odd but I do aim to learn and practice mixing and producing until it is good enough to publish or even sell it. No one live forever and I want to leave some high quality and professional sounding music for my boys, so that they have something from me when I am not around anymore. My mother painted porcelain and made other things and I do appreciate those things now when she is not around any more.

Besides that I see music as the perfect therapy because it reduces stress and it is very satisfying. I am a decent sound designer and some times I been playing with the thought of making some preset packs and sell them cheap, just for the fun of it. But there are already many out there and so far it has only been a loose thought. Let's see if it will happen one day.

[V0RT3X]

It’s a hobby, but the skills come in handy for my job which is in video production.

[Jace-BeOS]

I produce as a hobby more than anything. It used to be a lot of fun, and sort of still is, but I find myself wondering sometimes lately why I put in all the effort to complete and mix tracks that a couple friends might listen to once or twice. I suppose I've got to stop thinking about it like that and just have fun.

I've been trying to find a way to stop thinking about everything else and just entertain myself, rediscover enjoyment... Aside from failing to mentally block out everything else that occupies my attention, tech (and poverty) isn't letting it happen. I miss childhood innocence and naivety.

After all, what got me started years back was fiddling around with knobs on a vintage Minimoog my Uncle had.

Nice. Did you spend much time with him and his equipment?

I wish I had had musical family. Well, musical family that wasn't remote and antisocial (there's an uncle who's the trigger for family pushing against my musical interests when young).

[...] I always ask myself why I bother but 20 years later I'm still at it so there is something I enjoy about it.

Same here. Finding personal growth in the results over the years has kept that "something" alive. I just wish sound still fascinated me like it used to.

But isn't it so sad when you put all that work into something and hardly anyone listens. Although I wouldn't want someone to bother if they didn't like it anyhow.

Same again. I like sharing. Without sharing, it's hard to feel like something I've done matters (or that I exist at all, outside my own immediate space). It's a much smaller time investment to ask someone to listen to a five-minute piece of music than presenting them with pages of text to read (how do authors get feedback if they don't have friends that enjoy reading?). The positive feedback of existing as a creative person in the world of others needs an audience that's positively interested, not coerced into tolerating it.

Neither; it's part of who I am

I like this response. I feel it. I wish it was enough for me. Just being who I am... hasn't been exactly embraced throughout my life. So much programming...

[Azura]

For fun. After I spent a couple of hours working on a compositon, I'm in that incredible state of fullfilment and
feverishness. Well... not always the case, when I'm stuck in the process. What I find the most difficult, is the lack of interest from most of our entourage (family, friends, co-workers). We compensate that by uploading our work on CDBaby, and see our songs streamed on Spotify, Apple music, etc. Of course we get only a couple of dollars from that, but it's a satisfaction to know that the songs are listened by pure strangers.

Have a nice day!
Marc

[V0RT3X]

I have a feeling that the people who do this professionally probably are too busy making music rather than posting on here.