Why make anything? Why bother?

[vurt]

that there is why i do it, that's how my mind works.

[melomood]

Right? Mama flower is Explaining the birds and the bees like "Then a bee shows up and he gets his face all in your daddy's pollin"

[havran]

Thank you all for your replies.

[vurt]

the machines make me do it.

[melomood]

tsk

always blaming it on the machines...

[havran]

the machines make me do it.

I make the machines make it look like I'm doing it.

[Hink]

for my peace of heart and soul

[vurt]

gotta pay the mortgage somehow.
luckily i don't have one, or id be in a tent.

truth is, im not very good at much of anything else, and the missus won't let me release those videos, so you get the audio stuff which im almost as good at.

[BONES]

Everything has already been done. But not by YOU!

Absolutely, and I find I get at least as much satisfaction from doing covers as I do from making original music. In fact, I probably enjoy it more in some ways because it's a different kind of challenge, even when you start from a MIDI file that someone else made.

[vurt]

Everything has already been done. But not by YOU!

Absolutely, and I find I get at least as much satisfaction from doing covers as I do from making original music. In fact, I probably enjoy it more in some ways because it's a different kind of challenge, even when you start from a MIDI file that someone else made.

that's the keyword!
finding something you enjoy doing.
if you're not enjoying it now havran, do something different, not like it's your job and you have to turn up every day.
and when you do feel in the mood for music, it's there waiting.

[BONES]

Which is not to say that you have to enjoy every part of it. There is a lot that I find tedious and boring but when it's done and I've got a song I am happy with, it always feels like it was worth the effort. You just have to find your own way to push through that barrier. For me it's about keeping it all as simple as possible so that I can always go back and start again if something isn't working, rather than feeling like I have invested so much that I just have to keep ploughing on until it gives me what I need.

[foosnark]

I kind of find the question depressing. Like, why do anything? There are other people better at life than me...

It's not a competition. I'm not even really competing with myself. I do enjoy learning and improving my chops and developing new tricks and techniques, but when I make music I'm not trying to outdo any of my previous music. I'm not even really aiming to "do my best", I'm doing what the moment seems to call for. Sometimes I will listen to a take, hear a rhythm that could have been tighter or a place where I think I could have chosen a different note, and I let it stand (unless it just sucks, of course).

Millions of people make music. Many of them are pretty creative, and in small or large ways, will make music that nobody else has made. Arguably, music that nobody else could make because they don't have the same set of experiences and thoughts.

I enjoy the process. I also enjoy the result -- I listen to my own music quite a lot. It doesn't have the commercial success or name recognition that some other musicians have, but I don't care; in all the ways I judge music, it's good and deserves to be in my playlist. (Minus a few of my older albums, and like with anything else I have some favorites and not-so-favorites.)

[jupiter8]

"It doesn't matter if we all die"
- Robert Smith

[Dirtgrain]

Leave some footprints on the world, dammit.

[melomood]

'Walk like an Egyptian'
- The Bangles