Giving up - my thoughts, what are yours?

[Bombadil]

Difficult subject for me. For 30 years before I left Canada, I recorded with my best friend, whom I had known since kindergarten, and died in 2011. Recording makes me miss him, that's part of it, but also he was the only other person who could enjoy our stuff. And he's gone. Putting a song up for people to casually consume holds no interest for me.
And ironically, the tools to make a studio grade recording are sitting in my livingroom. I just have to accept I'm on my own with it, something I'm trying to get.
I said a few months back that I'd 'retired.' No, I haven't begun, yet.

[BazJacuzzi]

I give up constantly, I've just accepted that it's part of my process now.

I don't think I'll ever give up coming back though, it's just too special to be able to make interesting sounds that provoke a feeling, even if no one else cares much.

[vurt]

[revvy]

Thread and OP is way too dramatic IMO

41 is hopefully a long way from dead and it’s not as if you need to keep paying subs to stay on the official government music making register.

Take a break, maybe start learning a new instrument, maybe take a year off of production. Music and music making will still be here when you come back.

[Michael L]

Don't over-think it.
Jump in with both feet!
Give up totally 100%
See what happens.

[BONES]

It's interesting how we all come at this from different angles. For me it's always been about playing live. None of the rest of it matters to me at all, beyond its ability to make it easier to get gigs. Sadly, we haven't played live since 2017 but we are as keen as ever to get back up on stage.

By the time we released our third album in 2009, we already had most of the songs written for the next one, yet it took 7 years to get it out. That was because I pretty much completely lost interest, to the point I thought that maybe we'd never get it finished. But I eventually managed to drag it over the line and the label released it.

On the back of that album topping the German Alternative Chart, we were invited to play at one of the big summer festivals in Germany and the rehearsal sessions for that got me fully motivated again, even though I was now pushing 60. In fact, when we got back from Germany, I was probably more motivated than I'd ever been. I think that is partly why our most recent album was as good as it was (it is far and away the best stuff we've ever done).

During that whole period, there was never a time when I thought about giving it away or retiring. I'd just lost interest and, as a result, stopped doing it. I didn't really miss it because it had stopped mattering to me. Listening to music has been very important to me for a long time and that hadn't waned. In fact, I discovered a lot of music previously unknown to me and was probably listening to more music than I had in 20 years. But it's all swings and roundabouts and I eventually got my mojo back and off we went again.

Today, at 64, my biggest problem is finding the time and energy to put into it so it's a bit up and down. We've tried something different this year - a couple of EPs of reworked old songs and covers released on Bandcamp without our label's support - and we're about half-way into our next album, which we plan to get out mid next year. Hopefully that will give us some leverage for more festival appearances and we can get back over to Europe. If not, I can see myself losing interest again but I'm fine with that - we've already achieved far more than I could ever have dreamed possible when I bought that second-hand Roland SH1000 back in 1982. It's been a hell of a ride!

[Jafo]

Sometimes you need a break to get perspective. Ultimately, life is impermanent, and only has the meaning you give it: do what makes you happy, and help others to do the same.

[Fannon]

Just a simple thought: Sometimes it's better to keep your hobbies and what earns you money separate. Don't expect your hobbies to earn you big money and don't expect your work to fullfill you like a hobby.

More complicated thoughts: For some lucky people, combining this works out - and that's what we all admire. But realistically, this is a long-tail distribution. A few people making it big and a long tail of people not getting much noticed and appreciated at all.

So I have my issues with the "Never give up", "live your dream" statements. This works out for some people, and for those this is the right mindset to get there. But it also makes a lot of people very unhappy, who do not make the cut. And there is not enough room for everyone to come out on top. Of course there are a lot of people who made it and propagate this, but there's lots of "Survivorship Bias" involved

Just think about it: How much content is produced and how much people are consuming it? If you're a consumer, would you rather listen to the "best" produced content or would you listen to everything equally? It's that dynamic which produces this long-tail dilemma. I'm not saying this to demotivate, more that its not really your fault - the overall system dynamic just works that way.

I hope this didn't come across to negative. Probably you need to make a decision: Do I want to come out top and combine work and passion? Then that's a hard road ahead, but also a very rewarding one if you make it. Or you separate it and get all the pressure out of something that ought to be a hobby for your personal circumstances.

[BONES]

Just a simple thought: Sometimes it's better to keep your hobbies and what earns you money separate. Don't expect your hobbies to earn you big money and don't expect your work to fullfill you like a hobby.

Yep, that's one of the reasons I've never pursued music as a career. It would invariably involve too much compromise, which would pretty quickly make me hate it. Eventually I'd probably starve to death, although that could take a while.

[DJ Warmonger]

I didn't create a single new tune this year - because there is no audience for it (even though Spotify claims a growth in number of plays). Several years ago I also quit online DJing, as this area is crowded as well as there's not much value I could add to the table, even with the best sets possible.

Now I'm dedicated to pursue the career of Youtuber, as this effectively builds some audience and reach. Also this comes in line with my other experiences as software engineer and I can show something that not many people had, unlike creating music for purely recreational purposes.
Being successful is equal to being famous - this can work in many areas. if you can reach thousands of people, you will eventually get something in return, whatever is that you do. On the contrary, creating even the most sophisticated music is pointless if there's no one to ever hear it.

[cantaloupe]

the one thing that killed my creativity many years ago, was the abundance of good sounding vsts.
back in the reason 5 days, you were forced to use what was there and it sparked creativity alot.
now where every daw sounds neutral, every vst sounds good (relatively speaking) i dont know something just died within me. this ofc is not true for most musicians / music writers as they see tools avaliable as a blessing, but I know its not true for me. Having a vast VST library just made it worse for me personally. But I dont think you should give up, unless you really want to. But if you still feel in your heart you have more music to give to the world, stick to it, but limit yourself on using just 1 or 2 VST instruments, and force yourself to use just those. And only stock plugins for mixing.

Agree that the abundance does something bad to creativity for many people.
This was the only thing that have almost killed my joy of making music at one point, before i became aware of it. I try to think of it more as a distinction between bloat and simplicity/elegance, rather than between limitation vs non-limitation though. Signal to noise. It is a more positive framing than the negative-sounding limitation.

There really is no actual purpose to the virtual studio complexity/gluttony/bloat other than a "more is more" ideology that permeates everything. Hubris and capitalism.

It is funny seeing all the marketing words for new music stuff as well - it is always about "unleashing your creativity" and "unlimited" and "next level" and "endless creativity" and "freedom to create" etc lol. It is always about more and faster and wider, and rarely about simplicity or 'smallness' or solving actual problems.

Nobody the last decade has ever been restricted by not having enough tools to make something good, most have been restricted by creativity, lack of overview, complexity getting in the way of musicality, constant distraction, lack of familiarity, lack of an artistic voice etc - all of which gets worse with virtual abundance. In my opinion.

Anyway, you should actually literally get back to reason 5! Seems fun.