Validating yourself as a musician in the land of likes and streams

[Hink]

I see

[VitaminD]

the one place I lack experience is in being old

Every year I gain 365 days more experience.

I never understood the extremes some go to validate themselves to people who don't know them or really care about them. But I do understand wanting to feel connected and appreciated. Maybe respected to some degree. Just as an equal.

I don't think a large number of 'likes' will have that effect. Esp considering most people listening to music online are youth 14 to 24 (roughly). Who, again generally speaking, tend to be an age range that is less experienced to understand, less inclined to want to understand, and more easily manipulated by popular thought on trends.

Now it might have some value if I was looking to get rich or achieve some form of fame. But I'm not (even though I'd accept the money! ). I don't even want to perform live. I like creating and staying largely behind the curtain. If a song somehow becomes popular, then great. If it doesn't then that's okay too.

It doesn't matter as much that I'm known but that I'm deliberate in my creativity and honest with it. I take peeks at other artists whose music appeals to me (it can be inspiring), but I try not to agonize over differences. They're them, I'm me. As it should be.

But mostly I find it is better to stay in your own lane (so to speak) and not get hung up on what others are doing. If I'm writing music that makes my head bob and gets me to smile, I know I'm where I should be with it. That's how you create music that expresses you. Not by looking to the left or the right at what others are doing.

By doing that the appreciation for your music will be all the more sweeter, knowing you're not making music that is designed more rigorously to be commercially viable (if that isn't your aim), but to just express yourself as you desire. The appreciation from people that 'get' your music in that regard is sweeter.

It's a careful, delicate walk between writing music to be enjoyed by others and making music that I enjoy I suppose though. Leaning far more towards what I enjoy.

[harryupbabble]

if the need for validation is what drove the music- makers in my music collection to make music then why should i mine?

whatever their reasons are for making their music, i'm just glad they exposed it because if they didn't then my music collection would be empty.

what's the point of beautiful diamonds not being exposed?

neil diamond himself, for example... exposing himself.
okay, at first i didn't know this guy wasn't neil. but still.

https://youtu.be/-jtVvyCUVnQ

[Unaspected]

they say if you keep doing that you'll go blind

I think it's only the isopropyl type that causes sight loss.

[Timfonie]

I've said this before - the amount of f**k given about what other people think is inversely proportional to age.

True. Look at the popular talent shows. The older the participants the more they simply enjoy the opportunity and the less they care about any judgements. Mostly they found their way of life, their social circle and the things which gives meaning to their lives. Of course there are exceptions.

As you get older you know what you're good at and do well yourself, and are better able to objectively look at your creations dispassionately I think. More of the utter shite gets weeded out before the recording phase.

Also true. Sometimes I'm glad I didn't perform publically some songs I wrote when I was young. Nowadays I would feel totally ashamed about them.

Also, for many of us oldies, we're not actively trying to make some manner of 'career' from music so the 'pressure' isn't there.

True, althought this doesn't apply to me. My luck doesn't depend on it, yet I appear to never loose the desire to have an unconventional carreer in music, mostly when it's about sharing ideas and music. I wouldn't mind earning some money with it though. It's the young spirit that flowers and produces musical novelties. The fact that many people prefer young faces is totally another thing though.

Yes, it's always nice if people enjoy something, but it's not the world shattering, 'woe is me', doom, gloom and anger if they don't, which you felt sometimes as a yoof. Just move onto the next one...

Just expect your musical creations are only met positively by your own mum and if your're lucky by a few friends as well.
Any extra appreciation or admiration - maybe by the thousand or even millions - is so much a matter of luck, apart from talent.

"Look mum, no fans!" "It's allright boy, just let me be your biggest fan!"

[PatchAdamz]

Validate | Definition:

Validate, confirm, corroborate, substantiate, verify, and authenticate all mean to attest to the truth or validity of something. Validate implies establishing validity by authoritative affirmation or factual proof ("a hypothesis validated by experiments").

Quote:

"To punish me for my contempt for authority, fate made me an authority myself".

Albert Einstein

[Bombadil]

Any artist of any worth that I know of has needed external validation.
I read an interview with Dustin Hoffman a while back. He was talking about working with Olivier on Marathon Man, and he asked him: "why do we do this?" and Olivier pointed at himself and said: " see? it's about LOOK AT ME."
I won't deny enjoying external validation. I'm still remembered by many from my yout' for my guitar playing.
External positive reinforcement should not be minimized as a motivator. I was and am a loner. The guitar made me friends and got me laid. Playing in the Montreal Metro got me through junior college. That was interesting. It's nice when someone throws you a fiver (rare). When I was homeless, playing guitar paid for my food and party favours. Shrugs.

[jancivil]

Here's the thing, though; the OP was trying to make _not_ relying on it for a self-definition suspect, doubling and tripling-down on the contempt factor, positing deviation from this supposed normative as grossly egoistic if not delusional.

So, while I have been kind of strong with find your own voice and choose to give not a great lot of f**ks, I had teh 'external validation' going back to the 8th grade, and by 18 was overrated in town. I found being known just weird, to the point where there is gossip about who I'm 'seeing', ick. Fame looks very high-maintenance to me.
So I got myself into conservatory where no one is going to think I'm good, which is right.
So two of the aspects here are 1) how dare you think you're good and 2) be happy your mother, maybe your BFF gives you a Facebook like. Sorry, totally not my prob.

*that one knows of* - well, people that don't function in pop might well be unheard of by the vast majority of people.
A Penderecki Threnody to the Victims of Hiroshima isn't there to gratify an audient's sense of social self.
(a big factor in popular music success).

[TribeOfHǫfuð]

Best thing that happened to me was giving up a musical career and find main validation elsewhere. I went two years at a classical music school and three years at a rhythmical. The last year, I got so sick of doing homeworks, training, and the daily obligations at school that I could not do any of my own music when I got home. Just needed peace and silence. It had become normal school work, pointing to a normal job with normal or below normal wages. Magic waned, and shortly thereafter my first guitarplayer died from an OD. It took about five years break from music, going for another education, before my music started to live again in my sparetime. One can say that being validated as a musican seems pretty subordinated the extent to which you manage to do any music at all. At that time, finishing a noisy demo tape was a great achievement in itself.

[melomood]

A Penderecki Threnody to the Victims of Hiroshima isn't there to gratify an audient's sense of social self.
(a big factor in popular music success).

Oooh you sweet talking name dropper

[jancivil]

Zappa seemed to have found Varese Deserts validating as a 15-year old in that he felt it was about his home town.
alienation FTW

Name-dropping? I think that makes a clear point.

I don't want 'Shiny Happy People Holding Hands'.
Was that ironic? Yeesh. The drones working in the advertising industry where I was messengering seemed to take it as genuine.