How do you feel when you listen to your own music? (Page 2 of 5)

I often get sick of my stuff while composing but then think it's pretty good the next day.  I listen to it and am usually proud to have accomplished what I have (because I feel that I'm getting better).  I listen to it several times to see if any parts don't quite translate or could be better, usually while traveling like DKSTR mentioned.  Eventually I always seem to end up listening to artists whose composition and skill I admire to get ideas from and end up getting down on myself for not being good enough.  This happened to me while listening to an0va for inspiration just yesterday   And that's why I hardly ever release anything.  This year though...my resolution has been to release a full album no matter what.

i listen to my music just as much as any other artist's, but mainly because i set a very high standard for myself, which is that my output needs to be as "good" as the artists that i admire - otherwise i'm just wasting my time as an artist.  "good" in this context means that it should be the best music that _i_ can make at the time -- i can only assume my favourite artists don't put forth any less of an effort.  if i can successfully make a track that represents the best of what i have to offer, then i feel it deserves to be listened to as much as anybody else's music.

in other words, what drives my music's quality is basically the fear of releasing a track that is utterly embarrassing and destroys whatever credibility i have left.

i wish i could say my music is "totally me" but i don't think i'm there yet.  most of what i create comes from seeds of ideas implanted by other music that i hear, so it's hard to tell what originated from me.  but really though, is it even possible for anyone these days to have a completely 100% original idea, when you as a consumer of music are the product of possibly thousands of musical influences?

my ultimate goal, though, is always to convey some aspect of myself - an experience, or point of view, or a mental image.  if i can do that, i can be at peace with my ability as a musician.  sometimes i miss the mark - it kind of feels like trying to stamp a circular rubber stamp right inside a circle of the same size.  sometimes you miss slightly and your stamp mark is misaligned with the outline of the target circle, and some days you may obsess over it being a millimetre or two off, but overall you're still fine with the fact that most of the circle is covered with the ink.

depends on how awesome or not awesome it is.  my best works withstand multiple listens over time.  i don't hate the less good songs - i tend to just forget about them.

i've never done a collab with anyone, mainly because my working style typically demands utter control.  also, my workflow is pretty atypical and would probably infuriate anyone who tries to write with me - it takes me a loooooong time to finish a song because of my perfectionist nature.

maybe i'll relax that restriction sometime - i guess it depends on the right collaborator.

well i mostly just listen to my most recent tune over and over again, until it hits me that the song really holds no message apart from "listen to how this harmony doesn't really work" and so i open a music tool and try to write my first ever instrumental protest song, and the same thing happens

Some thoughts on this fr srs now:

(SCROLL DOWN TO LAST PARAGRAPH IF YOU DON'T NEED A PROOF FOR MY OPINION)

Honestly, I don't think we get to dictate this. Art is FUNDAMENTALLY a personal experience for both the artist and the audience; it's a sharing of SOMETHING that cannot be described through simple communication methods (i.e. small talk, etc.), and as a result, the artist has to turn to something beyond the scope of mere description. In short, an artist is someone who has a concept/idea that can't JUST be talked about. Impersonal art is kind of an oxymoron; impersonal art is simply CRAFT, which is way different than ART, in that craft simply requires skill, whereas art requires craft PLUS something personal to say. This is why we often talk about pop music as though it is impersonal -- we like to think that music so all-encompassing CAN'T be the work of an individual with an interesting idea, because it applies to everyone, and if it applies to everyone, then it's not personal (this is NOT true, and is a whole other discussion). Craft can BECOME art by being such an amazing display of skill that the craft and the craftsman are inseparable, in which the craft itself becomes the personal statement (this is how it used to work way back in the day).

But something that we often forget when we're discussing our relationship with our own art is that art is also a dialogue. That is; art (and music) does not exist in a vacuum, and it CANNOT exist without an audience. It doesn't matter if that audience is one person or a million people -- art without an audience is simply craft. What matters is that there remains a DIALOGUE at the end of it. This dialogue is important because it is pretty much how we define whether something is "art" or not. Think about it: how many art pieces have you seen and NOT made a judgment on? Even saying "this shit sucks" or "it's not worth discussing/it's not worth my time" is a judgment. I'd guess the answer is ZERO, because the dialogue defines the art.

(TYING THIS BACK TO THE ORIGINAL QUOTE NOW)

We don't get to dictate how personal our art is because doing that with your own art is NOT A DIALOGUE. It's a MONOLOGUE. And the only use of a monologue is to tell THE AUDIENCE what you're thinking at the time -- NO ONE uses monologues to tell themselves what they're thinking unless you're Charlie Kaufman. We can ramble on and on about what our music means to ourselves, but at the end of the day, the judgment lies with the audience -- the monologue only serves as a reference point to others. As artists, we're supposed to be CONVINCING the audience that our works mean something profound to ourselves that absolutely NEEDED to be shared, and then the audience can judge whether or not we fulfilled what we promised. But because we're artists, we have to do this THROUGH OUR ART.

This is why I don't like talking about my own work and what it "means to me" -- doing that essentially lets everyone else know that my work isn't good enough to do that on its own, and if I need to explain to people what my music means before they even listen to it, I've failed as an artist (to be frank, I don't think that my music really SAYS anything). This is also why I really dislike it when people put in backstories or overly-descriptive song titles in their music; too often, it's there to cover up for the fact that the music doesn't actually convey what the artist wants it to convey. Basically, it shouldn't be about how we feel when we listen to our own music (this is a monologue, it is meaningless in the end); it should be about how OTHERS feel IN COMPARISON to how we feel about our own music.

I guess this is just a really long-winded way of saying that I don't like talking about my music. (Then why did you even respond in this thread (GAWD you're thick))

EDIT: Essentially, this thread (to me) is a long list of monologues -- it's only interesting in comparison to what others think about your music (which is the point, I guess).

Last edited by spacetownsavior (Aug 15, 2012 8:25 am)

well, i spend quite a lot of time listening to things the day i made them or the day after i made them, i don't really know why

but i don't listen to any of my old music regularly at all really, but i certainly don't dislike it. i think "horse" is a really great album, but i don't need to listen to it because i made it and i know what it sounds like

i think it's just something i make really. my output seems to be toward the Quantity end of the Quantity-Quality spectrum, so i don't have enough heart and soul to put heart and soul into all of it. the exception is "horse" which i love very dearly, being a completely different kind of album in almost every way to the rest of my music

see start of this post

nope, everyone i collaborated with has had a pretty light-hearted approach to the songs. not that we aren't proud of them though!

this is a good thread

edit: oh and i agree with what shiru said, i am usually feeling like i am worse at music now than in the past

Last edited by ant1 (Aug 15, 2012 9:18 am)

I said a similar thing to Kool Skull the other day.

If you drew something really great, wouldn't you want to hang it in your bedroom and look at it, thinking "shit man, I'm proud of that"?
When I listen to my music, I usually feel either proud or frustrated - proud because I finally nailed a perfect track, or frustrated because I have't yet nailed it down. So usually after I've got a finished draft down, I render/record it, load it up on my iPod and listen to it on the deathly long bus trips to and from school, listening to it a few times to hear what I've done the previous night. Usually then my head is cleared and my judgement too. I talk to myself, thinking "I need to change that knob over there" or "i should loop this more", accumulating a bunch of fixes and ideas for the song until I have access to my studio or whatever device the tune was written on.

I always load up my final releases to my iPod and listen to them because I feel a sense of pride for what I've achieved. I'm proud that I've made this music and I want to listen to it!

I think that every musician should listen to their music out of the studio. It helps them think of new ideas that they can't readily change then and there, lets them accumulate and change; sometimes this is good, sometimes not - sometimes instead of brewing ideas in my mind, they overcook and get all burnt and I toss them out.

That said, another good thing about having my music on my iPod is being able to hear it integrated with other tunes that maybe inspired or will inspire it! Usually hearing my tunes in shuffle alongside some other songs can help show some mistakes that may be missed by listening to the one track over and over - that's how I noticed many of my earlier tunes had inconsistent levels and mastering to the tune before it!