I want to quit.

Discuss anything related to audio or music production.
2pauluzz2
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Re: I want to quit.

Post by 2pauluzz2 » Thu Sep 29, 2016 1:19 pm

Hey Octavio,
I've dabbled with live for almost a decade now and feel like i've finally realized i have no musical talent whatsoever.

I want to sell all my stuff and move on but i just feel bad.
How can i just give it up?
have you ever felt like this?
I just sold you that VVV plugin and noticed this topic, so I felt compelled to reply. I'm hoping that transferring that plugin means that you're in a more positive state of mind now (although please don't get hung up on plugin-GAS now :) ).

A lot of very nice thoughts have been shared here already. I could quote a lot of posts and write "this" below them.
i have no musical talent whatsoever.
I disagree with the concept of "talent" ;) People who make cool music are no other than you and me. They are simply people who've done this thing so often that they have found their ways, and all of the sudden people think "they are soo talented" while I think in most cases, people should say "they have worked long and hard to be able to express themselves this way".
have you ever felt like this?
YES!

YES!

YES!

AND AGAIN!

But I got back to it every single time.
I think this struggle is part of what it means to be an artist.
Check out "The Gap": https://vimeo.com/85040589
How can i just give it up?
I quit for a few months two years back. Life got in the way. I got in the way.
Then I realised life was incredibly empty and shallow without that "higher goal" of finding an elegant way of communicating with others.
And I got back on the bandwagon.
There is no shame in just letting things go for a while, re-realising what it means to you.

--

I'm not affiliated with him in any way, but look up "Mike Monday" on YouTube. His free material really helped me.
I never ever thought I would pay to do the full course, as I'm sceptical towards "coach-type" offers.
But I did, and so far it's been really helpful.
I make music every single day (well, almost, but it's very close to every day).
I finished my 17th track last week when I didn't finish anything for years on end prior to that.

Are my tracks where I want them to be now?
No, not at all. But on the whole I'm seeing progress, and that's a damn good feeling.

Have I stopped despairing altogether?
No, but my moments of despair are faaaar less. I'm waaaay more positive minded overall (affects my whole life, not just music) and much more confident now that I'm seeing real progress.

No-one ever tells you that finding your workflow, developing a positive mindstate, repeating good habits, being present and balanced etcetera are much, MUCH more important than strolling forums and obsessing about the latest or oldest gear.

I hope you get back on it man. Make some music. Let is suck. Then make some more, and notice how you're now one step further than you were yesterday. And notice how you do not suck 100% but you lack certain specific skills, and notice that your are capable of improving your current ability to express yourself by repeating this process over and over and over and over and over again. And you'll learn to enjoy it again.

Do it! Don't be that 80 year old Octavio "I wish I never gave up on music when things got tough" Pineda.
Be that guy who went ahead with it, even thought it hurt.
That develops guts and character.

2pauluzz2
Posts: 146
Joined: Sun Jul 24, 2011 6:34 pm

Re: I want to quit.

Post by 2pauluzz2 » Thu Sep 29, 2016 1:26 pm

P.s. regarding "not being musical":

I can play piano, but 95% of the artists I admire cannot and they have found other ways to express themselves.
Mike Monday talks about how musical tutoring can actually prevent you from being creative. I can confirm that it can get in the way, so don't think that it's the holy grail.

For example: I tend to "melody-away" even when my music doesn't call for it. I have to "un-learn" being so melodic all the time. And when I started, my sense of groove was terrible.

Find your own way. Having a cool signature sound based on how you modulate everything just right, or on how you work with space in your songs, or based on how you build a story in your arrangement with minimal means, is also considered 'being musical'.

Dillinger63
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Re: I want to quit.

Post by Dillinger63 » Thu Sep 29, 2016 4:44 pm

I'm a drummer for over 30 years, but as the aging process continues my wrists are shot from pounding the old Roland electric drums hi-hat. My drumming days are over, so I putz around with the guitar and "play at" keyboard. Basically I suck at them both, but I still enjoy getting off by myself for enjoyment. Along came Ableton Live and Push so I gave them a go too, end result, I suck at them too.

But here is the kicker, I never made a dime off of making music, and never planned to but again, I just enjoy doing it for my own, well enjoyment. If you need to make money off of your music and you basically suck, well I guess that is a different story, but for me as a hobby, I'm satisfied with my own little snippets and basic beats, and like my wife says, "It keeps me off the streets.' :)

AAdel
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Re: I want to quit.

Post by AAdel » Mon Oct 17, 2016 10:45 pm

octavious wrote:I realize nobody really cares, but i've decided to start fresh.
I've listed all my hardware for sale and bought a couple plugins i wanted for a long time.
Lets see how it goes.

Main change im making is seeing this as pure fun from now on and not as a gate to stardom or anything.

thanks to all.
Good for you! 8)
Adel Al Agha ???? ?? ???
Singer, Music Producer & Trainer
https://radionama.com
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alpertt
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Re: I want to quit.

Post by alpertt » Sun Oct 23, 2016 3:02 am

Ableton mob will shot you from your knee if you even consider quit.
Go in free, go out is not.
We know your adress.

stringtapper
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Re: I want to quit.

Post by stringtapper » Mon Oct 24, 2016 12:16 am

^ I like this guy.
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Forge.
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Re: I want to quit.

Post by Forge. » Sun Oct 30, 2016 8:05 pm

Angstrom wrote: Do you want money?
Don't be a musician. Probably dont even be a producer. The world is saturated. There is 8 billion dollars on the table but it is divided 9 billion ways. The best you can do is sell shovels. But there are a lot of shovel stores these days.

Do you want a nice hobby?
Making music is a nice hobby. Like making pottery. No amateur potter expects to be exhibited in a national museum. Thats not the point of a hobby - a hobby is to detatch and enjoy the moment. Some hobbies are competitive (like sports) but most hobbies are intended purely for enjoyment of the moment. Jogging, gardening, pottery, art classes, dance classes.
Music can be a nice hobby. Even if you are objectively shit, the enjoyment you derive from performing the actions has value. No commercial value, no social status improvement, just plain old "tinkering in the garden" enjoyment.
^This.

The /even older and more cynical than me/ Angstrom got there first. But I'm fine with this scenario. I have formed the opinion that music is better off without money, money is an ugly, toxic thing, and I think it would be much better for the future of humanity if people can be creative "just cauz" without feeling a need to justify it in the crude terms of money.

In the coming years large numbers of even white collar jobs will be automatable, and the question of the next few decades will be all about what it actually means to be "human". Creativity will become the most important thing, because it's about our only argument when the computer overlords start asking why we're here.

It would be nice if music could be viewed as a way of exercising that part of the brain and given the same or more emphasis as the STEM subjects, given that there's a fair chance kids starting Uni now in STEM may well be training for jobs that will be automated and obsolete.

NoSonic822
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Re: I want to quit.

Post by NoSonic822 » Mon Oct 31, 2016 8:18 am

you say u "dabbled" in it for 10 years. dabbling gets you nothing.

stringtapper
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Re: I want to quit.

Post by stringtapper » Mon Oct 31, 2016 2:45 pm

Forge. wrote:
Angstrom wrote: Do you want money?
Don't be a musician. Probably dont even be a producer. The world is saturated. There is 8 billion dollars on the table but it is divided 9 billion ways. The best you can do is sell shovels. But there are a lot of shovel stores these days.

Do you want a nice hobby?
Making music is a nice hobby. Like making pottery. No amateur potter expects to be exhibited in a national museum. Thats not the point of a hobby - a hobby is to detatch and enjoy the moment. Some hobbies are competitive (like sports) but most hobbies are intended purely for enjoyment of the moment. Jogging, gardening, pottery, art classes, dance classes.
Music can be a nice hobby. Even if you are objectively shit, the enjoyment you derive from performing the actions has value. No commercial value, no social status improvement, just plain old "tinkering in the garden" enjoyment.
^This.

The /even older and more cynical than me/ Angstrom got there first. But I'm fine with this scenario. I have formed the opinion that music is better off without money, money is an ugly, toxic thing, and I think it would be much better for the future of humanity if people can be creative "just cauz" without feeling a need to justify it in the crude terms of money.
Yeah, but people still have to eat. So I'd like to keep mixing my money and my music if that's ok.

And I know I've said this a million times here, but even Angstrom's world-weary view of the money making prospects for music making is extremely limited in scope compared to the entire world of working in music that's out there. I know it's partially an artifact of what this site is that most around here are going to consider "music making" to be synonymous with "making beats on computers" because that's probably what most people who use this software are doing with it. But damn there is so much to do and learn out there, way more than any one person could experience in a lifetime.

If one limits themselves to a single strand of this vast tapestry then of course it's going to be hard to make a living at it. What is it the investments strategists say? "Diversify. Diversify. Diversify."?

I guess it goes back to my first post in this thread about hard work being more important that's talent. Music can be lots of different things for different people. Most people probably consider it a form of entertainment and if you're coming from that mindset approaching music making then when it stops being "fun" then you may lose interest. But it takes hard work and practice to excel at anything that involves skills, and music is no different. Hard work isn't always fun, even when it's something you love doing.
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Forge.
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Re: I want to quit.

Post by Forge. » Mon Oct 31, 2016 6:43 pm

of course I'm not suggesting that because that's the view I've been forming that it's the 'right' view, or that you shouldn't have the right to earn money from your music, I'm just relaying my own personal experience and how much the passion I used to have isn't there any more, and my feeling is that it was being too concerned with trying to make it pay that ruined it for me.

But to put the first bit of Angstrom's post another way — Do you want money? Don't be a musician — the point is I really feel like FOR ME at least that it's a major pressure.

Angstrom
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Re: I want to quit.

Post by Angstrom » Mon Oct 31, 2016 7:01 pm

Yes, my point was really - that many people get into music for the wrong reasons: to get positive attention, status, fame, and money.
Music is a terrible place to obtain those things. Consequently if we judge how well we are doing "at music" by those measures we will always feel like a failure.

stringtapper
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Re: I want to quit.

Post by stringtapper » Mon Oct 31, 2016 8:04 pm

Angstrom wrote:Yes, my point was really - that many people get into music for the wrong reasons: to get positive attention, status, fame, and money.
See, I don't even consider that "getting into music." In those scenarios music is just a placeholder that could be substituted by any number of activities. So that's really "getting into positive attention, status, fame, and money."

I had the "making it in a band" bug for several years in the 90s and a bit of the early 2000s. But I got over it when I realized that I loved music itself more than I loved the idea of being a star (or even just being rich) because of it. While many in that situation either just stick it out and remain poor but happy, or just become hobbyists, I chose to build on the skills I had and to learn and develop as much as I could as a musician and sound engineer so that I could always work in music and audio, which is exactly what I do now. It's not always glamorous and it's often an absolute grind, but it's still doing what I love.

Oh, and I can probably count how may dollars I've made selling my music on one hand. It's not the only way.
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Stromkraft
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Re: I want to quit.

Post by Stromkraft » Tue Nov 01, 2016 11:05 am

Talent is overrated and the real musical source, taste, is too often overlooked. Grow your taste and your talent will follow.
Make some music!

stringtapper
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Re: I want to quit.

Post by stringtapper » Tue Nov 01, 2016 2:41 pm

Stromkraft wrote:Talent is overrated and the real musical source, taste, is too often overlooked. Grow your taste and your talent will follow.
I would say that taste is often even more overrated than talent. It's certainly more subjective.

I see it in the indie rock scene here in the US. Guys like Steve Albini show disdain for "jazz snobs" and yet they display their own snobbery about the thin sliver of musical sounds that they think are the best.

But maybe you're using "taste" more in the sense of gathering influences through listening? I can get with that. If I'm trying to play a "tasteful" bass line in a country band then I need to have listened to a lot of country music and analyzed what the bass is doing, e.g. where they're playing on beat, articulation, note length, etc. in that sense taste is the assimilation of styles and musical devices. In jazz education it's often called "learning the vocabulary."
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Stromkraft
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Re: I want to quit.

Post by Stromkraft » Wed Nov 02, 2016 9:22 am

stringtapper wrote:
But maybe you're using "taste" more in the sense of gathering influences through listening?
Well, taste evolves with influences and I have a hard time imagining taste without these. Listening is an important part of my taste, also when making my own music. Even the last 6 months when I've been intentionally trying to up my productivity by letting go of quality* I found my taste was guiding me in every decision I make in the authoring and production process. That wasn't as obvious to me previously.

Even if taste is subjective, an evolved taste with lots of influences can be the basis for some great music also in the ears of others. I think there are quite a few examples in recent decades of this.

I wouldn't say taste is the end all though and if you actually lack a talent your music needs to be made you need to co-operate, but if I had to choose (and it was possible) between having great taste and little technical prowess or great technical prowess and weak taste, then I'd prefer the previous. Nothing says you can't have both, of course. :P



*counterintuitively increasing quality in the process
Make some music!

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