As A Musician, What Is Your Greatest Achivement

[DarkeSword]

Having my Ancient Hero remix used in a bevy of crappy Zelda YouTube videos without any credit given.

[sephfire]

-Fanmail is always a tiny accomplishment. No matter how short or... bizarre they may get, they're always little gems of kindness.

You need to post that particularly insane email conversation again. It was a great laugh the first time you posted it here.

For me, it's this remix right here. I don't think I'll ever be as proud of a piece of my own music as I am with this. I guess the achievement belongs to pixietricks and GrayLightning for taking my mix to the next level.

I know it's small as achievements go, but I always love getting to collaborate with some of the people here, particularly the ones who dwarf my own skill.

[The Pezman]

Having my Ancient Hero remix used in a bevy of crappy Zelda YouTube videos without any credit given.

...and in Nintendoworld...

[V___]

2 great acheivements:

1. Releasing my first CD last year

2. Recently changing styles from downtempo chill/ambient to hard dance/chunky electro, and getting used to the style very quickly, because I had the patience over the last 2 years to learn about synthesis, compression, etc, things which I persevered with - now THATS satisfaction; when you realize your knowledge is greater than you thought

[Drack]

Making All-State band 4 years. And placing as high as 4th chair.

I play Clarinet.

[OverCoat]

Biggest musical achievement is still this. 2004? Fuck. Some other things:

-Getting on OCR twice, both times barely scraping past the judges

-Warfreak2's "D:\Remix" EP

-Recently, completion of my full length album Garden Art and OverCoat - A Cyberpunk Adventure EP. I just wish I would get a little more in the way of reviews or feedback.

-Even more recently, an OHC with C64 God Jeroen Tel, and then only trailing his win by 2 points. Then losing the next compo to Nario [who actually made a fantastic song]

In general, people have started telling me they enjoy my music, like Mustin came up to me at Magfest 6 and was like "hey I heard your EP, I liked it." I didn't know he knew what I looked like. I'm still definitely not a crowdpleaser, nor do I want to be. I'm... not really used to people complimenting me. :V

[herograw]

-People still dutifully worshipful of me even though I haven't released a song in like... 2, 3 years :/

hey, some songs just seem to net that kind of eternal gratitude!

Biggest musical achievement is still this. 2004? Fuck. Some other things:

-Getting on OCR twice, both times barely scraping past the judges

-Warfreak2's "D:\Remix" EP

-Recently, completion of my full length album Garden Art and OverCoat - A Cyberpunk Adventure EP. I just wish I would get a little more in the way of reviews or feedback.

-Even more recently, an OHC with C64 God Jeroen Tel, and then only trailing his win by 2 points. Then losing the next compo to Nario [who actually made a fantastic song]

!~soc

[Antipode]

I guess the most "notable" thing I've done is having my music used several times in the background for several segments on a local news channel. That was just indescribable.

My greatest personal achievement though is probably a song I've just finished recently called Fields of Black. I definitely believe it to be the best thing I've ever written, and that's a great feeling. I'll send it out once I've finished the rest of this new album I'm working on (though I believe there's a bit of it in that preview set I mention in my sig).

[John Revoredo]

In creating music, maybe these have been my favourite pieces.

Farewell http://media.putfile.com/Prometheus-Farewell

The Flying Machine http://media.putfile.com/Prometheus-TheFlyingMachine

Six years ago, one of my biggest dreams was to make music like Yasunori Mitsuda or Hiroki Kikuta. Those guys were some sort of gods to me. I think nowadays I'm somewhat close to their awesomeness (and I'd say im a bit further than nearer, because i'm only a hobbyist and not a pro)

Right now Im supposed to be the guy making the OST for Mystery of Albesila http://mysteryofalbesila.deviantart.com/ ... but I'm waiting for an animated script to write some real stuff.

Here's some kind of trailer of the concept art

... there are more, but the music of the others sucked... it's really old stuff.

Also, it was great to be accepted in Doom: Delta-Q-Delta project, and in some others. I cant wait for them to be released, and see what happens!

[benprunty]

Finishing my first game soundtrack, a forty minute epic. Alas, I think the game will be canceled. You can hear a little bit of it on

http://myspace.com/jupitermanmusic

The three bottom songs, the ones from the album "The Regrets of Man"

It was a great learning experience to make an entire soundtrack. I can't wait to work on more.

[Salluz]

I taught myself how to play the keyboard in a short amount of time. I still need practice, but I learned!

[Nutritious]

-Making Regional Honors band my senior year of high school playing 3rd chair saxophone

-Getting a Superior at state for a saxophone solo that same year (even though I was so nervous, I couldn't even draw a full breath; only time in my life that's ever happened)

-Getting a song accepted here (though it won't be posted for a while)

[OceansAndrew]

Three groupies at once.*

*ok, ok, it was just two.

[Leon K.]

This thread makes me QQ.

[prophetik music]

lol oa

btw i'm bald as you now

[OceansAndrew]

hah nice; it's a classy, timeless look, and great for summer

just remember sunscreen if you go outside

[Barium]

I'd say mine would be winning the World Pipe Band Championships for grade 3B in 2003 (not a very high grade, I know, but we had beaten the band that won in 3A in prior competitions). So damn long ago...it's taking so much time to get back into the groove of all things musical.

[A-RoN]

Go get the album FREE at www.reverbnation.com/aaronparsons

Shameless self-plug!

[SenPi]

hmm...

1. Releasing a CD and actually breaking even (with a little extra )

2. Getting chosen in the top 4 of SGX's 2nd remix album.

3. Fan mail

4. Random ppl using my music in a few youtube videos (w/ credit )

5. Random ppl adding me to msn/aim just to say they like my music <3

6. Getting some songs on FFR

7. uhh.. more random stuff like that.

I dont really have a huge accomplishment, but alot of little ones, but that definitely makes me happy

[Synchronicity]

I've never submitted to OCR before... at least not yet, but I play music with different people as often as I can at different places but as for a greatest achievement?

Hearing music in your head and then making the music in your head a reality and afterwards sitting back and hearing your creation with all its full movements is definitely a great achievement and is extremely gratifying... every time.

[eternal Zero]

An orchestra I was a part of went on tour in Russia and Finland one summer. It was amazing. I also got to play primary first clarinet in many of the pieces.

[Pushkin]

I've been playing guitar for a little over a year now, and i'm extremely happy with my daily improvment. I've just started learning the solo to stairway to heaven after being told it's not overly difficult. Teaching myself how to play the guitar (with help) has been my greatest and ongoing achievment.

[Groovemaster303]

Writing original music for a various homebrew games including.

Streets of Rage Remake (contributed 5 remixes)

Puzzle Carnival

Callisto

Nanotron

Comments from Richard Jacques, who was impressed by some of my work, that made my year.

Writing Foce of Light, which right i feel is my personal musical high.

Making a little money out of something i enjoy.

And last but not least the postive comments made by the many fans who enjoy my work both remixes and original, it is very nice to hear them and inspires me to work harder to improve myself constantly.

[Mr. Bottle Rocket]

http://www.soundclick.com/bands/default.cfm?bandID=566925

The most "recent album" I made...I really should get back into making music, that shit is fun.

Worked with dance ejay >.<

But some tracks (notably Insanity and Hell's Bass) had some main groove samples of my own creation.

[prophetik music]

In the realm of classical music, too much emphasis is detracted from the composer and too much recognition is placed on the performer. None of the known performers do any composition whatsoever

this ain't true. there are a large number of famous performers who have done fantastic arrangements, adaptations, and original compositions that are well known. you saying this tells me that you're a well spoken but musically illiterate person...else you would have remembered liszt, paganini, bach, buxtehude, chopin, debussy...

Technical mastery is impressive, and especially so when carried out flawlessly, but anything that can be acquired through "monkey see, monkey do" should lose its sheen. The secret to technique lies in practice, carrying an oxymoronic connotation of sorts due to the rather simplistic nature of practice and the obvious relevance of its merits. The merits alone point toward the explanation behind practice's existence.

if there's one thing i've learned in college, it's that practice is in no way simplistic and easy. while your statement above says 'you get good by practicing, duh' with a bunch of bling added on to make it look good, you should know that practicing is in no way an easy thing to do. it's possibly one of the most learning to practice was one of the most valuable things i learned at college, in all reality. just because you're technically good doesn't mean that you're truly a good musician.

Strictly speaking in the classical realm, if performers don't compose, then all they have going for them on a musician's level is this laughably esoteric concept they always fall back on in arguments: interpretation. Interpretation is the sole determinant of a performer's depth. Interpretation basically entails three things: rubato, dynamics, and articulation, all at the performer's discretion. Does mastery over the trivialities (another oxymoron) that even infants could comprehend, make them so deserving of our respect? Does respect, garnered through competitions against other classical "musicians" and classical judges, carry any sort of weight or bearing, when classical music is an institution whose very foundation revolves around the ability to emulate rather than create, to be spoonfed skewed musical perceptions of what's right rather than self-realize? This is an industry that whores so much money by producing a jizzfest of knockoffs of the same piece when the only thing differing is this inane concept called interpretation. Training oneself to the point where one can dictate whether Horowitz or Wilhelm Kempff possesses a higher level of interpretation is somewhat like a mental placebo, so to speak.

this entire paragraph is an enormous load of bullshit, fyi. it also proves that your definition of music doesn't extend beyond HOSHIT INSANE GEETAR SOLO because you don't understand that. is the jazz pianist at your school as good as Herbie Hancock because he can comp chords too? of course not, and it's not because of Herbie's insane knowledge of style and his crazy technique. it's because Herbie's got a pocket so deep that a four-year-old could play in it and sound hot. interpretation is one of the most difficult things to really, truly understand for non-musicians because of the depth behind it, just like in an incredibly complex piece of artwork or a beautiful sunset or anything like that. and the fact that you're saying that a performer's ability is determined solely by interpretation is just as wrong. stage presence, interpretation, research skills, and the ability to theorize and execute a musical idea are all important aspects of a performer's ability - while we often laud interpretation because of the fact that it gets the lion's share of the time in the news, those are all just as important. interpretation is by no means trivialities, either - if someone went through to play a really great solo piece and hit every note, but it sounded lifeless and dead, is that a good performance? no! it's the interpretation that MAKES it art, not in spite of it.

That being said, at the end of the day, when I see the passion on Kempff's face while he's playing Beethoven's Third Movement of Moonlight Sonata, or just by hearing what came of Perlman's efforts to commit Paganini's 24 Caprices to audio, I can't help but respect them. The thing is though, I respect Beethoven and Paganini so much more. Perlman is incredible because he's the first person to be able to duplicate the 24 Caprices with enough accuracy to commit them to vinyl, but in the end all he hasn't composed a thing and all he's doing is calling forth an insane amount of pyro-technicality. It's not impressive when a computer plays it through midi, so by the same token it's only sensible that it's not impressive when a human does it, unless you think it's impressive being able to copy a computer (in which case I retract my entire argument and erase my account). If I copied David Blaine's entire act, I'd be called a knockoff and given no attention. If I copied Houdini's entire act, I'd be regarded as a genius because of my ability to mimic his unreal level of showmanship and finesse. If 50 people copied Houdini, we'd all experience what would happen if one person copied David Blaine. Funny thing is, no one bothers to call any classical musician a Beethoven knockoff, or a Chopin knockoff.

more bullshit. you're just writing words with no idea to what they mean. particularly since your first sentence screws with everything you just said. although i think your houdini metaphor raises an interesting question, you're forgetting something. houdini didn't do his act with the idea that people would do it over again. beethoven and wagner and bach and palestrina wrote music to be performed, over and over and over again - and the people we say are fantastic performers are the ones that can do that music EXACTLY as it was in the composer's head.

Most "art" these days is either completely meaningless or completely worthless. We live in a day and age where you can accurately call Stairway to Heaven a great form, the Mona Lisa an incredible song, and a beautiful samurai form a nice portrait. We live in a day and age where shit can pass as art. Art's been tainted by things such as MTV and it's acquired this strange, liberal, and too open-ended global understanding that's completely different than the understandings held by the artists themselves. A three chord song passes of as a genius composition that can top the charts, and you can probably find three paint blobs of contrasting colors in some avant-garde museum in France that's supposed to represent some obscure perception of reality, which is what the seller uses to argue his price of 5,000 euros. Whenever Houdini is as old as Beethoven is now, maybe we'll start seeing what's acceptable or not in the art of deception through a different lens.

don't get me wrong, i agree with you here. society has lost a lot of depth of understanding in the art work in the past few hundred years. that said, i'm a modernist when it comes to artwork. that does not mean, however, that all art nowadays is worthless, or that the art that's been done in previous times is not any good either.

do i understand the point you're attempting to get at? not really - as a performer it doesn't make much sense to depreciate your role. you saying that anyone can do what you do on guitar (which wasn't really all THAT impressive, honestly, learn more than one thing to do with a flat VI chord already) by just repeating endlessly. but you don't have soul when you do that, the spirit of the music is gone when you drill endlessly like that. there's more to a performance than notes and rhythms - and until you understand that (which, it's not a concept that an infant can understand, trust me on that), you really aren't as good as you think you are. in general, no one is, but you definitely aren't.

edit - argument and counterargument: done. let's restrain further posting to the PM box to prevent this thread from getting off-topic.