Albums - Are they worth it?

[AngelCityOutlaw]

pfft, effort. i think it's a pretty common thing that an artist's quick lazy track gets lots of recognition while another one he considers his recent masterpiece gets little

[Neifion]

That's not really my point. How long it takes to finish a song says nothing about the effort. You can finish a great song in half an hour, and still put everything into it. Conversely, you can take a month to finish a half-assed song. Indeed, I think I finished my better songs in a fraction of the time it took for my other songs, because I was "in the groove", so to speak.

Personally, I've never produced a "quick, lazy" track, and I don't plan to.

pfft, effort. i think it's a pretty common thing that an artist's quick lazy track gets lots of recognition while another one he considers his recent masterpiece gets little.

and it's not even necessarily wrong - a lot of really brilliant tunes were written in half an hour. the muse is elusive; polishing can be good but turd polishing is useless.

[timaeus222]

pfft, effort. i think it's a pretty common thing that an artist's quick lazy track gets lots of recognition while another one he considers his recent masterpiece gets little.

and it's not even necessarily wrong - a lot of really brilliant tunes were written in half an hour. the muse is elusive; polishing can be good but turd polishing is useless.

I do get what you mean. Sometimes I show my friends some OC ReMixes that I think are awesome, and they just say "Hey, this is pretty cool." and don't go any further than that. They actually pause the song sometimes before it's over when they just decide they want to change the song. They aren't really music composers, and they're into the music they hear on youtube, pandora, etc. AKA pop music. Pssh. Non-audiophiles.

[AngelCityOutlaw]

I do get what you mean. Sometimes I show my friends some OC ReMixes that I think are awesome, and they just say "Hey, this is pretty cool." and don't go any further than that. They actually pause the song sometimes before it's over when they just decide they want to change the song. They aren't really music composers, and they're into the music they hear on youtube, pandora, etc. AKA pop music. Pssh. Non-audiophiles.

At least in my experience, your non-musician friends will always be the least supportive people of your music. They generally believe that music is some special talent rather than a craft and skill that can be learned and improved upon. They just listen to whatever is on the radio and top 40 hits. Unless you're in this category, they don't give a shit. They won't take the time to press play on a track of yours because if it's not some shit they heard on the radio or a song all their friends are ripping from a YouTube video with over a million views, they don't figure your music is worthy of their time. If you do manage to become a successful musician, they will just name-drop you to boost their own status and boast to their friends that they know a cool musician with a song on the radio. They've still probably never listened to your stuff.

It's like this one girl I've known for over 10 years has still never bothered to take 2 - 4 minutes out of her life to press play on one of my tunes. Hell, even most of my family never has.

[Nase]

How long it takes to finish a song says nothing about the effort.

uh, yes, it says more about the effort than anything. otherwise i don't quite get your definition of "effort".

when you're inspired and grooving and all that you don't need much effort, stuff just flows. effort means work imo.

[timaeus222]

uh, yes, it says more about the effort than anything. otherwise i don't quite get your definition of "effort".

when you're inspired and grooving and all that you don't need much effort, stuff just flows. effort means work imo.

I'm assuming just the amount of purposeful dedication put into it. Even if you wrote something in an hour, if it's something that's relatively good in relation to how well you normally write, then it's usually a strong effort. If it was written in 2 weeks, and it's still relatively good in relation to how well you normally write, then it's about the same strong effort, just spread out throughout those two weeks, assuming the objective quality of those two songs are about the same. He's saying how he thinks it's not about the time spent, but the desire to make something sound as consistently good as your past works that usually take other lengths of time to write.

[Argle]

define a "half assed" effort in an objective way. otherwise, it still seems like it comes down to whether a song speaks to you or not. filler and half assed are dismissive terms that I don't really like.

[WillRock]

Music is ultimately subjective and it speaks to different people in different ways. If something seems "half-assed" to you, even if you wrote it, other people may love it. There are a LOT of instances of famous bands not liking their most famous songs. Robert Plant apparently hates Stairway to Heaven. Freddie Mercury said in an interview he felt that Somebody to Love was a more complete and better composition than Bohemian Rhapsody. Jon Bon Jovi even fought to have Livin' On A Prayer as an unreleased song entirely, because he didn't think it was that good, but the rest of the band told him it was a hit single. Thats my favourite song

Def Leppard had a personal decision to never throw away an idea, even if they didn't like it, because they knew someone else might. The point is you can't know what other people will like so its worth releasing everything, at least for a test drive. In my experience people have come back and told me that my best remixes are ones I now hate with a passion, even ones that I feel I've "half-assed" . Its all a matter of opinion in the end of the day.

As for releasing albums. It depends. You don't only need a goal for your album, you need to know how to promote it. A masterpiece of music creation will not get anyone listening if you don't promote it well. My plan was to get known for game remixes and gradually work my way into doing original music, so i'd have a fanbase when I started - but even that isn't enough I've found, you usually need to find sort of label to promote your music for you. Ubiktune worked for me.

So... artistically, working on an album is worth it. However, if you want to earn some money, spend some time on promoting it, and do some research. You'll ultimately come out the better for it.

Edited May 1, 2014 by WillRock

[Garrett Williamson]

Music is ultimately subjective and it speaks to different people in different ways. If something seems "half-assed" to you, even if you wrote it, other people may love it. There are a LOT of instances of famous bands not liking their most famous songs. Robert Plant apparently hates Stairway to Heaven. Freddie Mercury said in an interview he felt that Somebody to Love was a more complete and better composition than Bohemian Rhapsody. Jon Bon Jovi even fought to have Livin' On A Prayer as an unreleased song entirely, because he didn't think it was that good, but the rest of the band told him it was a hit single. Thats my favourite song

Def Leppard had a personal decision to never throw away an idea, even if they didn't like it, because they knew someone else might. The point is you can't know what other people will like so its worth releasing everything, at least for a test drive. In my experience people have come back and told me that my best remixes are ones I now hate with a passion, even ones that I feel I've "half-assed" . Its all a matter of opinion in the end of the day.

This is so true. I released an album a couple years ago and I decided to release a ballad to balance out some of the more upbeat tracks. Some people actually liked that song, but I absolutely hate it. I hate it to the point I don't see how anyone could like it. But alas, somehow there are people that like the song.

[Neifion]

All right, apparently I didn't explain myself well enough, since multiple people are analyzing my statement incorrectly.

If you put your heart and soul into a song, independent of how "good" the song is, I don't consider it filler.

If you did not put your heart and soul into a song (i.e. less than your 100%), I consider that filler, and I don't really respect artists who put out less than their 100% to the public.

Does that explain it better?

Edited May 1, 2014 by Neifion

[Nase]

All right, apparently I didn't explain myself well enough, since multiple people are analyzing my statement incorrectly.

All I'm saying is: I like it when people put their heart and soul into every song. To me, I would never even think of saying "I'm not going to try as hard on some songs as others." Every song should be your 100% effort.

I respect artists who put out an album where they went all out on every song. This is INDEPENDENT of how good the song actually is. Whether or not the artist likes it or thinks it's total crap, or whether or not the audience likes it or thinks it's total crap, if the artist put 100% into it, I respect that artist.

Any song where the artist did not put 100% is filler. If you're an artist, why would you NOT put 100%? Now, I can understand, say, in a film or video game situation where you have a deadline, there are cases where you'll probably be rushed. But you could still have put the 100% effort in to make it as good as possible given the circumstances. If you're a hobbyist, however, like many people here, this is supposed to be your outlet; you're doing it because you love making music. So spend some time and make a great album where you gave your all on every song!

well here's the trouble - my "100%" is entirely mysterious to me.

i don't actually know how it works and precisely how to achieve it. i'm willing to believe that it's a little less erratic for some other folks, but not hugely so.

again, just talking about "effort" seems empty to me. you need other overused words like "flow", "inspiration", etc etc.

just pure 100% "effort" is meaningless when you got nothing to say that'd require the effort to get it out in the first place.

basically, IMO all artists are a little bit craftsmen, but more than anything they're FOOLS. acknowledging that seems the first step in the right direction. creativity at its heart is fool's work.

[Neifion]

Again, I feel like you're thinking too hard about it. I didn't intend for it to get that complicated, and that's my fault for not explaining myself well.

Did you give it your best effort? Then to me, that's 100%. Seriously, that's it!

Maybe I'm an exception to the rule, but I have a pretty good idea of what my best effort is. I can feel it when I didn't give 100%, when I got lazy, when I took the "easy way" out in my writing or programming; it bugs me, and I have to go back and make it right!

well here's the trouble - my "100%" is entirely mysterious to me.

i don't actually know how it works and precisely how to achieve it. i'm willing to believe that it's a little less erratic for some other folks, but not hugely so.

again, just talking about "effort" seems empty to me. you need other overused words like "flow", "inspiration", etc etc.

just pure 100% "effort" is meaningless when you got nothing to say that'd require the effort to get it out in the first place.

basically, IMO all artists are a little bit craftsmen, but more than anything they're FOOLS. acknowledging that seems the first step in the right direction. creativity at its heart is fool's work.

Edited May 2, 2014 by Neifion

[zircon]

A friend of mine (also a musician & composer) once explained it this way: we'd all like every song to be our absolute best work at any given time. Best composition, best production, etc. But it never is, for many reasons. Maybe you don't have the right samples, or the right players, maybe you're limited by time, by budget, by inspiration, distractions, or a million other things. So it ends up being say 90% as good as your best.

BUT.. consider that we all strive to get better. My 90% now is better than my 100% last year. And even my 25% - rushed, massive deadline pressure - is way better than my 100% five years ago. The same can be said of any musician that constantly works to improve themselves.

[Neifion]

Definitely agree with you here. Though to go back to my point, I was referring to effort, not how good it sounds. Sure, my songs ten years ago sound like crap because I didn't have the samples, the knowledge, technique, etc. But, I gave just as much effort back then as I do now.

Similarly, if you're under a deadline or budget constraint, of course it's not going to be 100% quality-wise. But, it could certainly be 100% effort-wise. You did your best to make it work, and you can feel good knowing that although it may not be your pinnacle work, you gave it your best effort.

I respect artists who continually put their best effort in for every song, even if said song didn't turn out to be what they wanted. I do not respect artists who could have put more effort in, who had the time and the means, who knew exactly what they needed to do to make it better, but just decided not to because they felt that people wouldn't notice, they got lazy, etc. In other words, people who deliberately put their work out, knowing they could have done more.

A friend of mine (also a musician & composer) once explained it this way: we'd all like every song to be our absolute best work at any given time. Best composition, best production, etc. But it never is, for many reasons. Maybe you don't have the right samples, or the right players, maybe you're limited by time, by budget, by inspiration, distractions, or a million other things. So it ends up being say 90% as good as your best.

BUT.. consider that we all strive to get better. My 90% now is better than my 100% last year. And even my 25% - rushed, massive deadline pressure - is way better than my 100% five years ago. The same can be said of any musician that constantly works to improve themselves.

Edited May 2, 2014 by Neifion

[Nase]

o.k., maybe i do get your definition, and maybe i'm 100% effort by it as well.

my point i guess is, to put it simple...a fly banging against a window again and again is showing 100% effort to get out. based on its capabilities, you gotta give it A+ for effort.

music or any art ain't just about "keeping at it", it's just as much about "letting go". even laziness can be a positive factor at the right point in time.

don't think one can overthink all this from a philosophical viewpoint, but can appreciate you're more pragmatic about it.

what anyone might say about this is going to be more of a crude simplification of the process, something like "well here's what i've done so far and it kinda works well for me so i'll call it my 100%".

and maybe that's true to a degree based on your experience so far, but it's not the whole story.

i'm not strictly talking about slowly scaling up your 100% over time (gaining skill). the really interesting part is: flashes of genius. short bursts of 10000%, stuff that happens rarely and can't be well explained with your previously acquired skillset.

Edited May 2, 2014 by Nase

[timaeus222]

people who deliberately put their work out, knowing they could have done more.

Yeah. i.e. the opposite of purposeful dedication. ^

... the amount of purposeful dedication put into it

However,

the desire to make something sound as consistently good as your past works that usually take other lengths of time to write.

^ This 'effort' could drop over time as you improve, as then you'd be stagnating if you're writing at a consistent level even though you probably could have learned more in a year or two. It's like how Aristotle says it's your fault if you didn't improve your morals as you grew up. =P

Edited May 2, 2014 by timaeus222

[Nase]

BUT.. consider that we all strive to get better. My 90% now is better than my 100% last year. And even my 25% - rushed, massive deadline pressure - is way better than my 100% five years ago. The same can be said of any musician that constantly works to improve themselves.

zirc, to offer a counterpoint on that...you've met hiroki kikuta, right? he has sort of an interesting view on it. he claimed that he isn't a better (read improved) musician than he was 10 or 20 years ago, just a different one.

I'm still trying to decipher what exactly he meant with that, but i think there's something worthwhile to that way of thought. i do believe in improvement in the sense that you accumulate more and more experience, and expand your craftsmanship, but at the same rate, there can be things you once did with passion and did well that are not repeatable by your today self.

it's easier to observe from due distance, i.e. in other artists: earlier works by someone that you really dig for what they are, yet that person has "moved on" and considers that old stuff boring/embarassing/whatev.

attachment and overexposure to your own stuff has a way of distorting perception. i'd never say you for example haven't improved, but i do think this attachment feeds that sense of and need for self-improvement.

gotta say, your focus on self-improvement has a very wholesomely american ring to it, lol.

maybe you'll look at your whole body of work someday from an increased distance and view it all a little more kikuta-style, hehe.

Edited May 2, 2014 by Nase

[timaeus222]

zirc, to offer a counterpoint on that...you've met hiroki kikuta, right? he has sort of an interesting view on it. he claimed that he isn't a better (read improved) musician than he was 10 or 20 years ago, just a different one.

I'm still trying to decipher what exactly he meant with that, but i think there's something worthwhile to that way of thought. i do believe in improvement in the sense that you accumulate more and more experience, and expand your craftsmanship, but at the same rate, there can be things you once did with passion and did well that are not repeatable by your today self.

it's easier to observe from due distance, i.e. in other artists: earlier works by someone that you really dig for what they are, yet that person has "moved on" and considers that old stuff boring/embarassing/whatev.

attachment and overexposure to your own stuff has a way of distorting perception. i'd never say you for example haven't improved, but i do think this attachment feeds that sense of and need for self-improvement.

gotta say, your focus on self-improvement has a very wholesomely american ring to it, lol.

maybe you'll look at your whole body of work someday from an increased distance and view it all a little more kikuta-style, hehe.

So you're saying that from personal bias and the insight you have into your own music, you see your own improvements more so than others have? If so, that's technically a good thing. However, "overexposure" to your own stuff distorting perception sounds like a bad thing the way you said it. Maybe it's just the wording, but I think it's great once you can tell that your old stuff was terrible, because we were all terrible when we wrote our very firsts. Then that just means you've gotten more objective, not only towards other people's writing, which is easier, but towards your own stuff, which is harder.

[Nase]

nope timaeus, what i'm saying is almost diametrically opposed to what you're thinking. not saying it is that way, just trying to offer a very different perspective.

"objective" is another word i find troublesome in the art context. it basically has to leave the building once you're talking about creativity/expression. it belongs in the "craft" realm.

[timaeus222]

nope timaeus, what i'm saying is almost diametrically opposed to what you're thinking. not saying it is that way, just trying to offer a very different perspective.

"objective" is another word i find troublesome in the art context. it basically has to leave the building once you're talking about creativity/expression. it belongs in the "craft" realm.

there can be things you once did with passion and did well that are not repeatable by your today self.

Hm. Could you elaborate on why, then? I'm not sure why you'd be opposed to a need for self-improvement centered around personal bias around your own music. I personally love having motivation to improve my own works, as long as it's not obsessive to the point where you take too long to finish something. Did you mean that if you're dismissing something that you strongly believe you were bad at in the past due to that sense of improvement, you're losing a chance of developing that further, and that that limits your creativity to the path you chose? Edited May 2, 2014 by timaeus222

[Nase]

Hm. Could you elaborate on why, then? I'm not sure why you'd be opposed to a need for self-improvement centered around personal bias around your own music.

I wouldn't be opposed to a view like that. Tried to phrase it carefully when i wrote the bit in reply to zircon - it's not a right or wrong thing, it's different perspectives that can be valid, and i shift back and forth between them a little.

To me, one valid thing to improve on is the ability to appreciate very different things.

When we follow down a path of learning, it can often happen that we focus on a very specific path, and anything that doesn't lie on that path becomes less desirable.

I think the interpretation you went for in above post kind of applies here: something you might find embarassing at a certain development stage can have much potential, and you're shunning it cause it seems silly/not serious or whatever.

Maybe it's just genuinely good already to another set of ears that doesn't have the same set of expectations as yours, like wanting some specific polished electronic sound or whatever.

I mean, ok, everyone has stuff he's still embarassed about, but don't you have the opposite as well? Stuff you were embarassed about while making it, then coming back to an unfinished mp3 render 2 years later and thinking "hey, that thing is weird but so cool! So different than what i was trying for so hard at the time. Why was i frustrated?"

And yeah, i think some things are hard to repeat/pull off again! You might have all the technical abilities to repeat it in theory, easier than ever before, but your creative mojo just flows differently today, and when you try it ends up going somewhere else.

Maybe i'll find the kikuta interview with the bit i paraphrased. Not sure if there was more to it. It's just something that struck me as odd/interesting when i read it ages ago, and it kinda stuck with me.

There is a liberating aspect to it: there is no need to reach your previous 'quality standards', as it's not possible in a way, anyway. What you're going to do now is just that: different.

[timaeus222]

To me, one valid thing to improve on is the ability to appreciate very different things.

When we follow down a path of learning, it can often happen that we focus on a very specific path, and anything that doesn't lie on that path becomes less desirable.

I think the interpretation you went for in above post kind of applies here: something you might find embarassing at a certain development stage can have much potential, and you're shunning it cause it seems silly/not serious or whatever.

Yeah, that's exactly what I'm saying.

Maybe it's just genuinely good already to another set of ears that doesn't have the same set of expectations as yours, like wanting some specific polished electronic sound or whatever.

True. Others who aren't as particular as you in production will see more potential in arrangement and vice versa. However, there are some cases, at least for me, where I truly don't see potential in what was written. For example, I had a pretty bad MegaMan Zero 3 remix (which I'm not gonna share ) that was clipping, phase-y, not written with a real DAW but just an audio editor, and just plain awful, and I'm not afraid to admit that. All I learned from that was to start using DAWs.

I mean, ok, everyone has stuff he's still embarassed about, but don't you have the opposite as well? Stuff you were embarassed about while making it, then coming back to an unfinished mp3 render 2 years later and thinking "hey, that thing is weird but so cool! So different than what i was trying for so hard at the time. Why was i frustrated?" And yeah, i think some things are hard to repeat/pull off again! You might have all the technical abilities to repeat it in theory, easier than ever before, but your creative mojo just flows differently today, and when you try it ends up going somewhere else.

Sure. I had this neat arrangement of a Golden Sun track in which I still see potential for expansion due to the chord progression and the glitching effect 'scheme', but I strongly feel that I should just completely re-attempt it if I were to work off of the original arrangement and rearrange it, simply because the arrangement was specifically tailored to those particular samples, EQ, reverb, etc.

[Nase]

Did you fucking hate it when you abandoned it? 'Cuz that's the part important to the argument

Timmy, allow me a broad observation: seems pretty obvious to me you're a talented dude, but i do notice how your ponderings are centered a lot around the technical and technological side of things. It's a natural stage i suppose - i'm still kinda stuck in it myself, but have dealt with it long enough now to know i'm tired of it. I need a different mode now to tickle me fancy, and i'm still kinda looking for it.

Use it happily as long as it provides inspiration, my dear mad VST scientist, but know that there are other pretty natural stages where you'll probably grow a little bored with that.

[timaeus222]

Did you fucking hate it when you abandoned it? 'Cuz that's the part important to the argument

Timmy, allow me a broad observation: seems pretty obvious to me you're a talented dude, but i do notice how your ponderings are centered a lot around the technical and technological side of things. It's a natural stage i suppose - i'm still kinda stuck in it myself, but have dealt with it long enough now to know i'm tired of it. I need a different mode now to tickle me fancy, and i'm still kinda looking for it.

Use it happily as long as it provides inspiration, my dear mad VST scientist, but know that there are other pretty natural stages where you'll probably grow a little bored with that.

When I abandoned it, as you say, no, I didn't really hate it; I just literally forgot about it, then came back to it, seeing some good and some "eh", though a little more good than "eh", and that's why I chose *that* as my example of something I still don't feel that 'embarrassed' about these days.

Although I *am* someone who takes the time to polish something up as much as it takes to satisfy my desires, I try not to go so far as to do something for hours only to not get anywhere; I do take breaks! However, I don't think I'll lose the satisfaction I get from getting something big done in my music, even if it involved meticulous processes. The journey through that reveals to me what skill was developed further from that experience (though I don't dwell on the skill in particular, but the elevation of my overall understanding of musical enjoyment), and there has yet to be a moment where I regretted trying that hard. I'm not super technical when it comes to writing music, or even formulaic, actually. These days I just write what pops into my mind. In other words, I go with the flow.

...And just for perspective, I don't actually make and use all brand new sounds for each song---that would be ridiculous. I do occasionally make and/or use a few that I haven't used before just to change up the atmosphere from my past works, though. Or, perhaps, there's just that one sound that exactly matches what I imagine, and I just really want to use it, but I'd never used it before, and it feels new to others.

I think this is a good discussion, by the way.

Edited May 2, 2014 by timaeus222

[Nase]

No worries, pushing your own boundaries is never gonna lose its satisfaction i don't think, it's just that the avenue of boundaries you wanna push might change radically over time.