Take off! I’m pretty good at playing Nothing else matters!
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Every day! In fact a solid 95% of what I listen to nowadays are things I find on this forum. I like to focus on the Current Sounds and Share Your Tunes threads but I listen to pretty much everything else too.
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And I wouldn’t have it any other way, I don’t invite friends, family, or acquaintances who don’t have beatmachines to any of my shows, and don’t play any music for them… I never gave them cds, albums, or downloads of my music and I’ve told this story before but my mother was surprised when she came by and caught me playing drums, she exclaimed how could you do that I never bought you any drums or lessons and that was the first and only time a family member had seen me… I must admit I it was a bit traumatic being caught like that because I didn’t know she was watching, but even more so it felt like a violation because my music isn’t for them, it’s for me, and one of the things I hate most in life is having somebody around when I’m making music who is not involved all up in the mix, can’t stand having just random people I know just kickin it at band rehearsals or recording sessions just hangin out and there is a very good reason for this.
My music might be terrible, great, or anything in between but none of that matters because what does matter is that my music is very jealous and it demands and deserves my undivided attention, what it does not need is friends and family fucking up the vibe no matter how well meaning or genuine their liking of something I’m making, the music will suffer and then I will suffer if I have to take attention away from what I’m doing to act like I care about what they think.
Just my opinion but I think your music is just for you and the people that like what you like, the people that don’t naturally like what you like, don’t need to hear your music, or seek it out for free or for payment if you’re selling it are just casualties of existence… those lovely people are not a part of the equation and the more attention you give to them the less you give to music.
All that to say don’t sweat it, the people that don’t care about your music are inconsequential because your music isn’t for them anyway…I imagine hell must be a place where people have to pretend that they care about other people who have to pretend that they care about your music for all eternity 
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I think music demands more sustained attention than most kinds of art. You can’t skim music the way you can skim a book. You can’t take it all in in one look the way you can a drawing.
When someone listens to your music, they are deciding to give you time, and time is the most valuable thing in a lot of people’s lives. So it’s a big thing to ask of them. Even a few minutes.
I trade music back and forth with my brother and some friends. Sometimes it’s collborative, most of the time we just listen. But even then—among a very small group of like-minded people who actively ask each other to share their art, it can be hard to get people to listen to stuff or even for me to listen to their stuff—and I really want to. But my time is extremely finite.
I think that’s why I mostly consider myself a visual artist and mostly play music as a pastime. It’s just much easier to get an audience to engage with visual work.
It’s not the only reason I gravitated to visual art, but at some point I noticed that a print or drawing lets the audience take in the work at their own pace. They can pick it up and put it down and pick it back up a lot more easily. If one thing I made doesn’t grab them, they can sample another bit of my art as quickly as moving their eyes.
Music isn’t like that—people have to accept the pace of the art. Even to an interested and engaged audience, that’s a huge barrier.
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Sorry for two posts in a row. But one other thing this thread makes me think about…
There is so much music I love that I came to very late. Albums that sat around on my shelf for years—sometimes decades—before I really, deeply listened to them and thought “This is everything I want to hear! How did I sleep on this for so long? How does it feel so vital now when it didn’t grab me at all the first 5 times?”
A ton of amazing music that just didn’t speak to me until years after I first heard it.
So, just because people aren’t responding to your stuff right away doesn’t mean they never will. Maybe it’s not hitting them at the right time.
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I’m definitely less bothered by spousal disinterest than being forever unprepared to confidently answer “yes!” when chatting with strangers and especially fellow artists and they ask if I am an artist/musician.
My skillsets are so varied and I use them all with less specialization so the spiel always takes longer than I’d like to explain it 
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We’re celebrating out 14th wedding anniversary today.
Also been living together 20 years.
Congratulations to you both, living with people ain’t easy.
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Ourselves doubly so!
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The problem with this one is that musicians dissect what it means to be a musician so on a fundamental level it’s a philosophical question as opposed to one with a definitive answer.
I think the layman’s assumption is that you’re a musician if you get paid to do music, and that’s generally a bit reductive to feel like you only exist as that thing if you get paid for being that thing.
This is, however, unfortunately exactly what people want to hear when someone says “oh you’re a musician?”
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With my local ensemble I do choreography, props, lighting, multimedia, costuming, set design, stage tech, sound reinforcement for local shows… and my own neglected music youtube channel and domain with only one album on it, I get lost in branding and promotion of my own stuff
Today I’m going to be participating in a EE related student group at the University to modify childrens toys for accessibility, my brain loves how all these topics benefit each other, I make great support personnel but I really need to write and record more!
My brain must be seizing up on the “why aren’t you doing more stuff to show off” over everything cool I’m doing with others. Still time well used, but it’d probably be different with a smaller group of friends with enough not-stolen time to vet my tracks.
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alos someone saying Fin25 touched their heart is kinda creepy
(no offence @bardial, but for us that know Fin… 
)
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I mean if your music is entirely self serving it would be akin to audibly masturbating in someone’s ear. I can’t imagine the target audience for that “genre” to be very large. at the lowest base level of accessibility the music would have to at least be recognizable in rhythm or melody, or arrangement. if you’re missing enough of those things, the content that is there won’t be accessible. if the content you have is pleasing to you, try placing that content inside a recognizable preexisting structure of rhythm, melody, or arrangement. Just as an experiment.
Heheh English is not my native language and I didn’t know how to express it. Sorry.
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Well not much to add here but, I think most of us have been told our stuff is shit at one point in time. When people close to me said that about a track I presented them, I asked them why. I’m not calling it failure, but I’ve learned to always take the opportunity to learn something new when I feel like I’ve failed. Not always, but a lot of times it allows me to grow and become better. When I go back and listen to my older stuff, I can really hear how much I’ve grown. It makes me happy, and encourages me to keep learning and improving.
Although, like Fin so wonderfully put it, maybe it’s not right for the people closest to you, doesnt mean that anyone amongst this planets population won’t like it. Who knows. Maybe someday somebody will come across your tracks and love them. Those same tracks might bring joy and inspiration to them for years. Keep your head up and keeping plucking away.
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I mean that’s one way to take friends’ enjoyment and work. And yet I’ve gone to friends’ poetry readings and spoken word!
If they were going out of their way to make power noise, the “this isn’t for everyone” aspect would be more plain.
Contextually it’s perfectly appropriate, the joke was just people being extremely literal 
I enjoy lots of music, but the stuff that really touches me is the most authentic weirdo music that never made a dime and only I know about, made by uncompromising niche people.
Especially when I was a teenager. Downloading an mp3 of some absurd genre-blending indie/experimental band from epitonic and having my mind blown. Bands that were never heard from again. Those are the ones I remember randomly throughout my life.
Becoming that memory for someone else is a higher aspiration than being the next David Guetta (although I wouldn’t mind…), in my opinion.
And secondly, the very act of spending your time on Earth summoning music from the aether, that only you will hear, with no intent if publishing, and no aspiration of profit: that is a philosophical/political/spiritual/artistic act itself. It says a lot and I think it is worthwhile even if nobody ever hears it
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you did just fine 
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I know you do. From what I’ve seen, it looks like you engage with just about every track posted there. I think that’s pretty awesome
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I’m not in that situation.
She: Wow, this sounds nice, you should sell your stuff.
Me: 
This is just a one bar loop and I’m just twiggeling some parameters.
She: Yeah, but I like it. I just can imagine a nice song of this bar.
Me: 
But I have no clue how to make a song out of it.
She: But it’s a very good fundament of a song
Me: But I know I’ll hate it tomorrow
She: Me not, go on 
Me: I’m not happy with the mixing. All parts are killing each other and everything sounds muddy.
She: But I like how many different genres you can do. Every song is totally different stuff. This is something only the best studio musicians can do! 
Me: Bar, not song.
She: You know what I mean.
Me: 
yeah, it’s because I have NO adequate skill on ANY genre. BTW I HATE genres.
Little he: I like this song, papa.
Me: 
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