I recently completed setting up my studio in my new home. I’ve been using it as my home office as well. When I am working from home, I am quite literally surrounded by synths, controllers, pedals–all the stuff. Occasionally, during a Zoom meeting, I am asked, “do you have any albums?” or “where can I find your music online?” While I do have some “compositions” (“songs” would be a stretch) available at SoundCloud and a few other locations online, and I have many more partial or completed things on some hard drives, I rarely publish any sounds and pay very little attention to putting out “music.”
I used to (and very occasionally still do) feel like I need to justify ownership of all these crazy deep and wonderful sound creation tools by putting out “music.” Lately, I have been just soaking up with gratitude and self-acceptance how much I love creating sounds on the fly, no matter where it goes, which is mostly nowhere at all, and how lucky I am to be able to buy and use all these tools (toys) whenever I want. I can happily leave it to others to create the great electronic music I listen to in my car, or when taking my dogs for a walk, or on my HomePods, and also feel grateful to them (you) for using these kinds of tools for more structured musicality. As they say, “two things can be true…”
Quite same situation, I’m surrounded with synth, sampler, drum machine, basically toys I really like !
I have done one album one day to prove myself that I was able to, a second years later. And both are my stuff and really not great, but it’s mine
Then for years program a synth in software to prove me that I’m able to do it.
But in the end what I really like, is playing few chords on them, playing a pattern, dive into this world for one or two hours. Then do something else. Do not want to transform a passion in day job and probably will never have the talent and workaholic attitude to do it.
I’m more or less in the same boat. “Producing” sounds like a painful word to me. But I can spend a full day designing one sound.
However, every now and then, I also like to quickly lay out my pet sounds in very basic structures, just to watch them live and evolve. Sometimes the result sounds like a song
I like this. I can relate to that. I’m just starting to fiddle with these instruments. Always loved the style of music, and for some reason last year I was like ‘Well…then why don’t you go out, get some stuff and play around with it? You know you want to…’. No music school, no music theory, not sure if I can actually produce a single thing. But I don’t care. I just love the instruments, love to fiddle with them. And yes, curiosity makes me interested in more gear. GAS is a real thing. At this point I’m already pumped when two synth and Ableton are actually producing something you could describe as the rhythmic basics of a track via MIDI. When I look at guys like Substan or Chaotrick I know there’s a long way to go if I’d ever want to make stuff like that. Still, I don’t mind. Patience and practice will show me what happens over time. Main thing is: I like to play with this and challenge myself, it is MY hobby, and I don’t care how other people feel about me getting expensive stuff while not exactly churning out quality songs.
Answer No, Antonio Stradivari, commonly known as Stradivarius, was not a musician. He was a renowned luthier (stringed instrument maker) from Cremona, Italy.
I’ve spent days pissing about comparing VST synths (by making DnB basses with them) to decide which to keep and which to sell. Perhaps, in the spirit of being a crappy non-producer and just being an amateur sound nerd, I should keep them all!
I know several (good) musicians who have been working on their first album for 15+ years, and still not released anything.
I always remember something a good friend of mine said to me… ‘musicians make the worst music.’: he was the founder/owner of a large and quite successful record label; and I knew what he meant.
same here gave up trying to hit it big but love jamming on my synths and exploring new soundscapes. It is therapy to me and cheaper than drugs, whores and divorce!
Great post! For me the day I accepted, that I have thousands of € sitting on tables, in racks or in boxes on the shelf is nothing that should give me anxiety or guilt of not using it enough, but is there to give me joy in those times, that I turn them on and enjoy them, turned around my connection to “music making” a lot. For every gear I owned or bought, I started to count money vs. use and it resulted in guilt a lot. I am a hobbyist too, and with more interests than music and a ton of ADHD, there are days and sometimes weeks I just look at them.
Took many years to get rid of that unpleasant feeling of not spending enough time with those expensive spendings. Therapy rules!
However - me in my best moments = probably exercising a little restraint.
What this means is - ever notice yourself having a cool session - and then suddenly touching the wrong knob and fucking up the flow of the whole thing?
It’s just to say, sometimes you swim within a certain lake. If you don’t try and take the river downstream, then you might have something complete right there. Renderable, uploadable, editable.
On the one hand yes, one can just accept that sound might just be a meditation, just a personal enjoyment. But I think it’s also good to consider that you might only be a stones throw away from something that’s a bit of a jam, to something finished.
Thanks for opening this thread with a nice and thoughtful post!
For myself it’s always good to remember that the best things in music, sounds or anything else literally just happened to me whenever I didn’t think too much about what I was doing. I barely come closer to tracks than 16 step patterns with mutes and little variation. Or I just drone about forever. Which oftentimes makes me happy the most. Just because of sound and frequency resonating nicely with my body and mind. It’s just beautiful to be able to treat yourself with that – aimlessly.
I’ve never bought into the idea that being a musician is about making records.
Since I was a yoof, I’ve made beats, jammed with friends, filled C-cassettes with beats, played gigs. This continues to this day. Yet, when it comes to making records, I’ve only ever made them for others. To me, playing live is the best thing about making music.
If you have instruments and you play them, you are a musician - thats all there is to it. Now that might mean that you are a bad musician, or a brilliant one, or anything in between, but that has nothing to do with music. The value of your music is different for every person.
I’m thinking this expectation that music makers must publish records kind of comes from this modern attention economy thing, where everyone is a “content creator” and everything worth anything is always shared… Yet its absolutely OK not to share everything, or even anything.
“The future is mute and void of public content, evertything becomes private and secret, hidden from AI to assimilate”
This is the way, also for me. I am working at home right now, while in a corner my modular and Ableton have been droning away for hours. Once in a while I stand up and twist a knob or adjust an lfo or parameter on my rig or my Push 3. Real happiness!
I’m in this group!!
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