When you dislike your own music?

[Vince]

I've felt it for a long time. I dislike the music I make. Does that happen to you guys?

I don't mean that I play badly (though sometimes there's that, too), I just find that, left to my own devices I make stuff that other people seem to enjoy but leaves me totally cold. In fact, I have no interest in the entire world that music inhabits.

(the music itself doesn't matter, I'm not asking you to judge that)

I could form a band to explore this music. I know exactly what the band would look and sound like. But it would feel bogus and like trying to make the best of a bad lot.

Does that happen to you? Realising you are good at something you don't find interesting at all? Do you settle for being rubbish at a different style but one you genuinely like or be a phony and go with the flow?

[jeremyb]

I lack the skill to be able to be good at the music I want to play and even when I try to come up with other stuff the things I can play will come out, I think I’ve made peace with that and just gone full bore in that direction

[crowbgood1]

Currently I'm playing bass and singing so the songs I've written are presented to the band as such, bass and vocals. This seems to have so much less influence on the finished product than presenting song ideas on guitar, especially if you leave the guitar and drums to the guitarist and drummer. They seem so much less hateable when they are not fully mine

In saying that, a veteran muso once told me "when you have played your songs so many times you hate them, you are ready to perform live". Not sure I fully agree, but if you thrash them about enough with the same people, they sure become tight.

[rickenbackerkid]

This is why I'm not in an original band. I don't feel like the songs I have written are actually worth listening to. So I play good songs written by others instead.

[NippleWrestler]

Yes it happens, but the first step to being good at something is being not so good at something. Stick with it. Analyse what you dislike and try and strip it out. Be ruthless.

Are you trying too hard to please other people? I find that's the quickest way to disappointment in your personal work.

[Slowy]

I've felt it for a long time. I dislike the music I make. Does that happen to you guys?

I don't mean that I play badly (though sometimes there's that, too), I just find that, left to my own devices I make stuff that other people seem to enjoy but leaves me totally cold. In fact, I have no interest in the entire world that music inhabits.

(the music itself doesn't matter, I'm not asking you to judge that)

I could form a band to explore this music. I know exactly what the band would look and sound like. But it would feel bogus and like trying to make the best of a bad lot.

Does that happen to you? Realising you are good at something you don't find interesting at all? Do you settle for being rubbish at a different style but one you genuinely like or be a phony and go with the flow?

You sound like the very definition of a tormented creative to me.
And not meaning to be flippant.
What if I challenged you to produce something you did like?

[Jay]

Hey, it is fixed

[Bg]

Hey, it is fixed

Its a miracle! and its not even xmas!

[Jay]

Hey, it is fixed

Its a miracle! and its not even xmas!

You are invincible... Flicks his pen around and around in his hand...

[Slowy]

I've felt it for a long time. I dislike the music I make. Does that happen to you guys?

I don't mean that I play badly (though sometimes there's that, too), I just find that, left to my own devices I make stuff that other people seem to enjoy but leaves me totally cold. In fact, I have no interest in the entire world that music inhabits.

(the music itself doesn't matter, I'm not asking you to judge that)

I could form a band to explore this music. I know exactly what the band would look and sound like. But it would feel bogus and like trying to make the best of a bad lot.

Does that happen to you? Realising you are good at something you don't find interesting at all? Do you settle for being rubbish at a different style but one you genuinely like or be a phony and go with the flow?

You sound like the very definition of a tormented creative to me.
And not meaning to be flippant.
What if I challenged you to produce something you did like?

And last year, standing on a stage playing the same pub crowd favourites I've played for decades, I realised I couldn't do it anymore. But that's not the same as original music.

[hamo]

Hey, it is fixed

Its a miracle! and its not even xmas!

You are invincible... Flicks his pen around and around in his hand...

[jeremyb]

This is why I'm not in an original band. I don't feel like the songs I have written are actually worth listening to. So I play good songs written by others instead.

Ahhh but this is where in a band with other talented people you can take an idea of a song and make it something really good, I think this is one of the big reasons I procrastinate about making music, I'll get a little idea that sounds good but I can't make it into a complete song... when I was in a band it was so much easier in that regard!

[Vince]

Hey, it is fixed

YAAAAAYYYYY!

[Vince]

What if I challenged you to produce something you did like?

I don't know but I guess it probably wouldn't be very good.

I should be making CDs with name like "Etnoterra" and a cute cartoon image of some Mediterranean village by the sea. Happy fish jumping out of the water in the foreground. And I kinda loathe that "Putumayo Presents" type shit.

(I do like my current band but that's by no means all me and I don't know whether that can go anywhere musically).

Thanks for the interest. And yes, I too have stood (well, sat, really) in front of a crowd and thought "why am I here??"

[Vince]

when I was in a band it was so much easier in that regard!

Yeah, what happened to that? From memory, you were going great guns?