Removing Your Ego

[QQQ]

I'm only joking with that last post. Good quote tho.

[MadameChaos]

i studied philosophy and we acutally had to seriously argue those kind of questions. the quote is out of context (meant for ethics not metaphysics) but it works IMO.

 

one thing that you could try is go on a meditation retreat in a far away and strange land. that might help.

 

PS during this time you should abstain from alcohol and eat only very basic minimum food.

[Thiefinger]

The fear and embarrasment about your own music might come from some belief that you deep down are a bad and unworthy person. Other people might not like your music and criticize and "proof" to you that those beliefs are actually true. But it's a load of bull actually. The only person you should impress anyway is yourself.

Identifying with your own creations is a good thing to a certain degree, I think, but maybe it's better to see them as your children that go their own way. Still a part of you but "separate entities".

I know that sometimes when I'm especially proud of something I've created, the criticism might feel like a direct insult towards me and not the actual creation. But then again everybody hears and experiences stuff from their own unique point of view, so stuff just resonates differently to different people. So no point worrying about what people might think. Do you think people spend much time worrying about what you think? Everybody is basically just thinking about themselves.

or something..

 

[Berk]

 

Don't listen to it for a while. That always gives a bit of perspective.

 

Yeah - I read a psychology article ages ago, it was about how we perceive our past and future selves as actual different people. So it makes sense that you're not so attached to your music after a while

 

Abandoning your tracks for a couple years might not be the most practical solution though

 

yeah it's not practical but it definitely works. I didn't listen to some old tracks of mine for five years. When I listened again I almost didn't even remember making them. It was way easier to decide whether to put them out or not, I could listen objectively

[Berk]

Like weakmassive said, if you sit on the tracks for a bit you can seperate the emotions you had when you made them, very important imo.

 

You also don't hear the little flaws in the tracks anymore when you listen after a couple of years. You just listen to the tracks as a whole. It makes it very easy to decide whether you like them or not. Because it's almost like listening to a track from a stranger.

[hma]

You can try to invent a persona like MF DOOM, Ziggy Stardust etc, it might help to actually be more honest about yourself in your output.

[Guest Chesney]

Maybe think of it in the opposite way. Really connect with your music and put all of you into it. if you don't like something, take it out or change it until you do. Do not worry if anyone else will like it or pander to ideas already set by other artists. Chances are plenty will like your stuff anyway seeing as you do. Just pander to your own likes. Then, you can listen to it and enjoy it all. Forget about coming across as self indulgent, nobody should be embarrassed about liking what they have made.

Of course, it's not always as "matter of fact" as this, there will be things that eventually bore you or annoy maybe after so many listens in the process, but most of the time once you have finished it and let it sit for a good while, when you listen again after some time, it will be refreshing and seem a finished piece.

 

It seems cool to be blase and care less about your art but secretly most artists really love or long to love their art.

 

As far as electronic being less personal than lyrical music, I think that's bullshit. I personally am not a lyical person, I can hear a song loads of times and love it and still not hear a word that is said. It's musical ideas that get me wet not whether someone sings about heartbreak, politics or dragons. I get moved by lots of things in music and sometimes I move myself because I am trying to recreate all my favourite things I like in music in my own little way.

 

If you disconnect to your art, you risk the chance of not even liking what you do. Making music for others is a slippy slope to being unhappy and loosing the thirst for making in the first place, that's why bands/musicians have a shelf life, because they follow a trend, trend dies, they don't have anything to do next other than spend what they made and carry on life as a normal person. That's the wrong reason to get into making music, for me.

 

Ramble ramble ramble, sorry.

[Ragnar]

whether or not you want to destroy your ego/ego death is determined by your ego mang

 

about personas, I do pick colorful/odd titles for my tracks as sort of a bookmark in mah brain or to give it more personality so I remember it better, what I had in mind. Same thing with aliases, I have some abstract idea of what an Antler Lemon track is vs. a regular dj saint hubert track

 

I dunno, try a different format than you're used to too. not even genre, just like a 10 second loop or a one shot sample or how the heck you'd go about writing a symphony or a entire movie soundtrack. Leaning towards the short side of things. How do you make a sound that sounds identifiably like you that's a half sec long

[Guest skibby]

"They dress up as though they are challenging the status quo, but by now, wearing those clothes, pulling those faces, revealing those tattoos and breasts, singing to those fractured, spastic, melting beats – that is the status quo. You are not off the beaten track, pushing through the thorny undergrowth, finding treasure no one has come across before. You are in the middle of the road. You are really in Vegas wearing the sparkly full-length gown singing to people who are paying to see you but are not really paying attention. If that is what you want, fine, but it’s a road to nowhere."

Grace Jones

[octopus]

[hello spiral]

"When I make mad fresh IDMZ I cum stupid hard"

 

- Arthur Schopenhauer

[xox]

!o!

 

''I know things but i'm leaving them for my personal growth''

 

- Imany Cunt

[o00o]

ego is not the point. You do not express what you like to express which shows a lack of knowledge in how to archive a clearly defined output. Getting more skilled in theory and by this shaping the results to your bidding will remove these boundaries

[MadameChaos]

Brian Eno was quite interested in making music without ego, or as he put it beyond "the obsession of the personality" so maybe read up on him.

[TubularCorporation]

 

let the spirit of syd mead speak for us

 

https://youtu.be/g-dHXN8Po7U?t=260

 

 

He nailed it despite not knowing how to pronounce Hubris.

 

 

EDIT: on the other hand, so much of the music that really moves me is made by people who are obviously so fascinated with what they're doing that it almost turns in to a puzzle to figure out what they are saying with their work, so I guess it can go either way.

[coax]

I agree with a lot of posts here. I think when I started out I took criticism a lot more personal, but I don't anymore, due to knowing the intention of my tracks and the imagery / history whatever that are in them. This also separates me from the music because those landscapes and ideas lie outside me, they really do feel like things that exist "out there". And the cool thing is that can be verified when other random people pick up on and see the exact same things. Creativity to me is all about exploring a territory and it feels oddly like the territory is already there and I'm not creating it.

 

However the second thing to this is that you have to be honest with yourself. You are a vessel through which works are produced, but you are not a machine, you are limited and you have to train, and this is the gap between the ideal and reality. Be honest and work hard and try as best as you can to admit your flaws and work on them. It's a waste of time to get so attached to a work that you cannot possibly accept its flaws, for me personally I have always been aware of the flaws but sometimes I will just skip the track / release and move on, maybe re-create that idea from scratch in the future again.

 

A work of art is really a focus point in a matrix of meaning, of which all points are connected to other points and the brain is the device that connects those dots, but this also applies to creating it, not just listening to it, so over time, when your brain learns more points in the matrix, you will automatically desire more detail and specificity in your works. I couldn't tell you why these exact points are created or how, but a lot of people seem to share similar matrices, so that's cool (I mean at least on a global internet like level, maybe not at work or school or whatever).

 

I don't mean to sound too pompous about this, but this is how I see it. Every experience I've had learning new music has been this creating of a matrix and thus more nuanced knowledge of various examples of a genre or mood etc. So basically to remove the ego, pursue the work, and be honest, and try to see the work for what it can be, on its own.

[drillkicker]

I used to let my ego get in the way of how I perveived my things and it would always confuse me. I'd get too worried about whether the things I make are good. After all the art I've made, it just doesn't happen anymore. I just don't think about it, and judge it the way I would if it were made by anybody else. The best tip I have is to remove any feeling of possession that you have. I don't consider any of my art my own, but rather a seperate and independent entity that created itself through me. It helped remove that tension and confusion that was getting in the way.

[Brisbot]

Uhhhh. I just make music that I want to hear. It can be more or less personal, varying from track to track. Of course there are no lyrics though.

[Drinks]

I find that the more I'm able to give all my attention to the particular task at hand when i'm making a track the more likely I am to wake up the next morning wondering how I did any of it.

[Braintree]

I can't do much of anything without injecting my personality into it. I think I'm incapable of making good music without an ego.

[Nil]

I'm afraid my point might get lost in translation... anyway, just create tunes you want to listen to, and consider them finished once they surprise you (in a pleasant way hopefully). It implies that you were serving the tune, not your ego. Then it's not about the musician, only about the music itself.

[awepittance]

 

generative/random based music making sounds like a good solution. I've actually released songs I had zero hand in making before, and while they aren't some of my best tracks in a technical sense, they are still some of the easiest for me to listen to because they make me feel like im listening to someone else's music (and in a sense they are since the computer made them for me)

What I'm talking about wouldn't really apply then, because it is not 'your' art (though the subject is debatable and often is) and you aren't as involved in making it. How can you be be self-critical of something you didn't make?

 

Though it sounds like a fun activity to break away from having total creative input/control every once in a while.

 

how is it not 'my art' if i designed entirely the system in which the computer is creating the song? curious how people are able to draw a line or distinction in these scenarios. Maybe i spoke too strongly about having zero hand in the creation, all I meant by that is that the actual recording took place during a period of no any human interaction (but a lot of human interaction took place before recording started).

[drillkicker]

It's obvious that QQQ has never made generative music before. Though that doesn't mean he shouldn't start as soon as possible!

[autopilot]

do DMT

[QQQ]

Fair enough JE, I assumed you meant they were generated through pre-existing programs by your comment of having no input.