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Does making music stress you out?


Auditor

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On 5/8/2017 at 4:22 PM, BCM said:
On 5/8/2017 at 3:00 PM, Auditor said:

This isn't how it used to be when I started making music 20-some-odd years ago. I want to somehow get back to that natural feeling of excitement and wonder. But, for now, it seems I'll just have to settle for the artificial version. 

i definitely sympathise with losing the sense of wonder thing - i haven't had that in years. it's a shame coz now i'm older i've got much more money and lots of hardware i used to dream about, but most of the time i simply can't be arsed to use it.

Really recognize this feeling too. It's there with making music, but also while listening to music. Sometimes the sense of wonder come back a little, but it seems as you get older it altogether disappears. I suspect in my case it has a lot to do with the responsibilities and stress that come with my mundane dayjob. Ffs I wish I was retired already so I could just stare at the clouds rolling by all day and get inspiration out of sheer boredom. How it used to be when I was still studying and had zero responsibility.

Making music isn't stressful for me though, it's relaxing actually. But I can;t be bothered most of the time any more. Wish I could do something about this status quo, but I can't think of anything right now. Maybe (another) career change. But in the end a job is still a job and the day to day obligations that come with it - ie. the lack of time & freedom - is what kills my inspiration I feel. 

Edited by Berk
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I had a huge motivational problem of getting to the point where I turn my gear on and start on something, sometimes I excused myself because I was too tired, had no time etc etc.

In the end what helped me was to start doing these mechanical challenges - make a song every week, just find time to fart some bloops somewhere, keep doing it and push yourself to get better at it.

I realise this sounds like a patronising take if you have a real job that leaves you drained by the end of the day or kids that demand your time after hours or many other things that happen in real life, but... make the effort to find time for music regularly even if it's just 1-2h per week. Set up your gear so that you can get started without a lot of hassle and just have fun with the beeps and boops. If you have a lack of inspiration, set up some simple generative stuff or randomisation that gets something going, etc.

Some folks make tunes on their phones while sitting on a bus for their daily commute, I find that really inspiring and I wish I was that motivated.

I think a lot of people find time to hit the gym for mad gains even if they are working full time - surely making some time to tweak the knobs on your tunes gear is similarly doable, and if it gets your headspace in that meditative music making flow it's as therapeutic and good for your health as doing physical exercise (both are good in moderation, of course).

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I make so much music on my phone. It’s definitely a relaxing activity for me if I’m in the right mindset.

but working on material I deem to be an “opus” can get very stressful, because I fear trying to work it too hard will smother the spark.

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13 minutes ago, sheatheman said:

working on material I deem to be an “opus” can get very stressful, because I fear trying to work it too hard will smother the spark

yeah this has been very much the case for me. being too into the idea of the track while i'm working on it gets in the way of the actual expression. pretty much any track i've made that i've listened to over & over/years later out of genuine enjoyment has been one where i was totally half-assing it in the moment of creation (or full-assing it, but in an emotionally charged intuitive manner). whereas tracks that i spend ages on usually don't even make it onto my albums

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On 5/11/2017 at 8:34 AM, auxien said:

Making music is fun/intriguing/challenging but never stressful. If it's stressful, I reassess what it is I'm doing and either approach it differently or drop it.

Finishing tracks/EPs/albums, however, can be stressful. But the writing and 'grind' of working on tunes is rarely stressful to me. Just those last stages of questioning my choices, presenting it to others in a 'finished' state is what stresses me. Perhaps I can work past that eventually, who knows.

this is still generally true, but i’ve occasionally had success in trying to mine stress/less enjoyable feelings while making music as a more direct approach to trying to convey those emotions to the listener. this thing I did yesterday is exactly of that sort: i was exhausted when i stopped recording even though all i was physically doing was riding faders and tweaking knobs. emotionally was spent and in high tension/stress level with that all going through me

https://tsrono.bandcamp.com/track/starless-cloudless

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On 5/9/2017 at 4:19 PM, Auditor said:

Do it! Some of my favorite non-electronic albums are full of short songs (Ween - GodWeenSatan, Wire - Pink Flag, Guided By Voices - lots of stuff)

 

You can be the first (to my knowledge) to do it with bleeps bloops and whooshes

This is an old post, but I have a directory in my music directory called Pink Flag, where I'm putting all my sub-two-minute tracks. Once I've got 45 minutes of them I'm planning on making them into an album.

 

I have the weird thing that the better I get at music, the less I like the music I make. Maybe it's because my standards have shifted and I've become more aware of my shortcomings, but I definitely miss the old days when I could put together something a bit scrappy and be really proud of it.

These days I quite enjoy the actual process, but afterwards I end up feeling really shit. I think part of it is the fact that I rip my stuff to shit because I don't think it's good enough, and part of it is sitting for hours staring at a screen, which does my mental health no good at the best of times. Also, even without work at the minute, I have far more things going on in my life these days - longterm partner, dog to look after, 25 years of amassed music, tons of things I want to watch and read - that were mercifully absent when I was in my late teens and early 20s.

For a while I was focused on sample-based stuff (really thought there wasn't enough mid-'90s FSOL/Orb sounding music out there), but ultimately that tired me out just finding the hundreds and hundreds of samples necessary to make even a handful of tracks. Clicking through thousands of audio tracks to find notes and sounds and loops gets pretty bleak after a while.

I'd really like to get back to just doing lo-fi jams with some gear and a four-track. My current living situation doesn't make that possible, but once I've moved I want to set up a little table with all that stuff on it and just fuck around and hopefully come up with some nice simple stuff that I enjoy playing. 

At the moment I'm just writing some little fingerpicking riffs on my acoustic guitar, looping them in Ableton and improvising some synth pads and such over the top. Everything has a sketch-like feel at the end and I tend to come away feeling less stressed than I do when I sit programming drums and fucking around with samples for hours.

My real hope is by simplifying things I can at least somewhat recapture the scrappy feel of my very early recordings, and possibly through that be able to actually finish a track and forget about it rather than spend all my waking hours wondering how an album is all going to fit together and stuff. I listen back to everything I've released, and there are a number of albums there that I still really enjoy, from 2004 up to this year, and they're almost all things I created in a comparatively short period without overthinking them.

There's still going to be an element of "I can do better produced, more epic sounding stuff than this" when I put a bunch of guitar and drum machine jams out on a tape label, but I'll just have to learn to live with that.

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I enjoy the process usually. Sometimes I get down though when I'm working on something and the vibe that I'm aiming for just doesn't materialize. Usually it'll be late at night but I haven't done any music for months now because Ableton Live is no longer free to use but when I get the money to pay for it I'll be back in the seat making some beats!!

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working on music does not stress me out but sharing it does. I have an aggressive amount of anxiety about initiating any form of communication and if that communication involves self-promotion it's even worse.

I haven't produced anything but nanoloop jams on my phone for a few years now.. not because I don't enjoy the process but because my inspiration has tanked due to ongoing depression. In 2019 I was getting pretty excited about creative coding/visual art projects but for the past year all I can get myself interested in is playing piano pieces (which is not really creative but motoric so it's easier to will myself to do)

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On 5/9/2017 at 2:49 AM, peace 7 said:

 

Well.....  true IDM is NEVER EVER making boring or shit tracks.  The "shit/boring" determination is something that is settled upon, so one must just never settle there.  Craft everything until it's awesome.

 

Also, being able to put up with the non-euphoric nature of finishing a full track (usually somewhat difficult)- THAT is IDM.  Finishing music or any art takes a lot of discipline, and the more awesome tracks that are finished, the stronger one's IDM lazer becomes.

 

 

 

Has anyone here thought about why one even outputs music?  It might sound like shit and non-underground, but it is 100% for sharing.  Every artist has been blessed with the skills to perceive and create, but they have taken these skills along with the burden of having to complete things.  Completion is divine, and truly IDM.  Any motherfucker can bust out badass loops.  How many people can output albums where every single track is solid?  It's seriously like <.001% of musicians.

 

Think about it doodz and doodettes...  A lot of you are really good at making music and know it.  Didn't you work your fucking ass off for your skills?  You WANTED to be good at making music.  And now you're really fucking good at making music and complaining that you have to make awesome albums?!  Making awesome albums is 100% what you DREAMED ABOUT 5~20+ years ago.  Your skills and understanding of composition, sound design, mixing, dsp fuckery- fucking everything- your skills now have far surpassed what you even knew existed in music when you started.  And now you're going to let yourself down and get stressed out about something you asked yourself for?  FUCK THAT.  Difficult?  Possibly.  Time consuming?  Yes.  Stressful?  No!-- Believe in yourself, because you are obviously good.  Stick to your guns and COMPLETE ALBUMS.

 

Mike P doesn't give a fuck about your sketches.  He wants your albums.  THE PEOPLE want your albums.  You know your skills are sound-- what makes you think thousands of people aren't unknowingly WAITING AND WANTING TO HEAR YOUR MASTERPIECES???!!!!!  Don't let yourself down by being a lazy fool, and don't let humanity down by being afraid of goals that YOU setup.  YOU asked for this.  YOU wanted this.  If you go around life being half-assed about things, you will not accomplish much-- you see, this "not finishing tracks/albums" concept carries through all aspects of life.  If you keep being lazy and never commit to things that YOU WANT, you will find yourself one day, old and crusty, disinterested in all, having a track record of enthusiastically starting new things and quitting them like a little impulsive bitch and crying to proverbial mommy when things got tough, living the life of a poor college student.  Remember those 45 year old dudes who used to randomly be at your college parties?  Fuck that.  That's about the least IDM it gets.

 

The mark of a true Cosmic Warrior, is setting goals, and doing what needs to be done to accomplish them (end result is irrelevant and illusory-- the path walked is what is very, very important).  Being IDM isn't about outputting the best art in the world-- it's about outputting the best art THAT YOU CAN.  It's ultimately about sharing, but fundamentally, you have to realize your potential to yourself.  You know you can do it, so just do it.  YOU WANT IT, or you wouldn't have spent like half your life training for it.

 

Completing albums is not easy, but it is 100% worth it.  Completing things in life is 100% worth it.  You owe it to yourself.  YOU are 100% worth it.

This is the most alpha Chad shit I have ever read on this forum. This post is utterly potent and powerful. 10/10 would read again. 

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The only time it's ever caused any stress is when my DAW has A MILLION things in the timeline. So while I initially work on it everything is fine. But then I step away and come back weeks or months later, depending on my mood I may just say "uhhh finish that later" It isn't typical stress that makes me feel bad or whatever, it's just this feeling that I have to keep many things in mind while working on a project.

I think the mild stress is just from trying to keep things straight in my mind. In a way you're juggling your knowledge of everything that is connected to everything. Then when in my DAW I get a million automation clips going every which way, it can be over-load on the brain if I am not in that 'flow' state.

Edited by Brisbot
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6 hours ago, Brisbot said:

The only time it's ever caused any stress is when my DAW has A MILLION things in the timeline. So while I initially work on it everything is fine. But then I step away and come back weeks or months later, depending on my mood I may just say "uhhh finish that later" It isn't typical stress that makes me feel bad or whatever, it's just this feeling that I have to keep many things in mind while working on a project.

I think the mild stress is just from trying to keep things straight in my mind. In a way you're juggling your knowledge of everything that is connected to everything. Then when in my DAW I get a million automation clips going every which way, it can be over-load on the brain if I am not in that 'flow' state.

Yeah my projects look like a kaleidoscopic horror after I have recorded a raw jam session. It's paralysing sometimes because I hear the mistakes but I also don't want to go in and destroy the magic and (even worse) overthink and make something totally terrible when trying to rework the original into something else.

I have worked to avoid this by just making my projects simpler in the first place - I have a template with some tracks and sounds pre-dialed in, and I try not to duplicate and layer things (other than drum tracks) at all when I am playing. This makes the results more manageable too.

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i don't make music but i really wish i did and that stresses me out.

i have a mental block about learning certain things and learning how to use a DAW is one of them. which is stupid since youtube tutorials and dedicated forums are only 1 click away but the problem comes from my head really. 

the funny thing is i learnt quite a bit about harmony these last years, which is a valuable skill to make music. but there's a difference between knowing how to write music and knowing how to produce it. i really should learn music production. what am i waiting for goddamnit

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10 hours ago, Alcofribas said:

This is the most alpha Chad shit I have ever read on this forum. This post is utterly potent and powerful. 10/10 would read again. 

Yes, classic! 
 

where’s peace7 btw? 

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37 minutes ago, brian trageskin said:

the funny thing is i learnt quite a bit about harmony these last years, which is a valuable skill to make music. but there's a difference between knowing how to write music and knowing how to produce it. i really should learn music production. what am i waiting for goddamnit

"Production" is a massive rabbit hole, but for just getting started it's not necessary to explore all of that.

Basics are just to figure out how to get your stuff into the DAW and how to export it so that others can listen. Instincts take over from there and then you will learn what you feel you need to.

Remember, in the end "it's meant to sound like that".

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4 hours ago, thawkins said:

"Production" is a massive rabbit hole, but for just getting started it's not necessary to explore all of that.

Basics are just to figure out how to get your stuff into the DAW and how to export it so that others can listen. Instincts take over from there and then you will learn what you feel you need to.

Remember, in the end "it's meant to sound like that".

yeah by production i meant using a daw to make music. might sound kindergarten-level but that's my level haha

i've used daws in the past but couldn't do much with them cuz too lazy/not curious enough to figure out how they worked by myself, and too stupid to think of reading the manual or better, find answers on the web. 

what do you mean by "it's meant to sound like that"? vive le jambon btw

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15 hours ago, brian trageskin said:

what do you mean by "it's meant to sound like that"? vive le jambon btw

I mean like when you finish something and you're kind of proud of it, and then you post it somewhere and it gets ripped in half by critique about horrible sound or something, you should just say "it's meant to sound like that".

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On 1/14/2021 at 4:57 AM, brian trageskin said:

i don't make music but i really wish i did and that stresses me out.

i have a mental block about learning certain things and learning how to use a DAW is one of them. which is stupid since youtube tutorials and dedicated forums are only 1 click away but the problem comes from my head really. 

the funny thing is i learnt quite a bit about harmony these last years, which is a valuable skill to make music. but there's a difference between knowing how to write music and knowing how to produce it. i really should learn music production. what am i waiting for goddamnit

You should try to push yourself past the learning stage. There are also some simpler DAWs out there with the more advanced stuff kinda hidden in menus. Maybe just google DAWs that would be quick to learn.

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