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I'm Going To Ask A Question And You Have To Answer Honestly...

sometimes i listen to my own track, usually for wasting time, or review-ing my track if i made a mistake, and thinking why i did that. mostly about mixing problem like, limiter hit too hard, too much compression, frequency problem and many more. even silly mistake like automating stereo imager from start to finish, adding reverb on sub-bass, and not using limiter when mastering.
 
sometimes i listen to my own track, usually for wasting time, or review-ing my track if i made a mistake, and thinking why i did that. mostly about mixing problem like, limiter hit too hard, too much compression, frequency problem and many more. even silly mistake like automating stereo imager from start to finish, adding reverb on sub-bass, and not using limiter when mastering.
Yes, that is usualy what we all do but i mean do you listen to your track as a piece of music?
 
Yes I do. Often I will go through my archives and listen to things in batches. Especially things that I composed just for fun or for future projects that I haven't had time (or more importantly budget) to flesh out yet. Sometimes it's just a trip down memory lane, sometimes it leads me to finishing things that were left unfinished.
 
My dad is a piano player.
He would never record his performance and play it back. He just does not want to hear if he messed up. (Or he feels like recording yourself is just not something one should do, because that would be a weird big ego thing.)

I personally have found that listening to my playing does help myself identify my issues and helps me to work on them.
 
You sound very well rounded, and I think it's fair to say that the amount of hours I've devoted to this in my life compared to you is a mere fraction, although I may be gaining some ground....lol (not that I'll ever catch up to you)

Interesting that you can turn off your taste to see how something ticks even if it's not your thing. I believe that is more of a personality trait of who you are. If someone asked me to judge a rap music contest, I'd say no. I'd rather watch paint dry. Doesn't mean I'm less diverse than you. It simply means I have different ideas on how I will use my time.

But from reading this and other posts of yours.....making music is much more engrained in your life than it is for myself....not to say I don't take it seriously or give it 100%. I just view it in a way that I want to make MY favorite music. You will never see Jazz or Rap in my Soundcloud account....ever.

Kind of like a farmer. I know farmers who do beef, eggs, produce, cedar hedges, etc....all one farm.
I know farmers who ONLY do dairy. It may or may not have anything to do with financial goals. It's just personal preference.

Would you say the dairy farmer is limiting himself Jay, or that he is just focusing on what he loves?

I am a lifelong musician. I don’t know where the musician ends and the “me” begins. It’s my occupation, my avocation, and my passion. I eat, live, and breathe it.

I don’t know a lot of farmers, but I doubt many of them would say, “I am passionate about cows. “

I will throw it back at you, would you only eat one food group? All veggies, no fruit, dairy or grains? You are free to do as you choose, but musically, you are not eating from enough of the food groups, in my view.
 
My dad is a piano player.
He would never record his performance and play it back. He just does not want to hear if he messed up. (Or he feels like recording yourself is just not something one should do, because that would be a weird big ego thing.)

I personally have found that listening to my playing does help myself identify my issues and helps me to work on them.
I don't think it's an 'ego' thing, i just think it's, 'i like that piece of music even if it was me that wrote it, i want to hear it again' thing. Well, it is for me lol
 
So, i decided to do a video to try and explain whay i asked this question and why i do listen to my own music.
I have put some of my music in the video to show you waht i mean but i have put skip points in if you don't want to listen to the music.
I hope the audio levels are ok, if not, you got a volume control :rofl:

 
I am a lifelong musician. I don’t know where the musician ends and the “me” begins. It’s my occupation, my avocation, and my passion. I eat, live, and breathe it.

I don’t know a lot of farmers, but I doubt many of them would say, “I am passionate about cows. “

That's an assumption. Many farmers are passionate about their cows.

I will throw it back at you, would you only eat one food group? All veggies, no fruit, dairy or grains? You are free to do as you choose, but musically, you are not eating from enough of the food groups, in my view.

All 4 food groups are needed to be as healthy as possible. I'm not sure if your analogy works, but I'll try to answer. I only get to eat so many calories a day, so I want to enjoy them. I'm willing to try any new food in a very small portion, but 99.9% of what I eat is what I enjoy the most.

If someone told me there was a new genre of music that was just invented, I would probably listen to it. If I didn't like it, the trial would be brief and then discarded.
 
So, i have just thought of a another reason why i may still listen to my own music as 'music i like'.

As i mentioned in my video, i do tend to write pretty quick. Usually, when i start a piece, the rest sort of flows out of me. So maybe from start to finish of the actual piece (not the mixing or mastering) i may not hear it as much as some of you.
Having said that though, if it is something that really strikes me, i generally don't get bored with it for a very long time.

When i was 17, i was in a band. We where a cover band and we used to play pubs and clubs doing rock n roll songs and rock tracks from the 70's. Music that i had heard over and over but i still enjoyed hearing them track even if it was my band playing them.

Yes our set was tracks we all liked from bands we all liked so that's why we enjoyed playing them over and over and the public used to enjoy hearing them over and over. Win win situation lol
 
yeah, of course. and i realized i never satistifed with my music, so there's always a room for improvement.
Yes there is that of course. A painter generally knows when he has finished his work of art. Composers on the other hand are always adding.
There have been times when i have posted a track online then a week later, i ave added to it so i take it down and put the extended version up.
When do we stop lol
 
A painter generally knows when he has finished his work of art.
Nope! It's quite a skill to know when a painting or drawing is finished. And it's hard to stop sometimes too, just like with composing.
Also, Antoine de Saint-Exupery said "A designer knows he has achieved perfection not when there is nothing left to add, but when there is nothing left to take away." It's worth going over a finished piece to see what can be taken out as I've had compositions improved by doing that.
 
Thanks for putting this thread together, Keith. I really enjoyed reading how other music makers relate to their own music - I've often wondered how "normal" my own habits are in this regard.

Here's my take: My music can be a lot of different things. Sometimes I'm just trying to find a pretty melody. Other times I might try to emulate a certain style, or create a particular mood. Or I might try to build the greatest mix ever. Other times still, I'm just a synth programmer doing his thing.

Occasionally I try to bring all the elements together - but it isn't always important, as I don't write music for any particular purpose.

I listen to my tracks a million times when I'm working on them, I mean, compulsively, obsessively - even little snippet ones.

Once that's done, I like to listen to my own music as it relates to other music. So I keep most of my stuff in my music library and in all my random playlists. How does that 15 year old pop song hold up today? Not at all? My voice is still crap and I couldn't mix for s***? Okay, that's sorted, then. Once I've reached my verdict, I will skip it - usually within a minute.

It's funny, all my efforts are geared towards creating music that is perfect to my own ears, but I don't think I will ever reach a point where I'll listen to my own music for emotional gratification.
 
It's funny, all my efforts are geared towards creating music that is perfect to my own ears, but I don't think I will ever reach a point where I'll listen to my own music for emotional gratification.
I never thought i would either but all three of my pieces that play in my video give me emotional gratification esspecially the first piece. Like i say in the video, i'm not being big headed or above other composers, i am just saying what i feel and what i sometimes get from my music. I can't help it if that's what happens now. It never used to.
 
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