What I find utterly baffling, and at this point in my music career, I really still shouldn’t, is how fucking difficult it is to simply play or put down on record the ideas in your head. I can imagine all sorts of awesome shit, multiple melodies going everywhere, rhythmically inventive phrasing, and yet when I sit down to work the things out, what I end of conveying is a laughably botched version of what’s in my head.
The magic going on in your head ends up becoming banal and unexciting in reality. What’s worse, is the ideas are often just okay.
I would be fine with finding out an idea itself sucked a fatty. Great, at least I know I can get rid of the thing. But if it turns out so-so? When you finally have it recorded, and basically the whole idea in its entirety ends up sounding, well, ‘alright I guess,’ what the fuck do you do? I know what I do.
I stare at the computer and slouch in my chair, depressed and disgusted, listening to the idea over and over again, hoping there is some further genius hidden in my crappy tracks.
There is hardly any further genius hidden in those crappy tracks.
However, the only responsibility I have is to keep working on this stuff. Every damn day. I’ve sacrificed a lot already to get to this point where I can comfortably spend the time to work out these ideas, and I plan on sacrificing more. Why? Because I’ll be fucking miserable if I don’t. Being miserable and working out this stuff beats being miserable and not working out this stuff. Easy. Its not really the most romantic and compelling way to frame the decision to work on the things you love, but then every true artist* needs to learn not to take the pussy route and assume you’re climb to success will entail sunshine and handjobs from beautiful girls. No. Its the kind of thing that gnaws at you, and you either relent and do your work, or you take some other route and let it fester inside.
Either way, its up to you. I know I’ll be back tomorrow.
*My definition of a ‘true artist’ is not a successful one, nor an unsuccessful one, but one who works on their craft as much as possible, almost every day. Read The War of Art by Steven Pressfield if you want to get good at this.
