Frustrations with your music (Complain here)

[DrakkarTyrannis]

Oh so I'm meant to be this "shit" at tracking?? Brilliant!!!

Natural playing isn't exactly on grid. Yeah you wanna be tight and whatnot but super precise playing isn't really natural. If you snap everything to grid it makes recordings sound super mechanical

 

[gnoll]

Some people like the mechanical sound. Weird I know. Not sure why they're playing guitar in the first place. If somebody put my notes on the grid I'd be fucking pissed.

 

[RevDrucifer]

I write new music constantly. I've got multiple finished albums just waiting to be released and I still write new stuff all the time. I think I overwhelm the people in my band because every week or every few days I send them a song I've done

Oh dude, the only time I’ve been kicked out of a band was 5 years ago and it was because I “write more than we can keep up with”. Which is odd, because the whole year I was in the band they used one of my songs and literally not a single thing else, not a note.

Even funnier, though, is that they kept playing that song when they got a new singer in the band, who sounded EXACTLY like Scott Stapp trying to sing like Sully Erna but just sounded like he was really trying to shit all the time, with that Eddie Vedder/Scott Stapp yarl. And just like Godsmack, every song had something in the lyrics about keeping away, staying away, or getting back. They were at least funny to watch.

Also funny is the same dude who canned me called me last month and asked if I wanted to sing in his new band. “It’s all new music, all new guys!”. I go to his house to check it out and it’s the same fucking drummer and the 3 songs they played, 2 were old that I sang on years ago and 1 was a work in progress. Thanks, but no thanks.

 

[RevDrucifer]

I can’t make a DAW work worth shit. Forget about trying to add a popular drum program. Frustration ensues.

Lemme take a guess: PC user?

 

[HungryGuitarStudent]

My fretboard visualization skills suck. That prevents me from being aware in real-time of what I'm playing relative to the chord changes; I'm sure it's also a big bottleneck to opening up my playing.

I'm happy I found lessons by Tom Quayle to help me on this, but my progress is hella slow. Gotta think long term I guess...

Anyhow, I was off topic since this has nothing to do with recording-releasing music, although it has a lot to do with improvisation, which relates to part of my composition process.

 

[Dayn]

Another thing that frustrates me is I've found my creativity is limited due to preconceptions of what music should be. Throughout my musical journey I've always heard from people about what music 'should' be like, and I've unwittingly internalised those conceptions without critical thought. Things like:

• "You should say something with your music." I don't have anything to say. I do that with words well enough.
• "You should express yourself with your music." Again, I have nothing to express about myself with my music.
• "Being perfect is unnatural." I'm a perfectionist at heart with a love of electronic music. This advice runs counter to "express yourself".
• "You can't play if you can't improvise." I plan out my music, part of which involves playing around, but if you asked me to play some music on the spot, I can regurgitate some stock phrases, but it runs counter to "say something" and "express yourself".
• Then there's the whole culture around 'rock' that I never bought into as an outsider. I've already heard "do your own thing", but that is usually followed by "no, not like that!".

It's still an ongoing exercise trying to identify and break down all of these barriers that have developed without me knowing. The only things I know so far is that I prefer to 'paint' atmospheres and scenes with my music, and that if I myself cannot reach computer-like precision in my lifetime, I'll get as close as possible and go through the arduous task of adjusting the timing of the virtual instruments to make it tight.

Now that I have some time over the holidays, I may as well stop venting and start writing.

 

[TheBolivianSniper]

Got my best riff I've ever written down to a click track and sent to my friend for rhythm writing and overall feel to the song. I'm hoping once I hear back from him I can start writing the verse lines to the track and then chorus, solo section, lead lines, solo, breakdown, intro, intro soon enough. There's just so much shit and I could get a lot of it done quick but I'm worried it'll sound like ass.

 

[gnoll]

There's just so much shit and I could get a lot of it done quick but I'm worried it'll sound like ass.

It might. Then rewrite it. If you put in the time eventually you will have something you're happy with.

 

[VibTDog]

I was in a semi successful death metal band (oxymoron) from 1999-2005. In the spring/summer of 2019 I started writing music again for my mental health. I wrote 2 full songs within a few weeks so I figured I would try to do something with it.

My plan was to record a song with a drummer and publish the song to youtube and try to find people with the same interest to see if we could try to play a show. Well, we all know how 2020 went and that's pretty much it. Here I sit waiting for the pandemic to subside to play a show. LOL (insert skeleton waiting on a bench meme)