How proud are you of your old works?

[BMO]

Old stuff of mine was just simple chords and a few single notes here n there. Nowadays I can pick fastish while putting out clear notes as wel as palm muting, as wel as being able to just riff for a while and come out with some fast stuff. My stuff is still somewhat simplistic as it’s the way I dig it, but I’m writing stuff and playing songs I thought I’d never learn to do when i was younger. So i look back and it makes me appreciate what I write now, even if I hate myself now for not being able to solo in complicated ways etc.

 

[BMO]

Old stuff of mine was just simple chords and a few single notes here n there. Nowadays I can pick fastish while putting out clear notes as wel as palm muting, as wel as being able to just riff for a while and come out with some fast stuff. My stuff is still somewhat simplistic as it’s the way I dig it, but I’m writing stuff and playing songs I thought I’d never learn to do when i was younger. So i look back and it makes me appreciate what I write now, even if I hate myself now for not being able to solo in complicated ways etc.

 

[BMO]

Old stuff of mine was just simple chords and a few single notes here n there. Nowadays I can pick fastish while putting out clear notes as wel as palm muting, as wel as being able to just riff for a while and come out with some fast stuff. My stuff is still somewhat simplistic as it’s the way I dig it, but I’m writing stuff and playing songs I thought I’d never learn to do when i was younger. So i look back and it makes me appreciate what I write now, even if I hate myself now for not being able to solo in complicated ways etc.

 

[TedEH]

even if I hate myself now for not being able to solo in complicated ways etc.

It took me a while to realize that the best solos (IMO) are not the fast ones but the expressive ones. And that you don't have to be the best guitarist to write something good. Extra techniques are just tools. Use the tools you've got, and later when you have more tools, use those. And eventually once you have enough tools to pick from that you start feeling some creative freedom, you might notice that having 100 different cool techniques available to you might result in writing songs.... that are made of three chords and simple melodies that you've been capable of the whole time.

 

[EmaDaCuz]

I am extremely proud of what I have written in the past, except one EP my band released in 2002.
Yes, in same cases song writing was not mature, recordings were horrible, technical skills were non existent... yet it was the best I/we could do. I have been going through a "revival" period as of late, and started to rearrange and re-record old material, some songs are from the mid 90s. They simply rock.

 

[duffbeer33]

I'm in the same camp as many others; cannot watch or listen to old videos and recordings of my first band without cringing. Although I think it is human nature to be your own biggest critic. It is probably better to just try to remember the people who came up said they liked your performance after the show, rather than listen to the recording and scrutinize how bad it was.

 

[WintermintP]

Honestly I think we all have that in common here... I don't even go back and listen to any of the METAGAME stuff at all except for Project 40E0D0 (redux) and Camille.

WintermintP

 

[gnoll]

It kinda varies. Mostly my old songs are simpler and many of the riffs are very filler. The song structures were not that great either. BUT here and there is an idea that I still think is really good, so I will take parts of old songs and put them into or turn them into new songs.

 

[Curt]

Not at all, really. My old stuff was either all very poorly aping In Flames, and later on trying too hard to write proggy riffs that just sounded very derivative. Have slowly been writing things that are more my own thing lately, and look forward to getting together with a band before too long.

 

[InCasinoOut]

I spent a long time transcribing my favorite music for fun when I was younger, before I started writing my own stuff, so I still think my songwriting was off to a strong start in my teens. I'm still proud of all the songs I've finished, even if some of them are dated by now, but they always had progressive elements that mixed many genres and I made it a point to never rehash ideas over multiple songs. Luckily, they're all fully written out in tablature so I still listen to their MIDI files every once in a while.

Old videos of old bands where I was playing songs I didn't write though... Thats a different story lol

 

[ZombieLloyd]

Well, I like my older music because it's a sort of reminder of how I've improved as a musician over the years. I sometimes go back and listen to my old stuff when I get discouraged about my playing and it helps to have audible proof of improvement.

 

[Avian]

I think "those songs are so bad they haunt me" is what I'll go with

terrible 3 chord punk recorded with a gaming mic placed right next to an amp with angry cursing about high school or something that clipped audacity (lol) to oblivion

oh what its like to be a young edgelord...........

My tip I use for myself that helps, you can apply maybe is to remind yourself that we were all young, dumb, and learning and IF anyone else knowing/caring enough about your old material means that you are making enough progress that they managed to find that in the first place!

 

[exo]

Old? New? Doesn't matter, all I hear are the flaws, no matter how proud I am of the concept or idea I came up with. Love what I TRIED to do, often cringe at the execution......

 

[KailM]

Funny this thread came up, as I listened to some old "recorded with a tape deck in a garage" tapes I made with my best friend back in high school. That shit is unlistenable on many levels. I was in a huge effects phase at that time and on one "song" I rode the wah pedal back and forth for over 8 minutes. Yes, cringe-worthy. But you have to start somewhere.

Note: My current noise isn't much better.

 

[EigirdD]

Some of my old stuff is cringe worthy. Even more so, reocordings of live shows. Honestly, it takes maybe a couple years with a band before I feel the quality live is consistent for me. Most other people will not be as harsh of a critic as you are of yourself. Every musician sucked at some point and almost every musician still sucks sometimes. You can occasionally suck and still be a primordial badass.

I think that everyone experience are good. So good luck with future works!

 

[KnightBrolaire]

I'm kind of like a super hackjob version of eric johnson. I'm always fiddling around with my riffs and songs and tweaking em one way or another every time I play them. It makes it fun for me to see what kind of riffs I can mutate out of old material. The big problem is I honestly can't remember how to play some of my old material because I'm so all over the place as far as genres and tunings. I seriously spent 4 days last week trying to remember what tuning and how to play one of my old songs, and it was driving me crazy. I have tons of ideas and not enough knowledge to execute 99% of them, but for those few songs/ideas I do manage to make I tend to like em a lot. For me if the song/riff isn't fun to play or an earworm it goes into my wasted ideas folder, which I revisit from time to time just to confirm that the ideas are dogshit. If I think I can tweak them or use them as a jumping off point, then I will.

 

[auxioluck]

I'm not proud of a lot of my early stuff, but that's part of the process to me. In another 5 years, I'll probably think the stuff I'm writing now is one-dimensional and awful.

 

[Dayn]

I mostly wrote non-songs, just riffs and ideas. The first song I wrote I still like. I still wrote little shit ideas here and there.

But of the parts of songs I did write, I've been revisiting them. Some are rough, most only have a basic structure and theme, one only had a long intro. But so many years later, after hearing them again, I'm not just hearing the music - I'm hearing what I haven't written yet. It's really exciting. I'm working on one song intro that I haven't touched in years, and it's writing itself. I'm literally getting tingles writing it.

 

[chinnybob]

I feel like I might be an exception to this rule, as I'm super proud of my early stuff and love hearing it. Production-wise it's nearly unlistenable but the first songs I wrote had a tangible energy and were very therapeutic for me at the time, I wasn't just writing for the sake of it so I've got kind of an emotional attachment to it.
I've got four albums that I kind of view as a self-contained arc, and with each one I can hear how the songwriting progressed and incorporated new elements until it reached a logical conclusion and a sound that I felt was representative of me. That last album was nearly four years ago and I've not done an album since, as nowadays I'm mostly writing just for the sake of it and not because I need to.

One day I'd like to re-record all those albums with better production, but I'm also loathe to touch old stuff as I don't feel like I could recapture that energy.

Granted though I've got lots of little side demos and ideas that I listen to and can blatantly hear who I was ripping off at the time, but those helped me to learn new things and combine those elements into what I consider "my sound". Also my music has never been super technical, there's some odd time signatures and weird chords but no guitar solos or anything so I don't have the displeasure of cringing at my bad technique

 

[Shoeless_jose]

Surprisingly one of the best sounding instrumental recordings of my band back in the day was just an sm57 hung from the ceiling in the middle of our basement jam space. The guitars sounded huge. Obviously the kick drum didnt get a lot of space in the mix but it sounded way better than it had any right too