I don't know.....if you're really horrible, theoretically, and your music makes even your closest friends want to vomit, I don't think you can keep doing something because it's fun.

I'm not talking about "if I lack the loving adoration of the music press and fans I must be a failure" here. I just wonder if there's some point at which you can objectively claim that the reason you're not accomplishing what you want to accomplish is simply that, well, you're really bad.

For most people who stick with something, it’s not really a choice; you record, write, paint, whatever, because you would not be ‘you’ otherwise.

I think ‘the trick’ with continuing to make music or art is to realize you will never make a good, reliable income from it . This doesn’t relegate it to “a hobbyâ€

At no point has making music been fun, I've always done it because I have to. I can't make "real" art so I make the music I wan't to hear. I have made music for over 10 years and that doesn't count lyrics. Music is my life and the only thing keeping me alive. HONESTLY If i had didn't make music, I can hoestly say that I would've been dead about 4 years ago. It keeps me hangin' on.

I think I came to terms with music's role in my life when I realized that doing music for it's own sake is the reward. I love playing music, but as time goes by I have less and less of an interest in playing my work for people. Hell, most of the time my best efforts sound mediocre to my own ears. But the doing is where it's at for me, so I keep going. I mean, I haven't given up sex just because I'll never be a porno star, you know? I think you should first clarify what success is in your own terms, and make your decision that way.

Punk rock- traditional: 32

Hardcore: 29

Skater punk: 25

Grunge: 35

Stoner: 39 ( as long you are very hirsute )

Indie rock- college radio variety: 34

Metal: 40

Japanese metal: death

Psychedelic: 50

Japanese Psychedelic: death

Prog: 50

Indie rock of the extra pretentious variety ( incorporating some dilution of Can, Kraftwerk, Ennio Morricone, Zorn...): 39

Rap: 32

R n' B traditional: 65

Country: death

Folk: death

Blues: death

Jazz: death

Classical: death

Cover band: 45

Tribute band: 45

You may violate these rules and remain an active musician if you are primarily a recording engineer or an anarchist, or if you are a legitimate national treasure who only sold out a little bit to get there.

ginandtacos.com wrote:I don't know.....if you're really horrible, theoretically, and your music makes even your closest friends want to vomit, I don't think you can keep doing something because it's fun.

Who defines horrible? Who defines fun?

After being involved in music for the majority of my life, I hit the realization 5 or so years ago that I was going to continue to be involved with music for the rest of my life. It wasn't a decision that I made, it was just a realization.

15 years ago I was great at piano. I sucked at guitar. I couldn't play drums worth a damn. somwhere in the time that has past, just by moving bit by bit, I got comfortable with guitar enough to play in bands.
Just in the past two years I've gotten comfortable enough with drums to play competently in a band. And that's after trying and wanting to for over a decade.

Note: I've been played bass as primary in tandem with all of this - yet recently, I've been formally playing more drums and more guitar, and the bass has taken a step back. Plus I can only marginally play piano.

The point is, it's only over if you say it is.

If you truly and honestly think that you are done with music, then be done and be happy.

But if there is any glimmer that music is still a fundamental force in your life, then it is only up to you to nurture, evolve, force and sometimes even exploit that glimmer.

This can only be decided by you. Not your "friends" or real friends, not by anyone outside of you. You picked it up, no one else should even factor into you putting it down.

Plus, it's never too late to learn. Perhaps you just haven't found the instrument that serves you best. There are so many avenues, so many different ways of creating music out there. Put 6 D-strings on your guitar and be the guy that crafts drones. Use only a snare, kick and hi-hat. Play a one string bass.

There's plenty of territory to explore. Find your route, feel your rhythm, play to the stars.

I'm cutting myself off now.

All good things,

Chimp

Mr. GinandTacos, you are a graduate student, right? I believe you're employing that brain of yours to address an issue that deserves to be assessed viscerally.

Right out of college, I worked in a neuroscience research lab. I had done really well in school, and I was in this labortory helping out with like mad-scientist sci-fi type research where they genetically altered these mice so they had enhanced brains and then gave them memory tests. It was very, very interesting. I could have gone to graduate school to learn how to study brains and genetically alter mice and all that stuff.

One night I was leaving the lab to go to band practice and I overheard this professor in the next room--a young guy, probably in his early thirties trying to get tenure--talking about how he "used to play the guitar." This was a guy who studied human memory by putting people in brain-scanning machines. He said, "I used to play all the time, but now--oh man, I just couldn't possibly have the time."

It hit me like a sack of doornobs to the groin: there was no way in hell I was going to let myself be that guy. I just knew it, I didn't have to think about it. It didn't matter how good a musician I was, whether I was 'successful', popular, or anything else. As long as I was aware enough to make a choice not to give up something I loved, I wouldn't give it up. Now, a year and a half later, spending my days in a dull office where the work is not nearly as interesting and I'm bored and underappreciated, I still feel the same way.

Now it's just a matter of fitting music into the scheme of the rest of my life, in whatever capacity possible. That's just the way it is--I don't know what else I can say about it.

On the other hand, I know of people who dedicated a huge part of their lives to music, and then just stopped. I don't know why, but that's what they did--they decided to do something else. My girlfriend in college was training to be an opera singer, was extremely serious about it. She would worry about her chances of success, and I would say, "well, even if you don't make it, you could always just teach or something, and you'd still be doing something you love." She said, "no, I couldn't. If I stopped short of the goal, I'd have to give it up completely." I still don't understand that, and don't think I ever will.

Keep playing, for as long as you can't stop.

cheers,
George

I guess what I'm getting at is that tons of people play Nu-Metal, for instance, and think they are good. And they are also probably very happy doing what they do. Is that enough to justify their existence given how god-awful what they do really is?

It's the old Wesley Willis dilemma....sure, he's happy, but it's sad that he doesn't realize most of the audience is just laughing at him. I know we all like to think that we do things like this without worrying about what others think, but every musician - from the Steve Albinis to the Fred Dursts to the guys in karaoke bar bands - would want to give up if everyone they knew or encountered thought they were crap.

ginandtacos.com wrote:I guess what I'm getting at is that tons of people play Nu-Metal, for instance, and think they are good. And they are also probably very happy doing what they do. Is that enough to justify their existence given how god-awful what they do really is?

Well, somebody likes it. Those people have horrendous taste. Oh well.

ginandtacos.com wrote:It's the old Wesley Willis dilemma....sure, he's happy

exactly, so what's the problem?

ginandtacos.com wrote: but it's sad that he doesn't realize most of the audience is just laughing at him.

I disagree. Maybe that was some people's first reactions, but I think the people who came to know Wesley as a performer enjoyed him in a genuine, non-patronizing way, and respected what he did.

I know we all like to think that we do things like this without worrying about what others think, but every musician - from the Steve Albinis to the Fred Dursts to the guys in karaoke bar bands - would want to give up if everyone they knew or encountered thought they were crap.

not if they know how to handle being called crap.

I'll bet Joan Rivers would think I'm a no-talent waste of space. Screw her, she's an asshole.

Taste is relative. If you give up, it's because you've lost faith in yourself. I've seen a lot of God-awful bands, but I would never say that they should stop existing because I said so. I just won't go to see them.

ginandtacos.com wrote:It's the old Wesley Willis dilemma....sure, he's happy, but it's sad that he doesn't realize most of the audience is just laughing at him.

Although this is the received perception of Wesley Willis (i.e., crazy fat black dude as Victorian freak show), my limited encounters with Wesley Willis lead me to believe that this perception is wrong.

A steaming, heaped accumulation of wrong.

I thought that he was a fucked up sweetheart of a guy who nonetheless had basic control of his game. However, there are other members of this forum who knew Wesley Willis personally. I'd appreciate it if one of you could set the record straight regarding:

(i) Mr. Willis' lack of cognizance;
(ii) whether or not "most" of the audience (what audience?) was "just laughing at him"; and
(iii) whether or not items (i) and (ii) are even important.