"having fun" music creation approach + question

[Maya Clars]

For me, perfection ruins the sound.

Nirvana were awesome, and I bought that multi-volume set of rehearsals, home demos, solo recordings, etc. While I love the thump of bass in my Jeep, the tinny solo recordings of Cobain and his cheap acoustic guitar are just as satisfying as the produced products, just in a different way.

That's what I go after. I basically record my practice, then practice mixing the songs with the fewest mistakes.

I'm an extremely precise, technical, logical person in almost every aspect of my life, and I let music be my emotional outlet. If I go getting overly technical and perfectionistic with it, chances are good music will be ruined for me.

So, no. I keep the happy little accidents in, and have no desire to go overboard with the mixer. I'd love to add drums and maybe a bass line, but I'm neither a drummer nor a bassist and don't have the patience nor desire to put them in synthetically. I'm not even sure I could, because some of my songs speed up and slow down. A singular drum track would lose the guitar, and playing to a click track would lose some of the song's soul.

ah, letting the happy little accidents happen in music can be so beautiful indeed! Perfection might slow down the creation, and sometimes you just don't finish a song at all. Great thoughts

 

[Maya Clars]

It's a worthwhile question. Worth exploring.

I pretty much insist on keeping anything related to musical creativity: fun.

If I start developing an idea and it's not going smoothly - I don't necessarily quit when the going gets tough - but after some effort, if things are not coming together or falling into place and it becomes drag, I move on. Shelved to be revisited later if I get around to it or some epiphany hits me later.

Same with recording an otherwise finished or mostly finished idea. If it's not coming together relatively smoothly - like my vision of it is not getting realized - just short of full frustration I'll set it aside on either think on it for a while to see if there's a way forward - or just move on.

One of the things that drives my decisions and attitude about this is - at this point in my life - how little time I have for music. I have a demanding job and a busy life outside of music. So when I do spend time with music it needs to be stimulating and enjoyable.

And over analyzing and getting bogged down can be a problem too. I mentioned somewhere else recently - I have a MIL who is a long time accomplished professional oil/canvas painter (abstract mostly). We've talked about the creative process many times over the last twenty-five years. I asked her once: "How do you know when a piece is done?" She said: "I don't"

IMO, sometimes you just have to trust, I think. Don't over-judge. It's good to check yourself and not become obsessed with details. Objective outside opinion can definitely help with that.

But yeah.... my personal motto: "Music is fun"

Or - at least it should be.

Not over-judging is really important, the brain might just ruin everyhitng haha. It's good to do things and sometimes don't think too much, it's easier to make the work done.

 

[Maya Clars]

Even for fun, I have my own standard. My mate keeps releasing our old material from the early 80's. It is dire. Dreadful songs, mistakes only spotted too late in the 4 track process and really terrible tone, because the monitors (or our taste) was clearly very odd. I am glad he just puts his name on them. I have got an awful lot better in 40 years. I think music should be fun, but must also be higher than whatever you set as a quality threshold. Some people write great songs, but play them with bad arrangements or with rotten instruments and sound. Others record really high quality music, that is just not so good. I've had some fun recently listening to famous people's early recordings from the 60's, 70's and 80's - not the successful ones, the fillers on their early albums. Some are truly dreadful. I find that encouraging.

It's interesting to have the limits of the "having fun", and that's true. If you go to hard into perfection, you might never finish the project. If you're having fun too much, something can go wrong. Balancing is the key

 

[Wabatuckian]

Yes.
...Like 7 years ago , when I joined Homerecording.com(not to be confused with 'home wrecking.com'), my nephew was 5 years old. I wanted a silly screen name so I asked the 5 year old. Kevin, said something incomprehensible in whole, but had Laser Beak in there somewhere.
At the time I had a towel wrapped around my head like a turban.
Then I cannot spell worth a damn, so I misspelled 2, but somehow got 1 correct. Still not sure which one. Haha

Minutes after verifying the account I asked the administrator if I could change it, because it was really bad. Admin refused.
I need to look. I saved the PM he sent. I think his name was Rob!

that's my Username story..

Lets make it something cool...

A 'Mothman Prophecy' like robot bird that shoots frickin' lazers!
View attachment 153706
After all I knew it had to be something to do with you..

That's awesome, man. I was a G1 Transformers fan back in the 1980s and recently finished watching the CGI movies.

The misspelling just makes it stand apart. I wouldn't change it, even if they let you.

 

[Tru]

What do you think, if you take the creation of music too seriously, striving for perfection, for instance, and obsessing over every tiny detail - doesn't that end up spoiling the entire creative process and stripping a song of its emotional depth?? Could it be that an approach rooted in "simply enjoying the process and having fun" actually yields a better result in the end?

I suppose it comes down to what that tiny detail sounds like. Playing a guitar in a 3 piece band and being the creator of the original music, has always been a struggle. I have no training, whatsoever , so the only thing I have to go on is how does it sound live. I have always wrote with that in mind. Mistakes are for fine tuning. If I have something in a recording that I don't like to hear, it isn't fun to listen to. just me