music as art and art as music

[Kasey]

As an artist I admit that I spread myself pretty thin. I paint, sketch, I'm a photograher, a collage(r)?, a musician (guitar, bass, drums, cello, vocals), a songwriter, a sound guy, a writer, a lyricist....
I'm not trying to make myself look cool, honest, i couldnt do that if i tried. my point right now is that as of late everything is getting sort of blurred. It's hard to explain, but it doesnt really matter what I'm doing, it just all falls under the category of 'art' in my head. I consider sound just as much an art as painting or songwriting.
I end up just trying so hard to be unique and different and basically weird with whatever i'm doing that it all ends up as the same project.
So right now i'm sort of lost with all of it, and i cant get my feet back on the ground to figure out what i'm really doing and move forward.
does anyone get what im saying? does anyone else start to feel like this?
In the category of sound, do you view it as art in the aspect that you are constantly trying to experiment and do something new and unique, or do you sort of view it as, ok i need the money so i'll do it the way everyone does it...
i'm tired what am i talking about, im sorry guys.

 

[Zed10R]

So right now i'm sort of lost with all of it, and i cant get my feet back on the ground to figure out what i'm really doing and move forward.
does anyone get what im saying? does anyone else start to feel like this?
In category of sound, do you view it as art in the aspect that you are constantly trying to experiment and do something new and unique, or do you sort of view it as, ok i need the money so i'll do it the way everyone does it...
i'm tired what am i talking about, im sorry guys.

Well....I know what you are talking about. It has never happened to me personally, but I know many people who this has happened to. I can only suggest two things for you to get over this hump:

1) Put everything down for a week or two. Clear your head. When you come back to it, you will either see what you really want to do, or you will see that what you have done is crap and you need to start over. It could go either way.

2) Stop trying to be unique different and weird. If your art comes from within YOU, it is already unique and different. Try to create the vision you see or hear exactly as they are in your head. That way you will be focussing on your art instead of simply being "different". Good will always be better than "different". It doesn't matter if the art in question is painting, poetry, or music.


In the catagory of sound.....I don't view it as either of those things you mentioned. No matter if it is a project for someone else done to thier taste or something for myself done the way I want it, the sounds tell me what they want to be. I don't experiment because when I hear something I know what I need to do and where it needs to go. I don't just "do it the way everyone does it" either, for that same exact reason.

Artistic expression flows from inside. It cannot be forced and it cannot be faked. I often play a guitar for hours, noodling through crappy riff after crappy chord progression untill FINALLY that "thing" I've been trying to get to comes out and *POOF* I have a great song written in 10 minutes.

Someone once said something like "All great music is already written....you just need to find it." I think that is 100% true. Everything I have ever done that I think is really good, has just about written itself from beginning to end.

I think you should back off and get a fresh perspective. You may have been either trying too hard or doing too many things at once.

Good luck.

 

[Kasey]

thank you, i think you hit it on the head