Too "A" to be "B" but too "B" too be "A."

[nate_dennis]

Ok, do I have your attention? This really isn't a recording post, and I fear it may get moved, but . . . . anyway. I'm posting this here because I feel more at "home" here than anywhere else.

Lately I've been having a bit of an identity crisis and thought you might all be able to help. Most of the music I listen to is "indie" but I'm by no means "exclusive" to it. When I write, it isn't much like what I listen to. I feel frustrated sometimes, because I feel too "indie" to be "mainstream" but way too "mainstream" to be in with the "indie" crowd. I know that I shouldn't care who I fit with, that I should just be who I am and write what I write and be happy with it. But for some reason I feel like being "mainstream" is artisticly wrong, but I know that's not true.

I'm rambling and it's probably not making any sense. I'm just wondering if any of you have dealt with this. Any thoughts? Feel free to bash me, this is kind of a whiny post. Thanks.

 

[Rich Smith]

Your not in Crisis

Lately I've been having a bit of an identity crisis and thought you might all be able to help.

I'm rambling and it's probably not making any sense. I'm just wondering if any of you have dealt with this. :

Nate,

Sure, every honest person I've ever discussed music with has had the same concerns at one time or another. It never really goes away. I think you're fortunate that you only feel split in 2 directions. Many of us are far more fragmented.

If you can't seem to shake the conflict, simply accept that "indie" is "mainstream". The real personal challange is getting mentally, emotionally, spiritually and physically set up to express yourself to others. Your own personal unique combination of assets, preferences and talents. Keep it real. It's who you are.

Then, it's simply the very difficult matter of shoving your musical abilities through some combination of technologies that may be of benefit and/or enjoyment to the people with whom you share life. Even if they are just anonomous listeners.

Your not really in an identity crisis. It's just LIFE. Embrace it!

Rich Smith

 

[jedblue]

Jeez, dunno if this is a patronising reply or what Nate?

Take a message from Ray Charles... "all music has soul".

That'll do me. I range across anything from noise, indie, grunge, rock, jazz, blues, soul, country, bluegrass, classical, pop, folk, techno, acid & house. There's a few I don't get - Gangsta rap surely ain't my thing. But hey, it's a lot of other peoples' so that's cool by me.

It's all a happy band of theives anyway as Eric Burdon once said.

I've composed, performed and recorded all sorts of nonsense over the years and still do. Guitar grunge noise with the Lonely Few where I do guitar and keys. We get together once a week for a bash and regularly compose and record. I play drums with a blues jam band once a week and write and record bunch of stuff for that. I do solo multi instrument recordings that could be anything from pop to banjo driven bluegrass to Hammond based soul. There's a few weekly jams going on around the city that are good to go to and get up and play at so I take my bass along to those as well and just mix it up with scratch bands on the night. We create and put on our own shows every now and then as well.

None of it is serious. I am a dedicated amateur musician / composer / producer. A true star in my own head.

Shit, I just decided I'd try and learn to do something on as many instruments as I could. So far I've covered plucked / strummed strings of all types, percussion and keys. I haven't plucked up the courage for bowed strings yet and I'm struggling with the bloody horns. I just start noodling away and soon enough some sort of tune pops out. Add some lyrics if you want and get it down. It is home recording after all.

If it comes off in my opinion I just stick it out there on tape, cd or .mp3 on the internet and if someone finds it and uses it, fine by me. Just who 'me' is?, well that depends on 'what' it is I've just gone and created. I guess in the opinion of the pro's, most of it is crap anyway.

I've got lots of single genre friends and that's cool too. It means I've got lots of different friends and aquaintances across different genres. There's always someone that can be roped into some sort of project if necessary.

It's my brain. I'll feed it with whatever I like, whatever that happens to be at the time. And whatever comes out of it onto tape or digits is fine by me.

I couldn't care less what anyone else thinks about it. I'm too far past it to care about 'success' in terms of the music industry machine (and I'm not good enough at any one thing anyway). But if you are interested in that.... then I'd reckon that a single minded focus on creating success is critical.

There's a well respected mastering engineer here who said something recently on another forum that nailed it for me... something like that "it's the music industry machine that creates stars and you have to have something that the music industry is interested in for them to do that with you". It doesn't ever happen from a recording made in a bedroom that's plonked out there on the internet on a 'hope' basis regardless of the genre. It happens from the creation of enough buzz and the industry noticing it. So you gotta be out there doing your thing a lot to get that buzz happening. And it has to be good enough to appeal to a lot of people. The buzz is nothing other than the relentless chatter of thousands and thousands of fans.

There's nothing I do or am involved in that any portion of the 'industry' would ever be interested in. No buzz for me.

But if I could be mainstream, I would be.... Why would you want to miss out on so much fun?

Today I'm mixing down a solo album by one of The Lonely Few members on 1/4" tape. We've just recorded an hour of his gentle, original solo guitar, indie folk kind of stuff. Once again, nothing to do with the 120db cacophoney he creates on the electric twelve string in the Lonely Few. Nothing mainstream about it either.

But in my head, he's a star too.

Take care

 

[nate_dennis]

Thanks guys. I think I'm just frustrated in general. I haven't committed anything to tape in weeks because of my deployment. So I think my frustration has seeped into all aspects of music. I'm worried too much about "credibility" and all that shit. I just need to relax and not worry about anyone elses oppinion of my "genre." I appreciate the support and all the knowledge you all have shared with me.


Thanks!

 

[jjones1700]

Thanks guys. I think I'm just frustrated in general. I haven't committed anything to tape in weeks because of my deployment. So I think my frustration has seeped into all aspects of music. I'm worried too much about "credibility" and all that shit. I just need to relax and not worry about anyone elses oppinion of my "genre." I appreciate the support and all the knowledge you all have shared with me.


Thanks!

That frustration should be ripe for the picking in terms of inspiration. Think of it this way, it puts you in a different mindset and you might actually end up with something you normally wouldn't do, and like it. It will be something else to add to your library and later on you can put it into perspective, seeing what was happening in your life at the time based on the music you made. Just a thought.

 

[themaddog]

Do you like the music that you like and record?

So long as YOU like the music you're creating, what else matters?

And, if you are recording "mainstream" music on tape, then it really isn"t mainstream music anymore, is it? The tape is going to make it sound different than anything that's in today's mainstream (read that digital) sound, so thus it ceases to be mainstream.

An identity crisis can be tough. You're music is going to change the more you write anyways. You may be mainstream now, only because you're going to end up ahead of everyone else later.

Best wishes,
-MD

 

[Mr. Honesty]

well

Its a touchy subject matter, this. Everyone will give different advice, and none of that advice will be 100 percent reliable, because everyone gives advice based on their own identity and perspective. No matter how kind others words may be, they could still end up useless in solving your problem.

I suggest analyzing the concrete, the facts that you can count on to be true:

1. You are striving to make some kind of mark in a world of rabid mark-makers. No matter how great your art is, there are a billion other marks fighting it out every second of every day to get noticed and be admired. And this will never change.

2. "Success" has as many definitions as there are people. Some may consider rap to be EPIC FAIL and others will swear by it. Realize that no matter how much genius you put into your art, how it is recieved by another person is all about THEM, not you. They will look for something they can use emotionally in their own life, in your art. If it isnt there they will move on. Unless you are catering to them on purpose you will have a much much harder time appealing to mass people, which is waht many people consider "success" in the entertainment industry.

3. Realize that stigmas about certain kinds of entertainment being too "mainstream" are all perceptions created by the most mainstream tools ever created: the human mind and culture itself. Great art has been mainstream. Mainstream art has been garbage. Define what is great not by the method it has been spread (or not spread) by the money making end of the industry. Judge art by the level of artistry or lack of that goes into its creation. Judge by emotional content, not whether its on tv or not.

I am going to be honest with you, i feel that you are putting more emphasis on what people will percieve about your art based on its facetious elements, rather than the quality of the art itself you have created. But this is not an insult because its very common to feel this way. But that is good news, because that means you arent guilty of any of the artistic "crimes" you feel you will be judged by (being too mainstream/indie etc). You are basically fighting an invisible enemy that cant be beaten anyways.

I suggest that you realize that no amount of perfection in your approach to how to present you art to the public based on genre etc will have much effect on how it ends up being percieved. You are far more likely to find "success" and peace of mind working on being your own personal best at entertaining yourself. You, after all, are a human. You want a good song to hear. So learn how to truly entertain yourself, TRULY, and others will be entertained as well. But if you hate your songs cuase they are too mainstream or too indie or too whatever, then others will hate them for those same reasons because they, like you, are human.

If you spend your effort on trying to amaze yourself with your own art, you will be too busy to care what word defines your art, what genre it fits in, or what people think negatively about what you have created. But its easy to fall into those thought processes trying to help/hurt your art by "framing" it a certain way and defining it. I suggest listening to your favorite records and figuring out what it is you love about its contruction (chords, melodies, words) rahter than its style (album art, bands image, public opinion of it). Then apply it to your own art. Take what you can learn from what works, then fill in what doesnt with something else that does. Believe it or not, THIS is what makes a great artist from just a guy who wishes he was a great artist because he has alot of deep feelings about the world around him and wants to express them. If you seek to entertain yourself truly you will too busy to care what genre you are in, and you wont even care, because you will have realized how you progressed from one level of artistry to the next, and you will seek to progress even further now that you realized the method you ascended by. Ive found that most "stuck" musicians are stuck because they go about improving their art in inefficient ways, rather than that they have no talent or no passion or no ideas. Once you learn to learn, you will never forget. And thats when the real challenges of creating artwork begin.

So dont feel bad about defining yourself through a name somebody told you from tv, just creat something amazing and no one will care. In fact, theyll be even more amazed that it breaks genre barriers. Good luck. Hope some of this long advice helps you.

 

[technoplayer]

Make your own mold, do not think you have to fit in to anyones predefined conception. I dislike labels and their connotations.

Do what you like

Like what you do.