Why do you make your music?

[jb]

How do you think? I am the MF P.I.M.P.

it was a joke you know...

TAATJ

[jast]

Why do I make music? It's fun and it gets me millions of fans.
Why do I make my music? Because I love singing. Because my equipment is limited and I have to work within those limitations. Because I love melodic things. Because it's fun to make up weird chord progressions and harmonies (sometimes). Because I have the ideas. Because the music I make comes to me naturally.

[ElaineDiMasi]

... Because the music I make comes to me naturally.

That's an interesting conversation in itself. Who here thinks they always make music that comes to them naturally? Who has war stories of trying to make what doesn't come naturally? Who thinks they know which others among us "always do what comes naturally"?

[ElaineDiMasi]

Music is very visual for me, so I use different instruments and sounds like paintbrushes to create my little slice of alternate reality.

Music is not fundamentally visual for me, although I will also say I'm a "color freak" who loves to hear lots of timbres. But I have one song recorded that I clobbered in production and it sounds - magenta. I was playing with tweaking the mic, the key sounds, everything, until I wandered too far off track in EQ-space to know how to get back. When I hear it, I get exactly the same feeling like if a TV (a CRT! sorry, I'm old) is low on the green levels, and the whole picture looks too magenta. It really clashes with the peachy-pink disc package color, too.

[HeuristicsInc]

Who has war stories of trying to make what doesn't come naturally?

jeez, yeah. in trying to branch out, sometimes i have completely shut down my creativity. bad news, that. other times, though, it can be very liberating. not sure yet what makes the difference.
-bill

[jast]

in trying to branch out, sometimes i have completely shut down my creativity. bad news, that. other times, though, it can be very liberating. not sure yet what makes the difference.
-bill

Frustration. If you maintain a playful attitude, you tend to get a lot farther. So a good recipe might be to try something new but not measure yourself against any standard. When you've done that, let it simmer for a while, then look at it again and see if any interesting ideas pop up. Going on a set course that leads straight through a brick wall will give you a headache; experimenting and finding the way around the wall by chance will give you a new perspective (and it's a lot more fun).

[HeuristicsInc]

goo d thoughts. what are you doing up at this hour??
-bill

[Chadderandom]

I can't stop myself. This is an answer to both questions, really, I make music because I can't stop myself from making music and it sounds like it sounds because I can't stop myself while making it. People can speculate about me being deliberately inaccessible like I sit around thinking of ways to frustrate other people, what the goal of that would be, I'm unsure, but other people tend to not be a factor in anything I do, because when they do, I don't finish songs because I start striving for some unattainable perfection to please those other people who'd probably never listen to it again anyway.

Why would I do something that feels like work, when I'm not getting paid? Whatever happens, happens, if its not someone elses idea of perfection, there isn't much I can do about that and I can't really change how it works, which means I'll probably submit less because I want to have fun, I want freedom and regular doses of hey, that sucks, kind of robs me of the full feeling and, hey, that sucks trumps hey, that doesn't suck sentiments in their ability to effect me, though I'm getting better at that whole thing. But music (songwriting included) feels like freedom, when its just me and ideas flowing from me, there's probably too much freedom, its just that the feeling it creates is like some combination of obsession, pleasure and cleansing. And there's, like, pure glee, like a kid in a candy store. Some of the songs I make have this negativity about them and if I don't get the glee from releasing all of that, where would it go instead?

All I know is that I become moody when I don't create, so I create, to feel the freedom that comes from it, which can be better than sex at times, its pretty self-indulgent. I wish it had something to do with Ween giving kids spinal meningitis or Beck getting the blues from being cut in half but those things have nothing to do with anything other than being awesome.

[Rabid Garfunkel]

Taken from the 25 year old journals/diaries/random notebooks of an arrogant child, from way back in the '80s:

I want people to pay me to give them head trips.

If I were to go and edit that entry today, I'd add:

By any means necessary.

Still something of a dreamer, me, I guess. But, working on (and failing at-by the initial criterion's standards-so far) the craft of spectacle/entertainment is much more rewarding than, say, sitting on the couch and suckling at the glass teat for my life's finite free time allotment.

[Henrietta]

I'm searching for a simplicity that feels 'just right'. I don't think I've found it yet, but I'll keep trying.

[Märk]

I want people to pay me to give them head.

There's plenty of work out there in that field

[Rabid Garfunkel]

Too many goddamned amateurs out there devaluing the professionals' services nowadays... besides, the benefits package sucks.