there was a time in middle school when someone told me my singing sucked and i wasn't offended at all
i was like "ah ok" and i stopped singing for years because of that one comment
@julilyinfinite It's a shame how the most creative kids will just get talked out of something big sometimes. Like, I'll spare you the story but I'm 34 and still not playing drums, gotta fix that lol
@bobbyd0g Better late than never, I think it would be great if you can play the drums.
I only stopped back then not because the comment hurt but more so like, "Ah... maybe this isn't my thing then. I'll spare your ears" since at the time I wasn't really feeling it. To this day I still have a love/hate relationship with music but at least my vocals have improved somewhat.
@julilyinfinite Is it a love/hate relationship with the concept, the process, or the results? I hope that if making music is something you want to fully enjoy, that the path further unfolds before you. I had the honor and privilege of coaching a few friends out of "tone deafness" and both their output and enjoyment improved dramatically with only minor adjustments in a supportive social environment. All had professed it was impossible and they were just bad singers!
@bobbyd0g The process & the results aren't too much of an issue to me because I have a decent voice and I don't have a problem picking up on pitch. It's the concept of overall music that I'm in conflict with. It's like a language I have to decipher in another way because music can be used to lull people to absorb insidious messages. There were times I felt like throwing up to certain kinds of music if they play publicly out loud or is celebrated in social settings.
@julilyinfinite Ohh boy, that sounds like a conversation I could fall into for hours lmao… there is no communication medium with the naturally constrained, infinitely subjective, but chaotically influential power of music. I'm only just approaching the point in my life where I feel I can even trust myself to create music that is ultimately a force for social good. Many remember Sen. Paul Ryan praising Rage Against The Machine; it speaks to more than just his being out-of-touch.
@julilyinfinite And it goes deeper into the medium than political statements and subject matter; I find myself repulsed in many artistic situations where the media failed to "manipulate" me into an emotion. Most frequently I'm turned off by the use of sad music to attempt to deepen the impact of a scene in a TV show or a movie, and in the YouTube age we are absolutely swimming in poorly-crafted emotional button-pushers often intended to make some perverse, opportunistic influence
@julilyinfinite I always appreciate chats with you but particularly glad you brought this up today, it's nice to know I'm not alone pursuing these critiques as an artist and how frankly traumatized experience can inform just as much as it can foreclose
@bobbyd0g Legit. Just recently when I last performed, I was in front of a decent sized crowd. If I had the same amount of people cheering for me years ago, I would have been like, "This is nice! Lots of people like me!"
Now when I look at them crowding around, I'm like, "Jeez... what's wrong with these people" and I try to tell them to make space for one another. It's in the sense where even if you amplify the volume, it doesn't make you a better performer.
@bobbyd0g YUP! You explained it perfectly. I feel the same way. Even when my old friends would want to invite me to movie theaters and I'm like "hell no, im not in the mood to get my senses overloaded with nonsense".