emusonacid!

I've been tooling around for the last 10 years trying to make music and well, everything I do sucks. I'm been trying to work out where I wanna be and I've realised that all I'm really doing is trying to find my sound. I would be interested to hear if this is a common phenom with other forumites.

I can certainly commiserate. I've been trying to figure out who I am for years, and where I fit in.

OK, so it's not quite the same thing. But as a writer, it's trying to find my own voice, which is sort of like finding my own sound.

I have also believed that pretty much everything I've been trying for years has sucked. But it turned out most of that was in my own head. While I was thinking it all sucked, the folks around me though it was amazing. But since it didn't FEEL right, I just wrote it off as sucking.

Turns out I wasn't so much looking for my own voice as doubting I had a voice at all. It was there all along, I just couldn't make myself comfortable with it for a long time. But I can look back now at stuff I've done and see that it wasn't as entirely sucky as I had originally thought (I'm still not quite up to "good", but "not entirely sucky" is a good start).

Second opinions help. So does having a massive ego (with the self assurance to tell yourself you're right even when you aren't), but since I couldn't manage an ego graft, I just had to settle for second opinions. And then I had to start believing them.

If I was ever truely satisfied with my work, I'd probably either drop dead of shock or decide there was nothing else to do. It's the lack of satisfaction that keeps me trying to get it "right" over and over again.

yea good response. Getting comfortable with yourself (sound) is definitely hard. I may be putting too much stock in what other people think/say. Its prolly as simple as:

1. Do it because you love doing it.
2. Always look for a way to improve.

doh.

i am trying to find the sound in my life too. Its not easy.. and what makes it hard is that it changes over time.. so its not very hard to settle on a sound.

http://blogg.higen.org

i dont think that an artist has to try to find A Sound like a corporation has to find A Logo.

you should make the music your ears like to hear.
then others will like it too.
keep doing it, and eventually somebody will beg to release your music.

friends of mine say they can hear "that sound" in my music that makes it mine.
i dont know what it is they hear, but i think it comes from finding a repetitive working method, aka a RUT.
a RUT can lead to good things, but not for me. i dont want the RUT anymore.

i think this means i will not be releasing any more records for awhile (maybe ever).
especially because i am using different methods and production.
some of my friends do not understand what i am doing now, but it sounds good to me.
and that is all that matters.

when a 'groove' becomes a 'rut' then yeah its time to get out.