Do you play what you like, or learn to like what you play

thecolourbox

I'm getting rather bored with many things at present but one of these things is what music I'm trying to make.

I don't seem to be able to make the music I properly like, I don't have the knack, conviction, voice or oompf for it. So I still try and end up dissatisfied and subsequently bored.

Then I give that up, and play the boring middle of the road crap That comes easily and naturally, or that fits more with my voice, and I get bored and dissatisfied again because it's so dull and I don't want to sound like that kind of music.

What's the answer? What do you guys do about this feeling if you've ever encountered it?

Cheers

steven70

Frequently frustrated with half formed ideas floating around it in the back of my head, which I can't articulate.

I can see them, but as soon as I pick up the guitar, the 'Hideaway' licks come out and the vibe is gone.

If you don't like something you have done, use it as a springboard to something else. Or just put it aside.

I think the answer may lie in forcing yourself to try new and strange ideas and accept that they might not work. Set some time aside and do it anyway.

Don't give up tho- you can't just do stuff that doesn't move you cos it's easy! 

Re vocals (and to some extent guitar or anything else) as long as you can convey an idea you can always get someone else to play or practice until you can do it. Doesn't really matter if you have the song, it will be 'you'

Not sure what I am banging on about...I suppose the answer to your question is 'a bit of both'

Cheers  

thecolourbox

I'd forgotten about this thread. Optimistically maybe.

Trouble is, literally everything I like to listen to is the opposite of what I can do. I like quicker louder music, in different keys to what I can sing in, higher pitch usually, doesn't work as a one man band and is just incredibly corny coming from a fairly mundane thirty something with no really belief in what he's doing.

I can't find one style that I could just try to commit to in order to have the ability to do something well. I tried sacking off strings to sing along to piano but that was even more dull and boring than the guitar stuff. 

Not to worry, hopefully be all over for me soon!

viz

Try learning jazz blues and the superlocrian scale over the V chord. It’s really fun and nice. 

octatonic

viz said:

Try learning jazz blues and the superlocrian scale over the V chord. It’s really fun and nice. 

This.
Plus transcribe solos.

LastMantra

thecolourbox said:

Not to worry, hopefully be all over for me soon!

What do you mean? 

thecolourbox

viz said:

Try learning jazz blues and the superlocrian scale over the V chord. It’s really fun and nice. 

I'm sure it's lovely but not really the direction of music I'd want to go in

octatonic

thecolourbox said:

viz said:

Try learning jazz blues and the superlocrian scale over the V chord. It’s really fun and nice. 

I'm sure it's lovely but not really the direction of music I'd want to go in

Doesn't matter- it is good to do.
You can apply it to a lot of things.

thecolourbox

octatonic said:

thecolourbox said:

viz said:

Try learning jazz blues and the superlocrian scale over the V chord. It’s really fun and nice. 

I'm sure it's lovely but not really the direction of music I'd want to go in

Doesn't matter- it is good to do.
You can apply it to a lot of things.

I'm sure you can but it wouldn't work in the kind of simplistic things I like! It sounds more useful to classical but I don't write in that direction any more

viz

thecolourbox said:

octatonic said:

thecolourbox said:

viz said:

Try learning jazz blues and the superlocrian scale over the V chord. It’s really fun and nice. 

I'm sure it's lovely but not really the direction of music I'd want to go in

Doesn't matter- it is good to do.
You can apply it to a lot of things.

I'm sure you can but it wouldn't work in the kind of simplistic things I like! It sounds more useful to classical but I don't write in that direction any more

It’s jazz - but fair enough if you don’t want to explore it - I found it opened soooooo many doors for me, playing and listening. 

AlexC

I have a diverse taste in music. If I’m just noodling around then out come the stock phrases and scales.
if I’m in genuine creative mode then I mentally slap myself on the wrist if I’m falling into cliches. That might mean - for lead lines - playing chromatically and then ‘tidying it up’ into something more coherent. I also alternate between acoustic one day and electric the next as I find that keeps things fresh for me.
Getting a looper has helped me a lot in composition and, I think, maybe even forced me into musical areas I didn’t used to go in.

thecolourbox

viz said:

thecolourbox said:

octatonic said:

thecolourbox said:

viz said:

Try learning jazz blues and the superlocrian scale over the V chord. It’s really fun and nice. 

I'm sure it's lovely but not really the direction of music I'd want to go in

Doesn't matter- it is good to do.
You can apply it to a lot of things.

I'm sure you can but it wouldn't work in the kind of simplistic things I like! It sounds more useful to classical but I don't write in that direction any more

It’s jazz - but fair enough if you don’t want to explore it - I found it opened soooooo many doors for me, playing and listening. 

Yeah absolutely but I not that I'm stuck in a rut, it's just bothering me that I can't seem to play what I like to listen to

thecolourbox

AlexC said:

I have a diverse taste in music. If I’m just noodling around then out come the stock phrases and scales.
if I’m in genuine creative mode then I mentally slap myself on the wrist if I’m falling into cliches. That might mean - for lead lines - playing chromatically and then ‘tidying it up’ into something more coherent. I also alternate between acoustic one day and electric the net as I find that keeps things fresh for me.
Getting a looper has helped me a lot in composition and, I think, maybe even forced me into musical areas I didn’t used to go in.

But I don't mind the cliches of the styles I like, it's not that I want to create anything new and groundbreaking, what's the point as there are many other people better placed to do that. I'm just looking for some way to either accept that I can only make boring styles of music, find a way of making the music I like, or accept giving up

Freebird

The solution for me is to work within a framework or methodology. Artists do it, writers do it, film directors do it, architects do it, chefs do it, designers do it, photographers do it, so why not guitarists and musicians?

thecolourbox

I don't think there's an answer unfortunately, just another moaning thread

steven70

I don't get what you're saying man...

Are you saying "I don't enjoy the things I like to do"
Because that is anhedonia/depression.

Or are you saying that you can hear stuff in your head or on recordings but don't have the technical ability to play what you want to listen to.

Or that you can't come up with ideas that please you

Or some other thing I am missing?

Genuinely interested likes...

octatonic

thecolourbox said:

I don't think there's an answer unfortunately, just another moaning thread

Unfortunately the answer is 'work'.

thecolourbox

Sorry I know I'm not being particularly clear.

What I mean is, the music I enjoy (for example White Stripes, Yeah Yeah Yeahs, or on the other hand Jeff Buckley, Laura Marling), I do not have the ability to do. It's not about work, practice or whatever, but my nature does not allow it. They sing too high for me, so I can't just transpose the guitar for example as the sound I like is the contrast between the two. I can't sing them lower because it sounds crap. Also I can't play the Stripes/YYY stuff by myself as it sounds terrible with only one person singing and accompanying themselves.

I'm adept at making shit boring generic music, that had no punch to it because I have no punch. I cannot practise having oompf. I cannot practise giving a shit enough to have feeling.

Hence, there's no answer, it was a stupid thread I posted whilst bored on a horrible rammed Train journey home and I was hoping it would not be seen not long after I'd pressed "post" as it's just a whinge

octatonic

thecolourbox said:

Sorry I know I'm not being particularly clear.

What I mean is, the music I enjoy (for example White Stripes, Yeah Yeah Yeahs, or on the other hand Jeff Buckley, Laura Marling), I do not have the ability to do. It's not about work, practice or whatever, but my nature does not allow it. They sing too high for me, so I can't just transpose the guitar for example as the sound I like us the contrast between the two. I can't sing them lower because it sounds crap. Also I can't play the Stripes/YYY stuff by myself as it sounds terrible with only one person singing and accompanying themselves.

I'm adept at making shit boring generic music, that had no punch to it because I have no punch. I cannot practise having oompf. I cannot practise giving a shit enough to have feeling.

Hence, there's no answer, it was a stupid thread I posted whilst bored on a horrible rammed Train journey home and I was hoping it would not be seen not long after I'd pressed "post" as it's just a whinge

It takes time- it is a lifelong journey.
I can tell you for a fact that study and work pays off, because I did it.
Your feeling of not having 'it' is universal- I really mean that- we all feel like that.
You're in a rut- that is fine- play your way out of it.
Quitting is not ok.

thecolourbox

I don't agree, I'm playing "better" now than I ever have. It's just not music I enjoy

steven70

Thanks- I get it now I think. Appreciate the thread, it's a useful discussion.

Sounds like you're just down on yourself musically at the moment. 

Don't think you're alone in feeling that way - there is stuff I love to listen to, but have to accept I can never do because I am not "that person" - it would be fake.

Anyhow...maybe try writing from the POV of someone else. By that I mean, make a narrator, the same way an author will do when writing a novel. Pretend to be someone else for a bit. Can be cheesy as hell, but pick out the good bits and fuse them with existing ideas which are more 'you'. Might come up with something unique.

tbh, sounds like you're just knackered after a week at work!! Time of year doesn't help much either...

Good luck