Author Topic: Overcoming negative thoughts (Read 24968 times)

Krazner · « **on:** January 09, 2016, 02:41:39 am »

I'm sure we've all had this feeling. You listen to your stuff and think it's crap. I used to make music like crazy and not even thinking about the consequences. Now I just cringe while listening to my released stuff.

The weird thing is when I'm making a track I think it's going pretty good. It's only until I export it when I start to notice things I don't like about it. The doubt starts to creep in. I know I've heard worse stuff than mine before but I've also heard much better stuff too.

My question is how do you keep yourself positive about what you make and your progression as a producer?

Joseph · « **Reply #1 on:** January 09, 2016, 02:45:44 am »

Seeing your self improve would be a start.
No matter what you do, you are going to suck at it in the beginning. It may not take long to get better for some things, but producing takes YEARS. Keep all your finished track, and just listen to them and compare them to your current tracks, see the difference. Some people aren't patient enough to know that this is going to take a lot of fucking time.
IMO you need the passion to produce, otherwise it's going to be a tough journey.

LiteHouse · « **Reply #2 on:** January 09, 2016, 02:49:27 am »

Quote from: Joseph on January 09, 2016, 02:45:44 am

Seeing your self improve would be a start.
No matter what you do, you are going to suck at it in the beginning. It may not take long to get better for some things, but producing takes YEARS. Keep all your finished track, and just listen to them and compare them to your current tracks, see the difference. Some people aren't patient enough to know that this is going to take a lot of fucking time.

Definitely agree. If you think about any other profession, it takes years, decades or even a lifetime to make it to the top. But I would start with an even more basic understanding of why you're producing in the first place. For most people it starts as a creative outlet, so if you establish a healthy relationship with your creativity and what you expect of it, then it won't matter what the outside world thinks. Just do music because it's what you love to do, take notice and celebrate self improvement, and keep working hard.

MEDMAN · « **Reply #3 on:** January 09, 2016, 03:01:21 am »

I feel you more than I would,
I can write some positive stuff that don't work to me in this moment, but I know that is the best thing that I should do,
keep calm mainly if you don't lives of your music yet, don't put pressure that now that you're sitting in front of your daw you should do your best track or a masterpiece, but persist producing everyday even random stuff, keep this rhythm writing something, make some sound design and save presets, try different ways of start something that you want, definitely to produce well take years and if you see and hear some ''new'' producer in the game, be sure that he works hard a long time.

Krazner · « **Reply #4 on:** January 09, 2016, 03:10:05 am »

Quote from: Joseph on January 09, 2016, 02:45:44 am

Seeing your self improve would be a start.
No matter what you do, you are going to suck at it in the beginning. It may not take long to get better for some things, but producing takes YEARS. Keep all your finished track, and just listen to them and compare them to your current tracks, see the difference. Some people aren't patient enough to know that this is going to take a lot of fucking time.
IMO you need the passion to produce, otherwise it's going to be a tough journey.

I get what you're saying. I mean I've been producing for 5 years but I'm never happy with my stuff. I'm always wanting to go up a level. There's still a long journey ahead though so that's promising. I'm not trying to 'make it' I just want to be able to listen to my stuff and feel proud to share it.

Joseph · « **Reply #5 on:** January 09, 2016, 03:35:39 am »

Quote from: Krazner on January 09, 2016, 03:10:05 am

Quote from: Joseph on January 09, 2016, 02:45:44 am
Seeing your self improve would be a start.
No matter what you do, you are going to suck at it in the beginning. It may not take long to get better for some things, but producing takes YEARS. Keep all your finished track, and just listen to them and compare them to your current tracks, see the difference. Some people aren't patient enough to know that this is going to take a lot of fucking time.
IMO you need the passion to produce, otherwise it's going to be a tough journey.

I get what you're saying. I mean I've been producing for 5 years but I'm never happy with my stuff. I'm always wanting to go up a level. There's still a long journey ahead though so that's promising. I'm not trying to 'make it' I just want to be able to listen to my stuff and feel proud to share it.

Stick with it, it could be another 10 years before you're at where you want to be

Steven Gold · « **Reply #6 on:** January 09, 2016, 03:50:12 am »

Quote from: Krazner on January 09, 2016, 02:41:39 am

I'm sure we've all had this feeling. You listen to your stuff and think it's crap. I used to make music like crazy and not even thinking about the consequences. Now I just cringe while listening to my released stuff.

The weird thing is when I'm making a track I think it's going pretty good. It's only until I export it when I start to notice things I don't like about it. The doubt starts to creep in. I know I've heard worse stuff than mine before but I've also heard much better stuff too.

My question is how do you keep yourself positive about what you make and your progression as a producer?

For me I've always had the issue of working on something, and thinking its REALLY good. only to wake up the next day and be like "meh"

Joseph · « **Reply #7 on:** January 09, 2016, 04:12:37 am »

Quote from: Steven Gold on January 09, 2016, 03:50:12 am

Quote from: Krazner on January 09, 2016, 02:41:39 am
I'm sure we've all had this feeling. You listen to your stuff and think it's crap. I used to make music like crazy and not even thinking about the consequences. Now I just cringe while listening to my released stuff.

The weird thing is when I'm making a track I think it's going pretty good. It's only until I export it when I start to notice things I don't like about it. The doubt starts to creep in. I know I've heard worse stuff than mine before but I've also heard much better stuff too.

My question is how do you keep yourself positive about what you make and your progression as a producer?

For me I've always had the issue of working on something, and thinking its REALLY good. only to wake up the next day and be like "meh"

Haha, that used to happen to me, it's just the reality of producing

daydreamer · « **Reply #8 on:** January 09, 2016, 06:10:39 am »

to be honest, those negative thoughts will always be there. i dont think there is ever a way to get rid of them.

HOWEVER, having those thoughts arent bad. it means youre dissatisfied with your work and you want more out of yourself. it means you know you capable of more. dont be afraid of those negative thoughts. you can let them drive you in a positive way. you are always growing as a person and an artist. so it makes sense why you would have negative thoughts like that. you get new information and you form new ideas so you end up being dissatisfied with your past work because it doesnt fill the ideas you have now.

so just keep working in the mean time and embrace those thoughts and let them push you forward to happier days.

trifonic · « **Reply #9 on:** January 09, 2016, 06:45:11 am »

I feel you about that! I'm never happy with anything, but I've learned that that's just my personality and I'm ok with it. I think the goal is to get to know yourself well enough to know when to trust and listen to the negative voices in your head to refine and improve your work and when to ignore them. The negative thoughts are what help you craft something potentially great. In order to create music that is really meaningful and of excellent quality, you have to come at it with a very critical ear and open mind.

On the other hand, there are important moments when you want to ignore the negative thoughts such as when you're trying to actively develop a musical idea or a sound. You have to allow yourself to suck and work through ideas when you are in the content generation phase. The only way to break through to the good ideas, is to work through and revise mediocre ideas.

I think for a lot of artists (self included) it's hard to listen back to old work, because after you've spent hundreds of hours on something your brain focuses only the aspects that you are insecure about and not the emotional connection that you initially had with the music. Every time I put out an album, I need to be away from it for 3 years before I can appreciate it without feeling bad about myself haha!

IKIS · « **Reply #10 on:** January 09, 2016, 12:48:28 pm »

I've been producing for years now. At the beginning when I was a absolute noob everything was exciting and fun. Now, everything I do just sounds like shit. At the same time I know I could potentially make something awesome if I just set my mind to it. The problem is, making music has become extremely exhausting mentally. I'm always doubting myself and I feel really bad about myself.

I havent been able to make anything I'm proud of for the last year or so. I can work on a track really hard, but when it's finished I just feel the track is shitty and just ditch it.

I have no idea how to overcome these feelings. It all just feels depressing and not fun. At the same time, I continue to work on music, which is kinda funny.

This is probably something every producer goes through but I don't like this at all. These feelings just put out my creative flame. I know I have improved a lot during my years but still the anxiety and depression considering music production just increases as I get better.

I would just want to have that optimistic and exited feeling again. Sometimes it just feels theres no point in making music. I've just stopped trying, nowadays I just make music to extinguish my urge to create something.

Volant · « **Reply #11 on:** January 09, 2016, 02:02:46 pm »

I found that motivation and demotivation always come in cycles as I learn more about producing and art in general. Mussar posted a great picture that illustrates this well:

The main thing that helps me overcome negativity is to remember why I am doing music: Fun. The more fun I'm having while creating, the more ready I am to sit there for ages and work, it works almost without any effort at all. When you first find out that you can be better at producing and notice your own faults, it can initially bog you down for a bit, but after a while you learn how to fix it and it starts to become more fun than before since now youre doing a better job and enjoying yourself at the same time.

Another thing I can recommend is to keep your life as stress free as possible. Stress might put your brain in a state called cortisol dominance in which youre unable to be creative and begin fostering negative thoughts. Try things like relaxing daily or meditation. Take walks every day. Talk to others about things that stress you out so that you can deal with the thoughts and put them on the side. You can't be efficient without feeling motivated.

Mussar · « **Reply #12 on:** January 09, 2016, 11:46:07 pm »

I suppose since I was mentioned, I could add to this:

Don't try to be your idols, try to become someone else's.

It's important not to compare your own progress as a musician to others who are on the same path. Especially when coming onto a forum like this, you'll see people of wildly different levels of skill advancing at wildly different rates of growth. It's easy to feel like you don't know anything and there's so much for you to learn. That gets into the problem of Imposter Syndrome:

If you know the very basics of sound design, make a song that uses just the basics of sound design. When you encounter a problem, just learn the fix for that problem. Keep adding onto that, and don't try things that feel way outside your comfort zone. Learn at the pace that feels right.

evoltan · « **Reply #13 on:** January 10, 2016, 02:22:17 am »

I'm seeing everyone else say that the negative thoughts will always be there, and they're right. It relieves me to see that everyone, including professionals have those thoughts lol.

I get jealous of other producers a lot, especially if they're achieving more than me in a short amount of time. But everything takes time, so I always remind myself that better things will come eventually, I just can't give up. Slow and steady, folks.

Joseph · « **Reply #14 on:** January 10, 2016, 02:31:06 am »

Quote from: Mussar on January 09, 2016, 11:46:07 pm

I suppose since I was mentioned, I could add to this:

Don't try to be your idols, try to become someone else's.

It's important not to compare your own progress as a musician to others who are on the same path. Especially when coming onto a forum like this, you'll see people of wildly different levels of skill advancing at wildly different rates of growth. It's easy to feel like you don't know anything and there's so much for you to learn. That gets into the problem of Imposter Syndrome:

If you know the very basics of sound design, make a song that uses just the basics of sound design. When you encounter a problem, just learn the fix for that problem. Keep adding onto that, and don't try things that feel way outside your comfort zone. Learn at the pace that feels right.

"The reason we struggle with insecurity is because we compare our behind-the-scenes with everyone else’s highlight reel."

Author Topic: Overcoming negative thoughts (Read 24968 times)

Krazner

Overcoming negative thoughts

Joseph

Re: Overcoming negative thoughts

LiteHouse

Re: Overcoming negative thoughts

MEDMAN

Re: Overcoming negative thoughts

Krazner

Re: Overcoming negative thoughts

Joseph

Re: Overcoming negative thoughts

Steven Gold

Re: Overcoming negative thoughts

Joseph

Re: Overcoming negative thoughts

daydreamer

Re: Overcoming negative thoughts

trifonic

Re: Overcoming negative thoughts

IKIS

Re: Overcoming negative thoughts

Volant

Re: Overcoming negative thoughts

Mussar

Re: Overcoming negative thoughts

evoltan

Re: Overcoming negative thoughts

Joseph

Re: Overcoming negative thoughts