Inner And Outer Circles
Entry posted by Scotto
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Keeping Your Cards Close
Have you ever noticed how your close family and friends receive your music differently than strangers? Well that is because they are biased. Just because their biased doesn’t mean their reaction will be positive, surely but they have an image of who you are and you are forever confined to those constraints. Step out of those constraints and you may be judged negativly. Some folks might think your fun “little hobby†(yeah that’s not degrading) is cute and just placate you with mild head nods and meaningless platitudes. Some folks who love you dearly might see everything you do as wonderful. The sun never sets on your musical prowess and your singing is just fabulous! Never mind all that broken glass around the studio. For a true measure of where we’re at we must step outside our personal circles and somehow get the opinion of…. STRANGERS!
Stranger Danger
One way to get instant gratification and reviews from complete well-meaning strangers is to submit your master pieces to song writing communities like song stuff here. Perfect right? People with like interest reviewing each other’s music what can go wrong? Well everything in life is like a bed of roses and there are always thorns. Those of us who dabble in song writing listen a little different than the average listener. The average listener doesn’t care about the construction of the song at all. They only care if their foot is tapping and they want to sing along or dance and cry till the cows come home. You are also dealing with a slightly different cross section of humanity in dealing with musicians and artistic types. We can be a narcissistic bunch I’m afraid. Sort of the nature of this whole endeavor revolves around all of us having an inherent level of narcissism to compensate for. As long as you know who your audience is you’ll eventually learn to separate the chaff from the wheat and hopefully take to heart the critiques of your work that make sense. Certainly the critiques that are repeated amongst many reviewers and become a theme are the obvious things to focus on. There will be plenty of reviews that you won’t agree with. When they become a theme amongst many reviewers well that is when you have to sit up, pay attention and realize that your masterpiece might be missing the master part of that description.
One Turn Deserves Another
In the review business you have to give as much as you get. You can’t be a selfish prig who barely reciprocates the review process. I actually enjoy running through the songs on these and other boards to see how different folks are taking over the world (Narf). When time allows I’ve been known to run down the top of the board just for fun, with no songs in the barrel for reviews myself. It’s the spirit of the thing really. In the end we’re taking part in a community and as long as we mostly respect one another things should be fine. We can find folks with similar musical tastes and maybe even collaborate here and there. It's been a while since I've run through the board to give reviews and I need some inspiration! There are tons of folks on these sites that are truly inspiring with their talent and cleverness.
Good times!
What other songwriting sites do you frequent?
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