Listen While You Surf ...

[MikeRobinson]

I've just noticed something ...

I've been listening to my latest piece (a rather funky mega-extension of some material, some of which you've heard in my recently-posted Ditty sketch, but weighing in now at 1:49), over and over while surfing the Internet, reading the forums here and elsewhere, and ...

... folks, it makes a difference! You will regard your own piece differently when you are not paying 150% attention to it; when you're listening to it as, well, "background music."

(Oh, you are "paying 150% attention to it," of course, but you're using a different part of your brain now.)

First of all, one would hope, you will actually enjoy it. (It will sound, curiously, somewhat like it was written by somebody else.) You'll notice little things that might need improvement, such as, in my case, stuff that's just a little bit crowded-together, or a note that's repeated a little too often in a phrase. But it doesn't cause you to "drop everything that you're doing and go and fix it right away." (Not anymore, anyway.)

What's happening here is that the song is beginning to divorce itself from its creator: to take on a life and a character of its own, and to be regarded in the same way as, well, "she's really not My Little Girl anymore; she's a beautiful woman." You're listening to it now with a little bit of distance, a little bit of objectivity. And that's really what you need to be able to do. Things that you may have wrestled-over begin to take on a different significance in context, whereas things that you may have overlooked might suddenly jump out at you. You also find yourself in a better position to consider, "well, is this thing pleasing?"

Or, "Would I download this?" "Would I 'fave' it?" Not that music-making is a competitive thing, except for the fact that of course, it is. Self-competitive, you know. You want it to be good. "Honestly, Good" to you.

I think that this is one of the reasons why writing-instruction books emphasize the need to "put your manuscript down for several weeks" before reading it again, so that you can begin to regard it as your audience would do.

Edited September 3, 2011 by MikeRobinson

[Gangleri]

Good input on how to approach listening to one of your compositions when trying to decide whether it's ready or still needs work, I think you've definitely got a point there. To know when a song is ready, one has to be able to take off the ears that one has been using to write or mix the song and get some new ones and yeah, having the song in the background should help. I'm pretty sure that I've picked up on things whilst just having my songs on in the background that I never noticed when I was listening intently and with all my energies focused on it.

Great tip, will definitely remember it for the future!