What is this standard that I hold myself to? I may be holding myself up to my father's standard for music. Any time I try to show him any of the "modern" music I listen to, he never likes it. He called Kate Bush "boring music with an awkward voice", said the Beatles "were better before they tried doing more rock", and in general calls most of what I listen to "trash". Then he shows me classical and Balkan music, and talks about how much more "mature" the music is and how it's "better when the lyrics are in a different language".
It leaves me confused, because I agree, but I don't. I will listen to Cold War Kids forever, and he can never take that away from me. However, I do agree with him about how a lot of classic rock is boring. I love the style, but trying to listen to the music alone on my iPod is close to unbearable. To me it just seems like "let's use guitars and play 4 chords and wear silly outfits and try to be sexually provocative!"
But here's the problem. When I try to listen to his preferred music, I can't do that either. Listening to classical music on its own seems soft and plain. Listening to folk music is no fun when you're not at a party.
Then, when I go back to my own music (which is along the lines of indie rock), I can't listen to that either.
Right now the only bands I can listen to are Cold War Kids, the late Beatles, and a few other musicians who are so strange, there's no way I could coherently try to replicate their music without synthesizers and a recording studio.
Anyhow, I'm still going to try writing my songs. I have a feeling that I will be able to complete this project so long as I just believe in myself and get it done. It's just that I need to work out the feelings that make me insecure about my songwriting if I ever want to be willing to share my songs. I think that talking about these things are important.
I'm almost done with my Type 6 song, I'm working on Type 9, and I'm reading Type 8. Just have to keep going.
Well, where to begin...
ReplyDeleteEverything is a matter of taste, and vehement opinions can be more about control than anything else.
In any given genre or group, there are as many examples of crap as there are examples of excellence. I try to avoid the crap and look for the excellence.
Yes, I suppose, from a rhythmic standpoint, and in terms of the difficulty of the scales involved, Balkan folk music is quite complex. But lyrically it's about the goats and love in the village, whereas rock might be pentatonics in 4/4 but the diamond in the crown of rock is very often lyrics, which can be hugely complex and nuanced, and in terms of sonic texture, what genre of music can possibly be more complex and varied then rock? So, it depends on how you look at it.
To a musician schooled in it, Balkan folk would be really easy to play, but could that guy play with a first rate rock band convincingly? No. Expertise is expertise, talent is talent.
You know how tall you are by the size of the people trying to knock you down.
As far as insecurities, etc. If you had none, you wouldn't be all that interesting or expressive. Tell me, does it seem to you that good art comes out of the balanced and normal? Would you enjoy a movie called "The Beatiful Day in Which Nothing Bad Happened?"
Make your insecurities your work - don't push them aside or ignore them, stick them right into the work. Remember that beauty is seen best beside a flaw. Find a picture of Brooklyn Decker. She's beautiful, but indistinct. Try to describe her or even hold her face in your mind. Now, imagine Scarlett Johansson. Piece of cake right? She jumps right into mind because she has a funny nose and a weak chin and she's NOT perfect, she's interesting. Such is life, such is art. Make your problems your art.
Remember this quote:
"If you have a gift, it is your halo and your cross. There is no choice. You are what you are, what you have been born. And what is inherent in that condition is the loneliness that goes with it."
— Helen Frankenthaler
1928 -