22 Jun
2009
22 Jun
'09
7:36 p.m.
i remember eno describing the hundreds or thousands of
demo tapes he
would get at one point in his career, and noting that people didn't
seem to realize that for every piece he ever released, he worked on
"hundreds or a thousand" other pieces that he discarded because they
were crap. his allusion was clearly that most of what we all produce
is crap, but that shouldn't stop anyone from engaging in the process.
we just have to find a way to get people to understand how the
difference between making music for others and making it for yourself.
there is no shame in either.
So true, that part.
Writing for others is a mix of inspiration and damned hard work, and
requires a strange combination of humility (listening to others), and
enough bravado to follow your muse.
Started this time last year with 8 songs.
Cut back to 4.
Wrote another 12.
Cut back to 9.
Sent demos of 9 songs to musos/engineers whose opinions matter to me.
Cut down to 3 songs. (Which have all been re-recorded/arranged)
Recorded another 10 songs.
Keeping critiques of aforementioned friends in mind - back to 9 songs.
Wrote another 5.
Played and played and played those tracks to many people, noting what
seemed to please and what didn´t.
Down to 7 songs, in the process of writing one last piece, then call it
a day and unleash my crap on the world.
So that will be 35 odd full-recordings, many rerecordings and
rearrangements to produce 8 tracks. That of course doesn´t include all
the stuff I wrote and forgot about, or pieces that just don´t fit.
Now that doesn't mean that the other pieces are necessarily "crap" -
wrote a lovely Ben Fold's Five-style ballad for my gf - but she's the
only one that will hear that.
I believe, that after 35 years composing, 7 albums and thousands of
performances with various long-haired groups that shall go unnamed,
that only experience can really tell you if it's personal or public.
And most of what I released when young should have never been let out
of the rehearsal studio. (thus "unnamed groups")
I remember Peter Gabriel saying something similar, but I can't find the
interview in question. He was far more eloquent, though.
- shane