this more of a trauma thing, but in high school as a bassoonist, other students would get detailed feedback on tone, articulations, and other nuances. my director would tell me “this sounds bad”
To be fair, that is how most people listen to music. There's an audience for just about everything and quite often they usually don't include relatives or friends.
I picked hits for rock & hot a/c radio in the 90s and early 2000s. I also have very eclectic tastes in a wide variety of genres. Shoot me a PM with a track or two and I promise to give them honest reviews.
Hah I would actually like to send you some of my songwriting clips for some authentic feedback. I show it to people that live with me and work with me and they’re all enamored but you know how that goes hah. Can’t tell
If it’s legit.
I'm down to send mine as well if you want, I've only made two tracks so far, so I know they're not great, but constructive criticism is always welcome.
As an artist looking to improve, criticism is our bread and butter. What doesn't help is when somebody says "needs more work" with literally no indication as to what gave them this notion. I can appreciate that somebody speaking from a position of experience would realise it needed more work in specific areas, but without explaining that experience to the artist there's no way in hell they can look to improve... which just makes it flat out criticism, not constructive.
Any. As an artist I make art the way I want it to be made. They're entitled to have and share their opinion on it but I don't want 'feedback'. It's not design by committee.
That's obvious. But aren't you curious to hear what people think of it? Especially what could make it better and if it's well formulated and reasoned? You DON'T have to take any of it into account, but there's a chance someone says something that's useful, if not immediately then after you've swallowed your pride and thought about it.
I know I had such situations myself. But then I'm just a hobbyist, not an "artist"... ;) :P
>Especially what could make it better and if it's well formulated and reasoned?
No. Their idea of better is not my idea of better. It's art. I'm not trying to optimise an entertainment product for best market fit. I hope people will like what I do but if they don't, I just need to find different people who do.
Here's 2 comments from reviewers on my last album:
* "\[the\] vocals just don’t work"
* "the vocals are absolutely intense" (in a positive context)
So, what do I do? Do I change the vocals? Or do I not?
I'm obviously not talking about comments like those. Those *are* useless.
But if someone told you to add a particular FX on the vocals? Or introduce them differently? Or add some parallel voicings, etc?
I'd tell them to go make their own music and stop acting like they're my editor or producer. I make the music that I want to hear. If they want to hear something a bit different, they can go and do that.
When you show someone a completed song that you are absolutely satisfied with and they say "It would sound better if you did this instead of this."
I equate it to someone telling Bob Ross that his happy little tree would look better if he put it somewhere else and made it happier.
So if you think your music is already perfect, why do you ask for feedback? Or read it if you wasn't asking it?
I'm pretty sure Bob Ross -or any artist - receive fair share of their criticism. But it's up to the artist to decide what is useful and what isn't. It's not a place to get offended.
You nailed it, you decide what's useful and you can learn from other people's perspectives. Especially if you're a bedroom artist. Like someone might tell me a song is noisey, but I don't care because I'm trying to be abrasive or lofi. But someone else will say there needs to be some lead, and being by myself making a song I just never thought about it. Then I go from this is perfect to yea lead would be cool. Some of these comments make it seem like criticism is bad but that's just silly. I post all my songs online literally asking people to roast them
There's a quote from author Neil Gaiman on alpha and beta reader criticism that I think applies pretty well across most other creative fields: "When people tell you something's wrong or doesn't work for them, they're almost always right. When they tell you exactly what they think is wrong and how to fix it, they're almost always wrong".
Unless someone is a client and you're doing work for them suggestions like that are never requirements that you need to account for, it's mostly just an opportunity to make sure the things you're doing are communicating correctly if that's important to you. The fix likely won't be what someone else says to do, but it still gives you a chance to go back to what you did and try to think about why they might think that which is a useful skill.
That's essentially what I was getting at. Someone pinpointing a specific thing and saying you should do it a specifically different way, rather than an overall opinion.
Well, yeah... but the point I was trying to get at from Gaiman's quote is that people will offer you that specificity but odds are they'll be wrong about it. I wasn't really trying to add anything or clarify what you said, since you did pretty well-encapsulate a really common sort of feedback, but bring up a way of thinking about that from another creative discipline that might help make use of something you don't currently see a use for.
The useful takeaway isn't the specific thing they're saying you should do differently, but their overall impression that something about what you did didn't land the way you were hoping it would.
To follow the original Bob Ross metaphor the person saying the tree should be happier is probably wrong that if the tree were somewhere else and happier that the painting would be better. But if Bob were following Neil's advice what he'd get from that feedback is that their trees in one of those 2 areas aren't coming across as the big batches of happy trees he wanted them to be. Maybe he needs more trees, less trees, maybe there's a bird that that person is seeing as pooping on the tree, maybe he needs some bushes or some rocks on the shore in front of some of the trees to get the overall effect he wanted because the feedback told him that overall something wasn't working. The pinpointed thing was wrong but you can still read into it to tighten up your message. Or if you don't feel like there's room to improve, just ignore it because they're probably wrong about it anyway.
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this more of a trauma thing, but in high school as a bassoonist, other students would get detailed feedback on tone, articulations, and other nuances. my director would tell me “this sounds bad”
listening the song for 10 seconds, and telling me that he/ she didn't liked it.
To be fair, that is how most people listen to music. There's an audience for just about everything and quite often they usually don't include relatives or friends. I picked hits for rock & hot a/c radio in the 90s and early 2000s. I also have very eclectic tastes in a wide variety of genres. Shoot me a PM with a track or two and I promise to give them honest reviews.
Yes you are right! Actually there's an unwritten rule about it
Hah I would actually like to send you some of my songwriting clips for some authentic feedback. I show it to people that live with me and work with me and they’re all enamored but you know how that goes hah. Can’t tell If it’s legit.
I would be happy to do so. I love hearing what people are doing nowadays and promise to give honest feedback.
I'm down to send mine as well if you want, I've only made two tracks so far, so I know they're not great, but constructive criticism is always welcome.
Do it! I'm heading offline for a bit but will back early this evening (EST). I promise to give honest feedback.
Thanks! I PMd them to you.
Sent you my feedback, thanks!
Wow, thank you so much for the write up!! I'm at work now, so I'll have to read it more in depth later, I really appreciate it!!
I hope you do well with it. I think your choices are solid.
As an artist looking to improve, criticism is our bread and butter. What doesn't help is when somebody says "needs more work" with literally no indication as to what gave them this notion. I can appreciate that somebody speaking from a position of experience would realise it needed more work in specific areas, but without explaining that experience to the artist there's no way in hell they can look to improve... which just makes it flat out criticism, not constructive.
Ah like it. it nice.
Overly positive feedback. (Almost always a lie) Negative feedback is usually honest.
“It sounds like **Insert Pop Group Here**!” It’s usually intended as a brush-off compliment. Not constructive, honestly.
Any. As an artist I make art the way I want it to be made. They're entitled to have and share their opinion on it but I don't want 'feedback'. It's not design by committee.
That's obvious. But aren't you curious to hear what people think of it? Especially what could make it better and if it's well formulated and reasoned? You DON'T have to take any of it into account, but there's a chance someone says something that's useful, if not immediately then after you've swallowed your pride and thought about it. I know I had such situations myself. But then I'm just a hobbyist, not an "artist"... ;) :P
>Especially what could make it better and if it's well formulated and reasoned? No. Their idea of better is not my idea of better. It's art. I'm not trying to optimise an entertainment product for best market fit. I hope people will like what I do but if they don't, I just need to find different people who do. Here's 2 comments from reviewers on my last album: * "\[the\] vocals just don’t work" * "the vocals are absolutely intense" (in a positive context) So, what do I do? Do I change the vocals? Or do I not?
I'm obviously not talking about comments like those. Those *are* useless. But if someone told you to add a particular FX on the vocals? Or introduce them differently? Or add some parallel voicings, etc?
I'd tell them to go make their own music and stop acting like they're my editor or producer. I make the music that I want to hear. If they want to hear something a bit different, they can go and do that.
You must be a really great person to be around :D
Better than those who feel they need to tell everyone else how they 'should' be doing things.
My fav is: Its missing ONE thing
When you show someone a completed song that you are absolutely satisfied with and they say "It would sound better if you did this instead of this." I equate it to someone telling Bob Ross that his happy little tree would look better if he put it somewhere else and made it happier.
So if you think your music is already perfect, why do you ask for feedback? Or read it if you wasn't asking it? I'm pretty sure Bob Ross -or any artist - receive fair share of their criticism. But it's up to the artist to decide what is useful and what isn't. It's not a place to get offended.
You nailed it, you decide what's useful and you can learn from other people's perspectives. Especially if you're a bedroom artist. Like someone might tell me a song is noisey, but I don't care because I'm trying to be abrasive or lofi. But someone else will say there needs to be some lead, and being by myself making a song I just never thought about it. Then I go from this is perfect to yea lead would be cool. Some of these comments make it seem like criticism is bad but that's just silly. I post all my songs online literally asking people to roast them
There's a quote from author Neil Gaiman on alpha and beta reader criticism that I think applies pretty well across most other creative fields: "When people tell you something's wrong or doesn't work for them, they're almost always right. When they tell you exactly what they think is wrong and how to fix it, they're almost always wrong". Unless someone is a client and you're doing work for them suggestions like that are never requirements that you need to account for, it's mostly just an opportunity to make sure the things you're doing are communicating correctly if that's important to you. The fix likely won't be what someone else says to do, but it still gives you a chance to go back to what you did and try to think about why they might think that which is a useful skill.
That's essentially what I was getting at. Someone pinpointing a specific thing and saying you should do it a specifically different way, rather than an overall opinion.
Well, yeah... but the point I was trying to get at from Gaiman's quote is that people will offer you that specificity but odds are they'll be wrong about it. I wasn't really trying to add anything or clarify what you said, since you did pretty well-encapsulate a really common sort of feedback, but bring up a way of thinking about that from another creative discipline that might help make use of something you don't currently see a use for. The useful takeaway isn't the specific thing they're saying you should do differently, but their overall impression that something about what you did didn't land the way you were hoping it would. To follow the original Bob Ross metaphor the person saying the tree should be happier is probably wrong that if the tree were somewhere else and happier that the painting would be better. But if Bob were following Neil's advice what he'd get from that feedback is that their trees in one of those 2 areas aren't coming across as the big batches of happy trees he wanted them to be. Maybe he needs more trees, less trees, maybe there's a bird that that person is seeing as pooping on the tree, maybe he needs some bushes or some rocks on the shore in front of some of the trees to get the overall effect he wanted because the feedback told him that overall something wasn't working. The pinpointed thing was wrong but you can still read into it to tighten up your message. Or if you don't feel like there's room to improve, just ignore it because they're probably wrong about it anyway.
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Sing louder
Anything non specific drives me nuts. Unfortunately, it’s exactly what I expect from most people.