Hard work & Time = leads to

[AcousticDreams]

I am sure all of us have played a new song for a friend in its beginning stages. Leaving a mis understood impression of what the new song is...or could be.

Often, the non musician may not realize the potential of the theme being presented. He may not understand the direction the composer wishes to take.

Even the composer does not always see the final product in his head till much later.
The composer has a feeling, but does not completely know how to finalize it or even get there. And that is where hours of hard work in Recording Studio can bring to fruition the final payout.

I think this article is the perfect explanation of how a song may start out and transform into a masterpiece. Rarely is a masterpiece created in a few minutes. It takes hours and hours and hours or hard work. And most importantly, an open mind to know that change is needed.

https://www.yahoo.com/entertainment/...230507123.html

[Gordon Currie]

I never play anything 'in-progress' for non-musicians. Ever.
They listen in different ways, and don't understand how revision works.

That said, I love to show something finished (relative term!) to non-musicians for useful feedback that is hard to get from a musician.

My duo plays a song that was originally written in 1990. We could not come up with a compelling arrangement, so we never performed it.

In 2022, we tried again. The 4/4 beat became 3/4, and the jazzy folk chords became more country folk. We now perform it to good audience reception.

[Rudy4]

Hi AcousticDreams,

I totally agree with the idea presented in your post.

I work on new songs by myself until I have them firmly developed. (I do stop short of working til I get blisters, though... ) That's always the best thing to do unless you specifically want to develop your ideas as a collaboration. Once you involve anyone else you are going to lose "artistic control" of your work.

If you're showing what you're working on to a non-musician I don't see where that would have any influence on your final product.

[ghostnote]

One of the good things for me as a writer is that there’s no pressure - I’m not doing it for anyone but myself. I guess that probably leads to less “product”, but I’m not creating product, I’m doing what I love to do, whenever I can. I never play them live for anyone; that’s not why I write them, either. I’ll occasionally play a recording of one to get my girlfriend’s opinion, but that is also rare. I don’t chain myself to the desk to finish them. Once I have a solid framework that I can go back and add to, I’ll move on to another idea if one presents itself. If not, I’ll keep working on the on the current one or another older one. Sometimes I just cannot hear the right part in my mind, but 3 months later the perfect bass line will just pop into my head. It’s all good.

[capefisherman]

Here's another idea I learned some years ago when working as a magazine editor. All the best experienced writers I worked with had what they call a "tickle file." This is nothing more than some random ideas that may or may not work in stories later on. Sometimes the files were quite long, almost complete articles. More often they were a few paragraphs that conveyed a concept or idea.

I started doing the same thing with music ideas some years ago and from time to time I review them and new ideas appear. I think many musicians who feel the need to write original music look at their efforts thinking a finished product is the only goal. That's OK for some but others may find frustration and abandon things way too soon.

Even if you just make short recordings of snippets of musical or lyric ideas on your phone, having a starting point or a bridge between ideas is a great resource. Give it a try, and don't be too hard on yourself.