Topic: What is your drive making songs and do you play those many times afterwards?

[ton37]

Just a moment of reflection. Why do you always buy a new keyboard (musical instrument)? In the meantime I have had a lot of keyboards (and guitars): for example .. a piano organ, a Yamaha Electone B55, Technic AX7, KN 800 to kn7000. Yamaha Tyros 5-76, Yamaha Genos and currently Yamaha PSR S770. The future will tell whether more will follow. But what am I looking for by constantly buying new ones? An example: a few years ago I tried to imitate the 'sound' of the 'Shadows' (yes, I am old). Through various guitars, strings, pickups, effect pedals, amplifiers, etc. Ultimately, I succeeded. Then the 'drive' was gone.I notice in many creative activities that when I have 'done / achieved' something, it is over for me. There must be something new again. I hardly play the songs I made anymore: 'Ready is ready'. Maybe a shortage of talent? On to the next 'challenge' ... Do you recognize that???
Is it the search for a certain sound? Is it because you want to try something new? Is it eagerness to learn? Is it curiosity? Maybe a mix of all that. Or is 'having the end of the pleasure'? I don't know ... In any case, it seems to me to be more concerned with the process of getting somewhere or making something. If the result is there, then it is over again in that respect. So apparently I derive the pleasure of 'creating' something, being busy with creative inspiration? Or is it time for me to go to dr. Phil or an psychiatrist ;-)) ?
What is your 'drive' that you keep creating a new (keyboard) song and do you often play it again afterwards

[RoyceM]

Your description of your experiences remind me of what I call (in jest), "The Garfield Syndrome": IT'S NOT THE HAVING...IT'S THE GETTING!  Do cats necessarily want the mouse? or do they just relish the chase?

Anyway, what you have said has a familiar ring to it. However, most songs I arrange and learn are for my gigs. So I play them over and over. Occasionally, I discover my attraction to a song isn't shared by my audiences, so I then set that whole accomplishment aside.

- Royce

[ticktock]

Sounds like simply Demand and Supplies.
Ted

[ton37]

Your description of your experiences remind me of what I call (in jest), "The Garfield Syndrome": IT'S NOT THE HAVING...IT'S THE GETTING!  Do cats necessarily want the mouse? or do they just relish the chase?

Anyway, what you have said has a familiar ring to it. However, most songs I arrange and learn are for my gigs. So I play them over and over. Occasionally, I discover my attraction to a song isn't shared by my audiences, so I then set that whole accomplishment aside.

- Royce

Thanks Royce, that saying /proverb is a better translation for what I meant. I play purely for myself. I guess that it is for a gigger most important to have a flawless repertoir. For me it is not needed to have a great repertoir. So I think that is what homeplayers can permit themselves. Some (professional) player maybe have a better memory or 'muscle memory' to play the songs they want/like just on the fly. Don't misunderstand, I love 'the getting' and have much fun with 'the chase'. As searching for a good style, a right sound or composition. Sometimes that takes more time than the playing sec. Even that, I don't mind. It's all about the joy of music making, at any level. Thanks for reading and responding.

[mikf]

I mostly just sit and play, seldom recording. Occasionally I get an urge to record a particular song, and I think when an arrangement gets in your head it’s a bit like an itch that has to be scratched. If I do record and I think it’s good I will go back and listen to it, but if I don’t think it’s good it’s gone. And sometimes when I do go back and listen I decide it wasn’t as good as I thought it was at the time and it goes too. So very few are kept!
Mike

[DrakeM]

I play out regular and if I am playing for free I will play more songs from the last 20 years. If I am getting paid ( for a retired crowd) I will play from the 50's to the 90's.

I don't throw out any styles or arrangements. Some I can't recall the licks and/or play them off the top of my head (for what ever reason/ mental block) I have set them aside. I will play them at home and continue to try and get them down.

I record every arrangement and actually listen to them as I am falling asleep every night. If I hear something off or think it needs a lick or another riff, maybe needs a better ending,  I note it then (I will get up).

I only learn songs I want to sing, so I would never drop a song once I have it worked out. Ain't gonna happen. 

Regards
Drake

 

[ton37]

Thank you all for your answers. Very interesting to read how everyone deals with this. I don't sing, so I only play instrumental songs. I would like to record that life, so my challenge is to record this without digital improvements afterwards. Given my limited playing technique, I sometimes have to do that dozens of times to record a song without errors. That's why I probably don't have the urge to play it again afterwards? Again, as soon as you have a number of listeners, will you need a good sounding repertoire? That is not the case with me, so I go from song to song. But that certainly satisfies me and always sees that as a challenge, a journey of discovery in music. And there is sooo much to discover ;-))

[Doghouse Riley]

For me there's "evergreen favourites" from any era.

To get me in the mood to start playing rather than indulge in any of my other hobbies, "so much to do, so little time." I'll start off with a few tunes of different genres  I know by heart and don't need the music to remind me. (At my age this list is getting shorter). Then I'll move on to some of favourites where I do need the music. That can usually keep me going for as long as I want to play in one session.

Apart from that, there are tunes I hear occasionally usually in a programme on TV, or on the radio that may or not be familiar to me (most of them are) which I haven't played before. So I'll get the music or find the tabs and learn to play it as a "challenge." Once I've mastered it, it might be included in one of my "favourite tunes binders," to be played again at sometime, or it may be "relegated" to another folder and I might not bother to play it again for quite a while, if again at all.

An example of that is the tune "Heart's Content," which I heard in a film I enjoyed on TV called "Safe Haven."

Here's what I heard, it's by Brandi Carlisle.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=50S9X7TlbUk

I confess I taught myself to play it, but have not  played it since.

[markstyles]

I've always had the drive to create music compositions, since I was a kid (12).  You do reach a point, where you're writing the same song over and over. That signifies it is time to read, learn more about music.  I'm sure like many here, you buy a new kbd, and it inspires you to write song using it's patches. 

I took music and songwriting lessons online.  That gave me a batch of new inspiration to write.  I took some songwriting courses online at Berkley Music in Boston. Great but expensive. Coursera.org has some great courses.  They try to get you to pay, but you can 'audit' the course for free.

When you get some new ideas, they can inspire you to create something new. I took a harmony and voice leading course at courser.  I didn't do well at all.  But 2 months later, I decided that I was going to create pieces with maybe one or two instruments playing chords, then the rest of the tracks would be 1 or 2 voices.  I did bet something from the voice leading course.

Lately I have really been into the psychology of music.  Why do certain harmonics in an instrument voice affect you. How your choice of notes can evoke a feeling.
I've also been totally 'binge watching' shows on Amazon Prime, Hulu, Netflix.  It made me realize you can 'script' a song out you would a TV series,  One or two instruments are the lead characters, there are supporting instruments, there are some instruments that come in and change the scene of what the music is doing, then those instruments go out.