Criticism and how we deal with it.

[AK]

I have a couple of buddies whom I ask for technical opinion and sometimes I feel that they looking for negative points from the word go as they feel they obliged to. Hence my question.
Maybe it's a question of personality and how much one believes in oneself.
I'm often quite self critical so when somebody starts to disect my beloved track with negative points, I feel pretty down about it.
On the other hand, to be maiking music for years thinking it's the dog's doodahs without actually asking anybody's honest opinion is rather silly right?

Yeah, absolutely. Its a question of balance and self observation, i mean if you make a track and get so excited about it to the point of jacking off over it in the studio, something somewhere is seriously wrong. But its ok to be self critical and to be on a constant road of improvement whilst allowing yourself a sense of pride and achievement when you get it right.

Being self critical involves a fair amount of discipline and taking critique from others requires a bit of experience to know whats useful and whats not. Not everything will be. It will happen anyway as theres no point making music that nobody hears so there will always be good and bad things said. Ultimately, its down to you as to whether you find anything useful in it all.

[oblioblioblio]

the opinions of others is very weird.

in some ways you gotta cut yourself off from everything and be an island... and an island with a fuckin fortress! You;re gonna meet a lot of challenges along the way when doing creative work, and if you have too much invested in the opinions of others... you aren't gonna survive.

But at the same time... the true deep feelings of others about your work can be a little piece of magic you can keep in your pocket.

But at the same time as that, it's not always easy to give honest feedback. It's so hard to be honest to someone, unless you really know them well, to be honest about negativity.

And at the same time as that! ... You can listen to something one day and hate it, and then in a different environment it sounds totally different.

And then! If you are too happy about making "successful" music, you lose your edge, and that panic to create something out of nothing... creating something with no reference to anything... a pure connection .

[steevio]

the dancefloor is your best critic by lightyears.

you dont have to officially release tunes to try them out on the dancefloor.

almost all of us have DJ mates who will slip a tune into their set for you, even if its just a small house party, or if you DJ yourself no problem.

i dont think ive ever released a tune which wasnt played out in a club or at a party at least 10 times first.

[kdgh]

seperate the technical and subjective feedback.
If someone does not like your track, don't be to offended. If you dig it, you dig it. If people say something about the tech-stuff try to listen and try their feedback in your production.

[pafufta816]

Yeah, absolutely. Its a question of balance and self observation, i mean if you make a track and get so excited about it to the point of jacking off over it in the studio, something somewhere is seriously wrong.

lolz. it'd be impossible for me, i'd keep thinking "oh the hihats are too loud" and thus loose my momentum.

[swarlied]

critiscm is a way to see the world through different eyes. you get the change to view into a different reality (the one of someone else) when you put empathie in listening to it. this can be very very inspirational, you need to open yourself.

this does not mean that this perspective is helpfull. it totally depends. but its helping you to get out of your ego view a bit. the personal view can a little bit tricky, because sometimes you deeply know "this and that is wrong with the track". but you are to lazy to face it and put some more hard work into it to solve the issues. hard work = ego dont wants it. use critism to overcome this.
its like everything else what you see. use whats usefull and through the rest away. personally, i deeply respect the criticsm of my production-partner. but dont care about my working-colleges comments. interestingly. they dont like listening to it at home, but realy enjoy it watching live when the feel is better drawn. so even the same person can change there are 6.000.000.000 possible opinions about your music on this world. you realy have to judge by yourself, but dont forget to use it to get out of your ego-trap.

oh and by the way. dealing with feedback on my music realy made me confident with critics in every part of my life. some people wonder that i just say "thank you for your opinion" or just start to laugh instead of getting ungry.