The fine line between ambitious & maniacal

Does anybody else on this forum have visions of grandeur (sp?- sorry im on mobile watmm) when it comes to their music or art?

I for one can't help but have vast expansive ideas/concepts for albums, eps, and singles with storylines, peculiar themes and an ecclectic array of styles...But it doesnt stop there- i want to make music videos, short films, documentaries, even full movies... Art, fasion, design, architectural structures, musicals, playwrights, etc...

When i see the full catalogues of minimal electronic acts like Pan Sonic or Alva Noto, I, too want to make beautiful clicky jazzy, glitchy noises and harmonic structures, fun bleeps, weird sounds, and release them under a really unique alias with really minimal, tight & clean packaging and make limited releases... But but but at the same time, i, this very same person has dreams of releasing an ambitious catalogue of genre-bending music, from new wave and glam rock to alt/electro to shoegaze to dance pop.. And be as prophetic & passionate as David Bowie & Phil Collins.. But I I I I ALSO wanna make club bangers, sick futuristic dance floor tracks. Sometimes, all I want to do is just play punk rock in a punk rock band. One day out of the year, i feel like itd be fun to write a country song, or just as strange, play black metal.

What the fuck is wrong with me and why the fuck do we not have 100,000+ years on this Earth so that maniacs like me are able to actually develop all of these projects in a single lifetime...? Or at least give them a shot..

Does anyone else (in the words of Father Trent "wanna know everything", "wanna fuck everyone in the world", wanna "do something that matters"??

Yeah, it's not just you. The mania's fun and all, but to really get good at creating things, you need direction, focus. Otherwise it's like a firehose with no one aiming it in any particular place. Pick the one or two things you're most passionate about and work on them solidly for a few months, or however long it takes to complete a specific project, before moving on. Easier said than done, I know, when there's so much to do in the world.

I spent much of last year writing music, and much of this year writing fiction. My only regret is the half-finished albums I still haven't resumed working on before I switched to writing for a while. I just hope I can finish this story before I switch back to music, clients permitting.

Having a broad range of interests is good, just make sure you still finish projects.

its like when Ma Kent says to Clark 'tune it out son, just make the world a little smaller'

i still do suffer from the same affliction btw, but this tactic has helped to get me to focus on one project at a time

edit: also i think for some artists, their ocd/perfection is what drives their creativity and makes it thrive, for others it's a curse. Having overly grandeur ideas that also need to excel over your favorite art in that category is an extremely challenging gesture. People spend lifetimes attempting it but most don't succeed and just put out whatever ideas they can before they die, which is the best anybody can really try to achieve

  On 8/15/2013 at 9:41 AM, Lane Visitor said:

Does anybody else on this forum have visions of grandeur (sp?- sorry im on mobile watmm) when it comes to their music or art?

 

I for one can't help but have vast expansive ideas/concepts for albums, eps, and singles with storylines, peculiar themes and an ecclectic array of styles...But it doesnt stop there- i want to make music videos, short films, documentaries, even full movies... Art, fasion, design, architectural structures, musicals, playwrights, etc...

 

When i see the full catalogues of minimal electronic acts like Pan Sonic or Alva Noto, I, too want to make beautiful clicky jazzy, glitchy noises and harmonic structures, fun bleeps, weird sounds, and release them under a really unique alias with really minimal, tight & clean packaging and make limited releases... But but but at the same time, i, this very same person has dreams of releasing an ambitious catalogue of genre-bending music, from new wave and glam rock to alt/electro to shoegaze to dance pop.. And be as prophetic & passionate as David Bowie & Phil Collins.. But I I I I ALSO wanna make club bangers, sick futuristic dance floor tracks. Sometimes, all I want to do is just play punk rock in a punk rock band. One day out of the year, i feel like itd be fun to write a country song, or just as strange, play black metal.

I'm exactly the same. I was good at focusing on one thing at a time for a while, but recently have had ideas to write music in every single genre that I like listening to. I try to write at least one song in each genre though, which is a start.. and is tempting me to start releasing Ween-esque multi-genre albums.

I'm definitely afflicted with this. Basically my strategy is continually doing small projects with 3 larger, long term projects sort of percolating in the background and moving along when I have the time to advance them.

Nicely articulated, Lane Visitor. I love those giddy rushes of ambition/inspiration that happen sometimes. It's definitely better to be insanely grandiose and ambitious even if it's never going to manifest itself in concrete, finished works. Definitely better to have insane, wonderful ambitions than to be narrow-minded and boring as fuck! Plus you need that mad ambition to spur you through the actual business of getting good at something, which tends to involve long hours of work that can be pretty dull/taxing.

@ZoeB, what sort of thing are you writing?

  On 8/15/2013 at 9:41 AM, Lane Visitor said:

What the fuck is wrong with me and why the fuck do we not have 100,000+ years on this Earth so that maniacs like me are able to actually develop all of these projects in a single lifetime...?

  On 8/16/2013 at 5:36 PM, Leon Sumbitches said:

@ZoeB, what sort of thing are you writing?

It's a story about a lesbian hacker in Hong Kong and how she brings down a monopolistic telecoms corporation to avenge her friend's death, basically. I had a very vague idea for the setting many, many years ago, but it was only in December last year that I finally started actually writing it. The prose short story version has been rejected by a few sci-fi magazines so far, but I'm not too concerned about that as I've been furiously writing and rewriting the screenplay adaptation of it (presumably also to be rejected), which is much better, albeit missing all the semi-poetic descriptions. If nothing else comes of it, at the bare minimum I'll adapt it again, into a comic book script, and send that to my artist to draw. I realise it's a pretty niche story and am quite happy if it's not that popular, I just want to finish it and make it the best it can be, then move on to the next project.

Anyway, the combination of the push factor of realising I'd incorrectly produced a bunch of tracks in a soundtrack towards the end of last year, and the pull factor of really enjoying writing this story, conspired to make me stop making music for a while, to write instead. Now I'm working on another soundtrack, so I need to switch back again, but I'm getting far too excited about this script to stop now. I need to finish it while I'm still enthusing about it and constantly thinking about it. That's when you know you're onto something good.

Anyway, sorry for the self indulgent, off topic infodump. :) Yes, it's hard to find the time to balance all these different outlets of creativity, especially while holding down a day job.

That sounds fucking awesome, I would totally read that. Be sure to link it/ let us know if it gets published!

  On 8/16/2013 at 6:25 PM, Leon Sumbitches said:

That sounds fucking awesome, I would totally read that. Be sure to link it/ let us know if it gets published!

Thanks! ^.^

let me just say i feel this topic was about, um... a friend, so why don't you just pm them instead and stop being all passive aggressive?

;)

  On 8/16/2013 at 6:15 PM, ZoeB said:

 

  On 8/16/2013 at 5:36 PM, Leon Sumbitches said:

@ZoeB, what sort of thing are you writing?

 

It's a story about a lesbian hacker in Hong Kong and how she brings down a monopolistic telecoms corporation to avenge her friend's death, basically. I had a very vague idea for the setting many, many years ago, but it was only in December last year that I finally started actually writing it. The prose short story version has been rejected by a few sci-fi magazines so far, but I'm not too concerned about that as I've been furiously writing and rewriting the screenplay adaptation of it (presumably also to be rejected), which is much better, albeit missing all the semi-poetic descriptions. If nothing else comes of it, at the bare minimum I'll adapt it again, into a comic book script, and send that to my artist to draw. I realise it's a pretty niche story and am quite happy if it's not that popular, I just want to finish it and make it the best it can be, then move on to the next project.

 

Anyway, the combination of the push factor of realising I'd incorrectly produced a bunch of tracks in a soundtrack towards the end of last year, and the pull factor of really enjoying writing this story, conspired to make me stop making music for a while, to write instead. Now I'm working on another soundtrack, so I need to switch back again, but I'm getting far too excited about this script to stop now. I need to finish it while I'm still enthusing about it and constantly thinking about it. That's when you know you're onto something good.

 

Anyway, sorry for the self indulgent, off topic infodump. :) Yes, it's hard to find the time to balance all these different outlets of creativity, especially while holding down a day job.

 

thanks for the anecdote. Sometimes it's easy to get down on myself for not being musically productive, but sometimes iv'e found it's healthy for me to move onto other projects to 'recharge' the music making bone. There was a while in my youth where i was making a track a day and on what seemed like an endless supply of creative energy. I think once that sort of fizzled out i spent way too much energy trying to force myself to be the same way without opening up to the idea that sometimes its good to take a break.

my strategy is to never finish anything. because nothing matters anyway.

does it really matter if you make a sweet track? or if you do something radical?

who fucking cares?

jk

everything we do matters and ppl should do great things and probably you are the one who will invent a great new thing that hasn't been done before yadda yadda yadda bla bla bla

everything is awesome

and the stuff you make will probably make sexy ladies orgasm just by looking at it. just very juicy orgasms.

frickin birds will tweet happy songs just above your head as you walk around outside, singing bird songs about your great accomplishments

and it wont even annoy you like it does when youve been up all night working on some bullshit and now youre trying to sleep as the sun is coming up and those damn birds wont shut the fuck up

what is the resonant frequency of the clitoris? for research purposes only

Right. This is what happens when the American Psycho, a lesbo-hacker vigilante, and an acoustician writing his diatribe on stimulating female genitalia with the correct spectral frequency meet up in an innocent IDM forum and discuss 'ambition'.

"WATMM: EVERYTHING YOU DO IS NOT A BALLOON"

Carry on, I've just subscribed..

oh so i'm the american psycho?

how about if youre the friggin...

..

dork

and i don't think 'correct spectral frequency' makes any sense, not to mention that it wasnt a diatribe, he just asked what the resonant frequency was

go home and be a family man

(i stole that sf2 quote from someone here who said it to me once and i liked it so now im going to say it. i think it was deer. credit to him but now its mine bitches. go home and be family men all of you)

(in response to Lane Visitor)

Yeah actually I feel exactly the same. I want to know and do and meet and be and eat and fuck and see and hear and everything in the whole existence.

But, at the same time, I just want to be happy.

Basically, if I don't do exactly everything I want to (which is insane too), I'll feel depressed. In fact, I've experienced it and really sucks. So then, I need to lay down a bit and prioritize what is important or possible right now.

I think that saying "I want to do everything" is a pretty motivating thing, since it keeps your butt moving and shit. But also it should be controlled because, if not, it could end in suicide.

it's called bipolar disorder/psychosis; otherwise known as creativity. most great artists have it. It is your most important tool, yet it can seriously ruin you. It can lead you to suicidal thoughts. it isn't rational. You need to learn to channel it, for you will never truly control it. Sometimes I wish I was just another average joe not plagued by pointless artistic visions, yet alas, I am not, and never will be. You have to give up everything, choose the path of the suffering artist, and stick with it. Much pain and failure awaits. Honestly it isn't clear that any cathartic point of completion and peace lies on the horizon. ja, so ist das leben.

MrE, I wasn't referring to you my love. Besides, you didn't get the role..

(seriously though, you do know I was only joking, right? Why would I ever want to ridicule someone in the forum..)

  On 8/18/2013 at 1:26 AM, IOS said:

MrE, I wasn't referring to you my love. Besides, you didn't get the role..

 

(seriously though, you do know I was only joking, right? Why would I ever want to ridicule someone in the forum..)

go home and be a family man

OK OK OK Mister E, mystery, eerie mist, I'll go home and I'll be a family man.

@Lane Visitor Yep, I can totally relate to how ambitiously you're thinking. My humble advice: don't second guess, keep thinking like that.

  On 8/18/2013 at 1:42 AM, IOS said:

OK OK OK Mister E, mystery, eerie mist, I'll go home and I'll be a family man.

ios, dont talk.

just

[youtubehd]tawnOvY-DcM[/youtubehd]

do not pass go do not collect 200 dollars just go home and be a family man

Funny that you used (three times in a row) a flawed taunt that comes from an 80s video game, where Guile the winner instructs Chun Li the loser (clearly a girl) to be a family _man_, while at the same time you have mistaken 'piece' and 'peace' in your profile description.

Don't take advice from faceless no name losers on a message board lol

Basically

Advice isn't that useful. It's cloud. Be vague.

That's advice. Sadly

Herzog had an interview he said over and over, just finish it. Get through it and move on. He said he could do like five films while these younger guys would get caught up on details and over thinking everything with too much footage. That's somewhat true.

But on the other hand look at how loveless turned out, and how it was made. Long, obsessive, total.

There is no formula, thus all advice is just the personal view of the creator. There is zero guarantee that it will suit you, really. Just because it suits them. Be true to self but grow, you have to have it on your mind. Most of my growth has happened while I was thinking over days and weeks without touching the musical equipment. Technical ability guarantees absolutely nothing. Practice and work and thought do allow you to make bigger more complex things, but in the end the moonlight sonata isn't really less great than the ninth, you know. One was a lot easier and less technical to write.