X-rated Bob wrote:
Sure. But you've got to have some level of satisfaction with what you put out, and some level of self-criticism. Not necessarily destructive but a set of boxes that need to be ticked.
I do agree. But then self-criticism is an evolutionary thing. Your set of boxes on your first attempt might be just:
1) Record song
2) Don't sound completely crap
And later might look completely different. Having other people hear your music is an important part of developing that little list. What I was trying to say really is: it's a balancing act. Don't NEVER release anything because you're forever unhappy that you don't sound like Steve Vai, but then don't release stuff that you're personally very unhappy with. I held back on entering the last competition, because I wasn't able to cook something up that I was personally happy with.
I think it's become a millstone around his neck. Richard THompson once observed that professional musicians have to deal with this problem that doesn't even effect artists in most other disciplines. A painter can create a work and then it goes to some gallery and he doesn't have to see it again (or he can just lean it against a wall). A playwright doesn't have to go to every performance of a play. But musicians.... Clapton probably had people bellowing "Crooooossssrooooooads" for years and just got tired of it, so, IMO, he invents a reason for not playing it.
I remember reading Clapton saying something about being on the wrong part of the beat during the second solo, or some such. For me, it just highlights the differences in what the musician and the audience hear. It's good to take your audience's word for it, sometimes.
I'm not sure I agree on the idea that other artists don't face the same thing. Painters might not be forced to re-paint the same picture on every canvas, but they're certainly pressured (both within themselves and by others) to keep offering more of the same, particularly if their work is popular commercially or critically. Writers too. It's a pressure of a different sort (they're not really "performing artists") but it's still there. Stephen King has been trying to run away from "The Stand" for three decades now ?
Music is so interesting because you can get involved in so many areas: the music itself, the playing of an instrument, the art of recording and producing, the art of performing; it's like many art forms in one. I can only speak for myself, but it's sometimes easy to feel like you've gone backwards when you're tackling an aspect of being a musician that is not your "bread-and-butter" e.g. recording.
Side note: this week we were recording some of our takes during band practice, and were actually all quite disappointed with our individual contributions. This was despite the fact that we all felt pretty damn good
during the take. Listening to yourself playing back on a recording...well...it seems to be an almost universal thing: the self-criticism sky-rockets.
