My biggest mistake on this site

Hi Maxxxie,you've had a lot great advice from our super musicians,but as a "vintage" bass player,I'v got to say that If you are at the learning stage of bass playing, then listen to as many different bass players on here as possible,I still do,it's a great way to improve your playing trying to figure out,"how the f**k did he play that!!.and the main thing-have fun.

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The last few posts are getting way off topic and embody several different ideas worth exploring. Would suggest that you start a new post that looks at these issues. Suggestions have been made in the past about commercializing some tracks, and "outside" radio station. They are relevant topics, especially now when there is a funding problem. People won't be expecting to see and talk about these under this topic's heading.

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one of the great artists , i think it was macintosh said "if its in your home, it should be beautiful or useful, ideally both at once, but if its neither, it should not be there.
so if you aint having fun or making something beautiful......dont do it!
if on the other hand your are doing one of the aforementioned.....get on with it and stop worrying what everyone else thinks.

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Some recommended reading:
"The happiness trap" by Russ Harris
"Bounce" by Matthew Syed
"Zen and the art of motorcycle maintenance" by Robert Pirsig

All them deal with this issue in some aspect or another and they are read-worthy be themselves as well.

My take on this is: I'm a beginner every single new day and I learn when I struggle. And there is no shortage of things to struggle with so on the end of each day I will have learned something provided that I bothered to struggle

As for comparing yourself with others I think its inevitable our brains just do that. But there is another take on this as well. Use others as benchmarks that help you instead of someone to compete with. The comparison is still there so your brain will be happy but the negative aspects are much less severe

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You've gotten alot of good advice. One other thing you could do to help alleviate the feeling of competition is to send personal messages to players that you think could give you positive critical feedback on your playing. Most of the players here would probably be very willing to help.

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My dear friend, I do the following when I come across this situation, I go ahead and enjoy myself, sometimes I wish I could do more, be more creative, but as a human being I have my limitations and instead of being sad I see another Way, thank you for having found this site and I try to do better the next and I'm sure you have your talents and never stop posting, because you must have something unique in yourself, sometimes the contribution goes out in 15 minutes, sometimes weeks , Sometimes nothing comes, but an hour will hit the target in full! Greetings! :D

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Message pour maxxxie:

Hi, Désolé mon anglais n'est pas bon, généralement je n'interviens jamais car pas le temps mais en te lisant , j'avais envie de te répondre...il ne faut jamais baisser les bras ...c'est justement grâce à ce genre de site comme wikiloops qu'on a l'opportunité de s'enrichir et de s'améliorer...tout le monde passé par là. Chaque création est unique et belle peu importe le "niveau"! Faut continuer et ne pas perdre confiance.

MikaBass

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Thank you to everyone who's replied, for your kind words, your encouragement and your advice. It's helpful to know that others sometimes feel the same way. And it's good to understand other peoples' perspectives on how they feel about their own music and skills. I think that a shift of perspective will help me find inspiration from other peoples' loops, rather than feeling defeated by my own lack of skills.

Mika, merci beaucoup (et je suis desolee que mon francais est terrible!). Tu as raison, comme les autres; si je change mon point de vue, je peu trouver de l'inspiration au lieu de perdre confiance.

Thanks again everyone :)
Max

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Hey,

yes of course, here on the loops are many musicians who take their instruments better then I do...sometimes
I feel disapointed about that, but I don`t will give up making music...because I`ve great fun to do what I can... :)

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Your exactly Right Bill. There are so many great guitarist here and if I tried to compare myself to everyone else I would never add anything. With one difference. I've been playing long enough that no matter what I play it's going to sound like me. I believe what we play as musicians is always going to be an amalgamation of all our influences. So it's hard to say what's truly our own. Hopefully the end result when we play is the sum and differences of our many influences that make what we play recognizable to others as our own.:)

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Don't bother listening to other bass players beforehand, personally, I rarely if ever do that before I do a track, just do the track and play what you feel, do the best you can. Because, yeah you can get intimidated ... it can be hard to figure out what others are playing no matter how experienced you are, everyone has their own style. Once you've posted the track ... relax and review the other bassists when you feel like it and see what they've done and go ... "oh, maybe I'll try that sometime". That's one solution to your "issue". :)

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Music is the soul more than it is the technique....;o) good advice from Ernie!

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I never listen to other vocals on a track I'm contemplating until after I've given it a shot. I naturally beat myself up a lot (hence why I've made no contributions for over a year) anyway so hearing someone else nail it puts me off, especially coming from a metal background. The writing process is so different it's crazy.

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As a medium player to one who thinks he's not (so) good: If it kills your enthusiasm to upload or even give an appealing track a try you might be better of listen to it afterwards. But in my opinion listening is the most underestimated part of making music especially when jamming. As there is not only one 'solution' in making a good bass-part it can be a good learning experience how other players approach and play a song.
Don't forget bass is part of the rhythm section, listen to the length of notes and placement along bass=drum and snare. a good exercise on the simplest of songs is to try and hit your note on a bass-drum and be away just before the snare drops. Your drummer will like it even if he might not know what changed. And like everyone when it makes you feel good you play better. ;)
Also try to find out why a style of music feels like that. Why does rock sounds and feels like rock, or funk like funk, reggae as reggae and then you try to "cross it over" and mix it together.
Which notes you play is sometimes even of lesser importance... [youtube]biunavwAl_w[/youtube]
But whatever you do, don't loose the fun in playing. At any level, you should always play for your fun, if someone likes it too that's a nice side-effect. Making music is not a competition.:@

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I won't listen to other bass players interpretation before I finish and upload my contribution.

I do really look forward to listening to the other bass player uploads, as it's a treat to hear another person's interpretation of a song I've become so familiar with.

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