Do you tell people their music garbage?

Duwop

Duwop

Sometimes being the hero means saving the villain.
Like if someone lets you hear a track they did. Or they post it on social media. Do you feel compelled to be an honest vocal critic? Or do you just let them have their moment and offer encouragement??
 
"If I don't like it, I don't like it, that don't mean that I'm hatin'" - Common

I always give honest feedback. As a musician I feel it's necessary because we can't improve if everyone lies to you about what they think of your output; you'll continue to crank out garbage without honest feedback.
 
I'm not a musician, but with move to publish my novels, I can honestly say people who just tell you what you want to hear aren't helping you. I'm sure it's the same for music too. If you're actually serious about putting out a good product, you need people who are going to give you honest feedback. The negative feedback is actually more important because it's what can help you improve your work enough for it to be successful.
 
The Lonious Monk said:
I'm not a musician, but with move to publish my novels, I can honestly say people who just tell you what you want to hear aren't helping you. I'm sure it's the same for music too. If you're actually serious about putting out a good product, you need people who are going to give you honest feedback. The negative feedback is actually more important because it's what can help you improve your work enough for it to be successful.
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I need to get back to my writing as well. I went to a seminar where the guy speaking said all the real writing is done in the editing. And that's where I struggle... Going back to edit
 
Duwop said:
I need to get back to my writing as well. I went to a seminar where the guy speaking said all the real writing is done in the editing. And that's where I struggle... Going back to edit
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One of the things you do as a musician is record something, listen to it in the ride, on the living room stereo, and in headphones, then leave it alone for a day or two and come back and listen to it with fresh ears and you'll hear stuff that you didn't in that first round of listening That's when you go back in and make changes and re-listen to it.

When I would write, I always took the same approach: Assuming I wasn't on a tight deadline I'd write something, read it a time or two, then put it up for a couple of days and come back to it with fresh eyes. Sometimes I can do it on the fly like when I post here, which is why a lot of my posts have numerous edits on them. I post something, then re-read it critically and fix it so what I've posted flows better or sometimes I'll add stuff for context. But for the most part I have to let it sit for a while before going back to edit.
 
Duwop said:
I need to get back to my writing as well. I went to a seminar where the guy speaking said all the real writing is done in the editing. And that's where I struggle... Going back to edit
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lol You have no idea. It's not just editing. The first thing you should do if you've written something an you don't know what to do with it is to find someone who reads that type of work and let them read it. That alone will lead to something.

Let me tell you my experience so far just to drive the point home. I had written what I thought to be four novels. I picked one and decided I wanted to see what I could do with it. After some research I joined an author's club right before COVID then COVID came and basically ended that. Before it ended, I linked up with a dude that had already published a few books. He agreed to read mine and give me feedback. I sent him the manuscript. No lie, five minutes after I sent it to him, he wrote me back like "This is not a novel. This is like three novels." I was so green I didn't even know what a typical word count was for a novel. I was just writing. So, I ended up having to break the novel up into three parts, then add more to each part to fill in, and then change a bunch of shit based on actual feedback which included shifting the entire book from a first-person perspective to a third-person limited. Now instead of shopping a standalone novel, I'm trying to publish the first novel in a four novel series.

Guess what? I made the same mistake with all my other novels. So instead of having four, I really have like 10-12, which is good if I find success with this first book, but it means I'll have a shit ton of work to do to get them ready for publishing.
 
If they let me hear it and I don’t like it I find something positive to compliment them on first and then I tell them what I feel they could’ve done better. If they just post it then no I keep my opinion to myself.
 
The Lonious Monk said:
lol You have no idea. It's not just editing. The first thing you should do if you've written something an you don't know what to do with it is to find someone who reads that type of work and let them read it. That alone will lead to something.

Let me tell you my experience so far just to drive the point home. I had written what I thought to be four novels. I picked one and decided I wanted to see what I could do with it. After some research I joined an author's club right before COVID then COVID came and basically ended that. Before it ended, I linked up with a dude that had already published a few books. He agreed to read mine and give me feedback. I sent him the manuscript. No lie, five minutes after I sent it to him, he wrote me back like "This is not a novel. This is like three novels." I was so green I didn't even know what a typical word count was for a novel. I was just writing. So, I ended up having to break the novel up into three parts, then add more to each part to fill in, and then change a bunch of shit based on actual feedback which included shifting the entire book from a first-person perspective to a third-person limited. Now instead of shopping a standalone novel, I'm trying to publish the first novel in a four novel series.

Guess what? I made the same mistake with all my other novels. So instead of having four, I really have like 10-12, which is good if I find success with this first book, but it means I'll have a shit ton of work to do to get them ready for publishing.
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So y'all saw most of my journey...

I wrote a couple stories on here and black board...and a few posters encouraged me to get them published, so I did some edits, combined the two stories, added some back story and a way to link them, and Goldie started a go fund me to help.... Shit was kinda dope. I entered it into a readers digest first time author contest.... They accepted it reviewed it, and gave me a 4/5 review with a lotta insight.... They just said I really needed to get it edited.

A friend of mines who has been published read it loved it., she was going to edit it for me as her book was any her domestic violence experience and that's a huge part of my story.... We had a bunch of conversations about the story in general and what she liked about it and what I could work on..... Then COVID happened and everybody just kinda went their separate ways...I keep saying imma get back to it...I just never have.

I always tell people writing is so much more than "oh I got this dope idea that would make a great story" I have tons of dope ideas .... It's just so the work that goes into turning it into something that's marketable that's the challenge.

I know it really comes down to me just scheduling time and really focusing on the work...I just never got to it.. Shits a lot
 
@5 Grand

Funny Bat Signal GIFs | Tenor

 
I would and I have before. I told this story on the IC but there's a rapper from here named Fat Trel that signed with MMG before. Right before he made it big him and my younger brother were in my Dad's then living room listening to music. I just happened to be over there that day and came out the back bedroom when they was playing it. I stopped and listened to a few bars and said "oh this nigga sucks" and just kept it pushing. Later that day my brother told me "You know you told that nigga his music sucks?

Me: "well he needs to rap better"
 
Duwop said:
So y'all saw most of my journey...

I wrote a couple stories on here and black board...and a few posters encouraged me to get them published, so I did some edits, combined the two stories, added some back story and a way to link them, and Goldie started a go fund me to help.... Shit was kinda dope. I entered it into a readers digest first time author contest.... They accepted it reviewed it, and gave me a 4/5 review with a lotta insight.... They just said I really needed to get it edited.

A friend of mines who has been published read it loved it., she was going to edit it for me as her book was any her domestic violence experience and that's a huge part of my story.... We had a bunch of conversations about the story in general and what she liked about it and what I could work on..... Then COVID happened and everybody just kinda went their separate ways...I keep saying imma get back to it...I just never have.

I always tell people writing is so much more than "oh I got this dope idea that would make a great story" I have tons of dope ideas .... It's just so the work that goes into turning it into something that's marketable that's the challenge.

I know it really comes down to me just scheduling time and really focusing on the work...I just never got to it.. Shits a lot
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You should really get back into it. The independent writing community is actually very supportive. You can find a lot of help online and there are a lot of good tools out there to help too.

I recommend you look up this tool called ProWritingAid. It's got a paid version, but the free version gives you some good functionality too, just with limitations. Two things it offers you'll definitely want is the editing feature. It's much more comprehensive than the spell and grammar check that you get in something like word. It also has an AI chapter assessment that allows you to copy/paste or upload a chapter and get pretty detailed feedback. Yes, it's AI and not a person, but I actually got a professional assessment done for my novel and compared it to the AI assessment, and they said a lot of the same things. So, it's not a bad tool to try. You can edit a little a day with the tool and you'll make a lot of progress.
 
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