12/24/24
i had a conversation with someone about criticism of creative work the other day. the idea was that i should stop being critical of my own and other peoples work for a while, and try to see the good in it.
i agree with that idea on the whole, but have some reservations about the approach. the basic idea is sound. you can learn to do things better by internalizing positive things and avoiding negative things.
but if you get stuck doing one thing or the other, it can have a negative impact on your output. and its easier to pick out flaws than to appreciate good things, so many people, me included, tend to
focus on negative things. then you wont have any positive ideas, only negative ones. you may learn what not to do, but not what to do. and your idea of what is bad to do will probably be flawed because
you have an unbalanced view of positive and negative things.

i agree with that idea overall, and i think that i do have that issue. before i attempted writing music, learning piano, etc, i used to be much more unwilling to be satisfied with what i was doing unless i
was doing it well. i would power through this really strong feeling of frustration and inadequacy while learning new things, because i wanted to be good at them from the get go. im still like that in a lot
of ways, but i think ive toned down on it a lot. its just that i dont want to let go of that completely, because i dont want to lose passion for things. part of improvement is to realize that you have
issues. i wouldnt want to let go of that just because i couldnt handle having issues. its difficult to strike a balance between being comfortable with being imperfect, and also wanting to improve.
i wanted to be able to play piano. i couldnt play piano. that frustrated me, so i played for months before i got to be decent at it because it was important to me. it wasnt easy for me. there would be
days that i would beat myself up too much, and i wouldnt improve. there would be days that i was too lenient with myself, and i wouldnt improve. the only way i could get better at it was to find the balance
between those two things. dont be overly critical of things, and try to find the good in them. but don't let that keep you from seeing the flaws in your work. if i avoid criticism, i wont be able to face the part of me that
refuses to accept inadequacy. i wont be able to look at my work for what it is, as a whole, and accept it for what it is, good and bad, while also remaining determined to fix it. i guess i could try to
avoid criticizing to avoid doing it in order to establish a healthy balance between the two things, but the reason that the balance is skewed in the first place is because i cant handle inadequacy, so i get hyperfixed on it.
the only way to fix that, in my opinion, is to spend time criticizing my own work, and put effort into doing it in a healthy and productive way, while also spending time finding good things in it.
to wrap that up, running away from my struggle with inadequacy would likely lead me to be poorly equipped to accept criticism in the future, which would negatively affect my work.
the only way to do it isnt to run to either extreme side and always be critical, or always be positive. its to find the time and the place for both things, and to do them properly.
if i can handle criticism, if i can see the good in things, thats on me.
anyways, i wrote some music today. i was listening to the house music from links awakening and i wanted to write something comforting with a fairly consistent melody. i like the amount of variety in the original, with volume
and harmony and sound and melody. varying the supporting notes by making them quiter/louder/higher/lower really made a lot of difference in making the piece feel less repetitive. and there was a lot of different sections,
so its really hard to even identify where the loop is in the first place. and all of the harmonies sound cohesive, which really makes the piece feel very special
inside_clone_v1
mostly same pros and cons as v2. also im tired/going to bed, maybe ill continue this and yesterdays teardowns later. maybe not idk
inside_clone_v2
im not quite as much a fan of how exactly my chords are. they feel warm, but in more of a pokemon center kind of way than a dreamy kind of way. and there isnt nearly as much variance in rhythm/melody.
inside a house had the lower part and the higher part both have a melody. but this piece only had the consistent tone on top, and a moving melody on the bottom.
it doesn't necessarily sound bad, but it could use more variety in that respect. i do like how quickly i was able to put it out though, and that i was at least able to identify some decent melody.
the implied harmony from each section to the next does somewhat change, even if its not too bold of a change. the sounds are a bit plain, but they sound nice for being pretty quickly made. im not sure
how to be much more descriptive with the way that i can add texture to those sounds. theres obviously magic 8 bit advanced settings, but thats a pain to use... but more importantly you cant really change it
between notes like with a tracker. since youre essentially manually providing texture to every note in a tracker, you have so much more control over how each sound is. but im too cringe to use a tracker,
so fl is fine for now.