Needing PERFECTION

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It makes perfect sense that it would be self destroying, but every time I hear a recording of myself that isn't perfect I just cringe and want to hide.

i wish i could do like you do with actual gigs and talent and all.

Thanks. I'm sure you're talented, and it's never a bad day to start trying to get gigs / get in a band that does gigs. Do you have absolute pitch? I'm thinking I may remember you saying something about it before, but I'm not entirely certain.

thank you but if i am talented, i haven't figured out just what that talent might be all about. when i was younger i had a fine sense of pitch within a few cycles per second [according to the old-fashioned pitch discerning machine with the glowing tube that my band instructor used on me], and i could indeed tune band instruments by ear and with precision. but as i've grown decades older, my pitch sense has distressingly deteriorated to where everything sounds 1&1/2 semitones sharp to me now. i can correct for this somewhat but no longer within a discrete few cycles per second, but still good enough for people to play their instruments in tune to the satisfaction of everybody 'cept for people with the hearing acuity/pitch sense that i used to have. as far as musical talent goes, i can't play much beyond a kazoo. my fingers would not callous sufficient to play the acoustic guitar, and i suppose i should've tried a classical guitar with gut strings, maybe one day. i wonder how hard it is for a no-talent to learn how to play a uke? such a friendly little instrument. in any case it took me forever to move my fingers on the fretboard and i lacked the muscletone in my arms/wrists/hands to hold down the chords. i lack the ability to multitask which is necessary for playing things like organs [with multiple manuals and pedalboard] and pianos [with damper pedals] and drumsets with all the toys. i never was able to sight-read fluently. i can read music mind you, but i can't follow along with it in real time, my brain is too slow. so i must content myself with being able to play the boombox

When I was younger I would lose my temper if the art or craft I was creating wasn't (in my eyes) perfect and I would destroy it in a rage. I think the worst thing I can remember doing was destroying a piece of knitting that I had worked hours and hours on. It was looking good and I was happy until I made a mistake and couldn't work out how to fix it, so I ripped the stitches off my needles in an angry rage and unraveled it... hours of work destroyed in a few minutes! I so regretted it as soon as I saw the pile of yarn in front of me. I know the mistake could have been fixed if I'd had a break then gone back to it. I've destroyed paintings, writing and other artwork because they just weren't up to my standards (but then, nothing ever is).

Now, when I'm creating and I feel something isn't perfect, I have learned to put it down, walk away, vent my anger away from the work (if I need to vent anger), then go back later to see if I still think it's not perfect enough. Stuff still gets destroyed, but not as much, and only if I really think it's still crap after seeing it with fresh eyes.

There's still a lot of things I'd love to do but don't because I'm scared of not being perfect... singing in public comes to mind (I have been invited to join a choir).

Got news for youse! There is no such thing as perfection. It is not possible for anything to be perfect. Nothing and no one is perfect, so get over it! Just do the best you can, and move on.

Questor got it what we consider right for now that there is no such thing as perfection. Of course Socrates wouldn't be happy with me saying that.
But in line with the nothing is perfect idea it never stops me from trying. I have been so obsessed with getting my tasks perfect that when I couldn't I put my fist through a wall...... I never realised how weak the wall was!
I found that the best way to overcome this was to settle down and admit that what you have done is enough and not worth any bleeding fists over.

Ever heard of Glenn Gould? A fantastic Canadian pianist, he became obsessed with making the perfect recording of the Goldberg Variations, among other things. Spent the better part of his life splicing the 'perfect' bits of his recordings together. He was a fascinating individual.

I have such a hard time looking at the big picture. I get stuck inside all the tiny details.

I spent four months last year developing the perfect high altitude cookie.

I used to do this when I was still drawing in pencil. (Now it's all Digital so it's easier to correct mistakes) When I was coloring something as a kid, if I went outside the lines too much I would get extremely angry at myself and even start hitting my hand as punishment.

It doesn't matter if it's actually perfect, or whether being perfect is possible, or what not. The need for perfection, the desire for it, and the feeling I get when things fall short, is still there. Trust me, if I could "get over it" I would have long ago. Logically I know it's ridiculous to have these expectations, but I can't help it - I've tried, and I still try.

I used to be the teacher aide for the guitar instructor when I was in high school, and I'd tune everybody's guitars by ear. That certainly caught the instructor's attention, haha. I remember you talking about the cochlear shrinkage that causes a shift in pitch perception in people with absolute pitch. I really hope mine doesn't get bad, but at least I know that it happens now.


Uke is very easy on the hands and gentle on the fingers. They can sound pretty nice too, nothing like a toy, if you get one intended to be an actual musical instrument. Have you considered any wind instruments?


I do well with multitasking body parts musically, with piano, organs, drums, and all sorts of other stuff. My problem comes with singing and playing at the same time, when the vocals and the instrument part I'm playing don't mix. I can do it, I just need to practice it more than I do other things. It usually happens when I'm doing lead vocals and bass at the same time. On bass I can sight read like a sight reading machine, and I do well with it on piano as long as it's nothing too complicated, but I really prefer just listening to a song and then playing it. I strongly dislike the overdependence our musical culture has on sheet music, because I think people would be better musicians if they had to figure things out by ear more often.

When I'm at work, everything that I do has to be perfect, or else I feel that I've screwed up.

through elementary/middle/jr/high school, i played a succession of wind instruments [clarinet, alto clarinet, bass clarinet, contralto clarinet, tuba] adequately well for the time, though i never got beyond 2nd chair on clarinet, due to my lack of sightreading ability. i've always had a preference for low-pitched instruments, so i tried to play bassoon but i couldn't get the embouchure right, and just squawked horribly on it. so i went to tuba, but that wore out my lips which became chronically chapped. i'd love to own a BBb contrabass clarinet, those are such sephulchral beasts that vibrate the floor and air around them. below, is the deepest clarinet ever made-
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ilXI7Z8oUzo[/youtube]
below, is the deepest flute ever made-
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S8p_Qv7UXKs&feature=related[/youtube]

you are very advanced, AFAIC. you have a quick brain and a quick body, compared to many. in a way, being a successful musician requires one to have great/quickthinking social intelligence to be interacting with other human musicians.

p.s.- speaking of singing and playing simultaneously, the late karen carpenter [who was a very good drummer, btw] could drum and sing seamlessly together. same for ringo starr and the late "the band" drummer. they amaze me.

Last edited by auntblabby on 22 May 2012, 2:28 am, edited 1 time in total.

I tend to have the bad habit of setting my standards way too high and beat my self up over it for not meeting my own expectations. It tends to lead to a bad meltdown in the end sometimes accompanied by self harm.

I actually have many difficulties in the social part of playing with others. For instance, I pretty much -never- recognize visual cues, like gestures and glances during practices where, for example, the lead singer is wanting me to sing along or something like that. People will glance at me, and I won't do something they want me to do

I also don't feel like my playing is very social. I go off of what I hear, but I don't think of the sources as other people. A large part of my playing is improv (well, in one of my bands at least. In all, I throw in a lot of fills, which are improvised.), and I sometimes can tend to dominate a bit, with my playing. I do some things that may be considered rude too, like if I hear someone playing a lame or boring solo, or messing up a lot, I'll dive in and take over. This happens a lot with the lead singer of one of my bands (who also plays guitar). His singing is fine, but his guitar playing is just not at the same level (luckily we have a lead guitarist who is great). I'll often dominate the music, and while I know that there are other people behind the other sounds, I feel much like I do when I am just fiddling around doing improv to a recording. I'm just trying to play something I think sounds great, but that often causes me to override what others are doing, and they've complained about this to me in the past.

Listening to a cell phone recording I made of some of the jamming I did earlier tonight with a guitarist from one of my bands, I'm noticing that I give people openings to come in and start soloing, but these openings are always small, and if they don't pick up on it and jump in right away, I will often dive right back into soloing. A lot of the time when I play it's like I'm just constantly soloing for the entire song, and while it sounds nice, it doesn't really leave much room for others to solo.

In jams, I have a lot of difficulty telling when it's OK for me to change the direction of the music, or start soloing, etc. If I really want something to go one way, I will often just do it, and if others don't comply, I tend to bury their sound with mine, not really picking up on it that they don't want it to go that way. When I change the direction of a jam, no thought enters my head of others wanting it another way, and many times I've changed the direction, and nobody changes with me, and I just keep trucking on playing what I think should be played, even going harder into it, while the others keep doing what they were doing.

I've seen those videos of the contrabass clarinet and of that flute before - I think instruments like that are awesome. The sax player in one of my bands got to play a contrabass saxophone once, when he lived in Florida. I've never gotten to see any of these instruments in person, though. Also, unfortunately, the only wind instruments I really play are ocarina and melodica - I'd love to pick up sax though - my grandfather played sax with Tal Farlow - he died in 1975, so I never got to hear him play or anything, and I thought it would be cool to learn sax. Plus saxes just sound awesome.