For me, the Adequate is the Enemy of the Existing At All.

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Venting slightly here. I'm a musician, but I wonder how many of you who can practise other art forms have similar feelings.

I have some idea of what professional quality looks like when putting something out to an audience. In music, an album should have well-recorded and well-mixed tracks, good artwork, etc, etc. Thing is, I'm stuck with being me. No money, very little gear, no industry connections, no skills (except for actually performing the bloody songs), a brain hampered by industrial-grade execuctive dysfunction, and a tendency to destructive meltdowns triggered by computer issues.

If I waited until it was possible for me to put out an album "properly".... I would never, ever put out an album. So I have to swallow my pride, cut my standards, and put out a dog's breakfast of an album on which the only good thing is, again, the actual bloody songs. At which point, everyone is all "oh, you should have done this, you should have done that." Yes. I know. "Should" does not equal "could."

i really think you and tough diamond should get together and compare notes. he has a LOT of experience!

I am not good enough to be at your stage of frustration. What I can tell you is that I know what good music sounds like and I know I will never come close to making good music and that is a sadness of a different sort.

And from another perspective, before there were recordings and radio and forward, good music was what you and your neighbors got together and played. And people enjoyed it just as much.

I'll keep an eye out for him...

I know that feeling... 15 years ago, it felt like I was sweating blood to create music that just didn't work at all. On the other hand, my dad has started writing music again at 70 and he's actually getting somewhere with it this time! We've been swapping our attempts at piano pieces and bonding over trying to figure out harmony on the keyboard. Given our normally prickly relationship, this has been really good.

I think I still do like the music you play with friends and familly more. There are so many songs where I think the platinum-selling single is a bit meh, but I love it when someone covers it at an open mic. It bothers me that as a singer-songwriter you're "supposed" to add all these overdubbed instruments and backing vocals to your album for it to be acceptable. I'd rather just hear voice and guitar, however technically crude.