How Do You Manage A Girlfriend And Music

Off-Topic
21

When I’m writing on iPod Touch using Nano Studio (shameless plug for tunes here) I’ve managed to get more time writing because I can do that waiting in the car, at lunch in a coffee shop, hiding in the bathroom, you get the idea! For Renoise I need to start taking the netbook with me more often. Things will settle down I can’t complain :) it’s just that reading this thread took me back to simpler times with “just” g/f to juggle, I used to have a whole room stacked with my music gear, things are different now but it’s all good. I wrote the most tunes this year on paternity, weird!

Cheers,
LW.

22

communication, hobbies, pets, luck (no kids).

23

dont live together. your own apartment = more time alone.

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if she doesn’t like what you create (i.e. what is inside you), why are you with her?

  • she’s not into the music i make
    –ditch her

  • i couldn’t care less (that she’s not into what is inside me)
    –ditch her

  • I’m not making it for her
    –ditch her, then let yourself be found by a girl who does resonate with your stuff and then continue makin stuff not for her but for yourself.

if you resort to hooking up with a lady who doesn’t like what you’re about, ask yourself a serious question: why do you want to be with her in the first place? what’s the common ground? genital fit?

25

Don’t underestimate a good genital fit!

26

@esaruoho: you kidding me? just because your preferred musical style differs from that of your GF means you should ditch her? i know i know, you say ‘the music you make’ equals ‘what is inside of you’, but this just isn’t so black-and-white. there are plenty of reasons for making music (fun, experiment), and a piece of music is not necessarily an expression of your innermost self. to say that when your GF isn’t into your music she isn’t into you is a bunch of BS imo.

of course, if you disagree, you can ditch her all you want. just remember that you risk giving up someone who loves you just for ‘expressing yourself’, whatever the hell that might mean, just because you thought she was not ‘loving you enough’.

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i’m being full-on serious and i don’t see what the problem is. to keep to the B/W examples, i’d say, if i can’t feel the music that she feels (which would mean that there’s some sort of a connection between our mutual tastes in music - which also means theres a similarity in our mutual tastes for various other things in life), should i sit around and try and learn to get a vibe off of music which says nothing to me and doesn’t work for me either. i seriously doubt you’re serious about this stuff, classic B/W example would be that a classical music composer hooks up with someone who only listens to heavy metal, and then stops composing classical music and TWISTS HIMSELF COMPLETELY OUT OF JOINT to become less of who he IS and more of what he SHOULD BE to APPEASE HER. This is the kind of stuff that homicides are made out of. eventually.

and if you read what the original poster said, there was nothing about “someone loving you just for expressing yourself” - there was a cold shoulder andbasically “why are you wasting your time on this, stop it.”. If you think that’s a great way to function in a relationship, with those kinds of demands, i don’t know who or what you are but have fun during your existence. i’d rather be on the flip-side of the coin.

Now I have to ask “are you kidding me?”. wow. you are serious, aren’t you? how can you be serious? this must be a joke. tell me you’re joking. i guess it takes all kinds to make the world turn around, but still i must say this:
WOW. :panic:

28

well, a piece of music is not NECESSARILY an expression of someones innermost self.

anyway… if you make extreme, abrasive, harsh noise-music wouldnt it be understandable if your girlfriend/boyfriend might not like it? that doesnt mean she/he doesnt like you. there are plenty of other things to build a relation around.

that being said, I do see you point Esaruoho! if someone disapproves of the other doing what they love to do, then thats a problem. regardless of their taste in music.

29

i like Venetian Snares. my wife cannot listen to it. my wife enjoys Simply Red, which i loathe. and so on and so on with various different bands. sure, we have some overlap, we both like The Beatles, for example. but this does not have a huge impact on our relationship. if we’d really let such a small thing as musical preference determine the success of our relationship, when you come upon a big question, such as ‘should we have kids?’, you might as well split up immediately, because you’ll never resolve that either.

i really don’t get your example about the classical composer and the heavy metal fan. i never proposed someone should turn around and start listening to a different genre of music, leaving his/her preferred genre behind. the classical composer can keep listening to classical music and compose it. the heavy metal fan can keep listening to heavy metal (and maybe play in a metal band as well). as long as they both do this with headphones on when they’re in the same room, and as long as both of them are open to at least considering other music (not saying they should like it), a relationship between these two would work fine, simply because there are loads more things in life than music for two people to relate to each other.
if what you’re saying is ‘when your GF is not open to at least considering other music, you should ditch her’, i’d say you have a point, because any person with a closed mind is bad for you. but that wasn’t what you are saying.

i am very serious. sure, you can argue that anything you produce/create is an expression of your self, but the key word here is ‘innermost’. i’ve composed loads of songs, and many of them are searches or experiments or just plain having fun. they don’t come from the core of my being, they are just mucking around with Renoise and samples and looking for new things to do. in fact, only after about 5 years of composing am i now finally coming to the point where the music i make starts to actually feel like it is representative in some way of my emotional life.

so say my wife would’ve disliked my music 4 years ago, and i would’ve followed your advice and ditched her for it. i would’ve ditched her for something that really wasn’t that big a deal for me, it wasn’t music from the core of my being, it was just part of the path to the artist i want to become. what did i just throw away for that silly little dream? a woman who will love me despite the fact that she doesn’t enjoy the music i make, who respects me for who i am even though she thinks my music sounds bad. now what i am left with in that hypothetical situation? sitting in a room alone, producing my awesome music on my own, with occasional breaks for jerking off to mediocre internet porn, and all the while wishing i just had someone to love. the only upside to that situation is that you can write very emotional songs about it because feeling alone is a good way of getting emotional.
so if you dig that kinda thing, by all means, go for it. but i’d rather have a fantastic wife who doesn’t really enjoy the music i make.

30

about the gf issue here: if somebody seriously is willing to end a relationship on the grounds of music taste, such person could just as well end it on the grounds of different taste in food

i’d say such a person would most likely have a hard time sustaining any kind of relationship, even a relationship with a dog (“so Wolfie, you’re preferring the eat this instead of that, and you’re enjoying the company of persons i hate to be with…”)

but i’d agree and say that if a gf disrespects your creative powers as such from a conviction that it’s toxic waste, and she’s trying to change you into a piece of furniture who only gets praise when you use your creative energy to please her whims - that sure is a warning sign that you’re slowly being turned into toxic waste, and she’ll leave you at a later stage anyway and run away with some guy who’s more assertive and more into telling her how she can please him

to the OP i’d say this: one thing you could do is to print out the best answers from this thread (excluding for example this post) and “accidently” let her discover it on paper

you’ll notice if she has read it and on what grounds she’s willing to communicate about it

31

let me get straight that i think esaruoho might’ve meant things a bit less extreme than he/i put it. what .xrns just said i fully agree with, and is my point exactly. it might also be esaruoho’s point which he maybe did not express so clearly (?)

32

its simple

If your girl Loves you, Truly!!
Then This is not a question. She know u like that music, and don’t worry about this. If she is grow up now, and you too…

You know what i mean bro? My Babe is in the same, she is Rock babe and i am electronic music lover… and this is not problem for us…

.,peace

33

Will you stop describing my life to everybody :(

34

hahahaha i was wondering when you’d chime in kazakore :)

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Post 14.

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rhowaldt, this wasn’t about people who are just about to start making music (the first few 5-7 years). Obviously noone is going to be interested in your stuff up until it starts sounding like it’s by you and not some beginner who is trying to learn the ropes. the point wasn’t to insist that your newest maxmsp autechre beat generator is something your gf/wife should love (even tho hardly any women are really into the grayness of autechre, this should go without saying as it’s dead-obvious). it’s probably shit, and it probably doesn’t have a single whit of emotion in it either.

and do we really have to spell out the obvious of “yeah well you know if i just noodle with reaktor for an hour or two, that’s not my most innermost creation, me, etc” “and what if i just create endless hihat sounds for 5 hours, what then, that’s not my soul either!” those are really low-hanging-fruit -type arguments. obviously non-serious mucking about is non-serious mucking about!

you guys are treating this from the angle of “but i already married her and have 5 kids, and now she doesn’t care for my .xrns’s! why should i ditch her?” which wasn’t my point at all. . .

and regards the genre taste differences, let’s just say i’d rather not go to a live performance by a band whose music i cannot stand (and which, to me, has no value) and try and pick up someone from there. right? just like how an atheist would not be interested in trying to pick up ladies from the bible study group?
frankly, i dont know what the dynamics of “but i’ve been married to her for 12 years and this week i started learning about renoise and she hates it! what should i do?” are since i’ve never been in such a situation, and never will be, so i can’t relate.

i’m going to go out on a limb here and say what i probably shouldn’t say, but as a non-women-approaching bachelor, i’ve actually only been approached by women after they have heard my tunes, loved them, and felt some form of connection with me, after which they’ve taken the trouble to get to know the person, too - based on already knowing that there’s something inside my skull which they vibe with. i dont know if i’d be that interested in all-that-other-stuff-with-her if i thought her taste in music (and her fave songs) were absolute trash, and she thought my music was absolute trash. i can understand however that im not the norm, so ymmvad (your mileage may vary AND DOES). i doubt ascetics hook up with gluttoners that often, as another B/W example.

i tried to voice my responses from the angle of “if she actually disses you and thinks you’re wasting your time (and by extension HER time, which is obviously more important to her than your personal satisfaction/fulfillment) ditch her for the toxic horrible negative person that she turned out to be!”, but apparently it wasn’t obvious to anyone else.

i’m just tryin to say that any toxic, vehemently negative relationship which hinders the personal progress of all involved, cannot be a good situation for a person to grow and change in. if you think otherwise, then i guess you must be able to patch yourself into the wheelworks of this (violent) dynamic and somehow use it for fuel, maybe the dissonance and imbalance of the relationship somehow provides you with fuel (“i hate her so goddamn much im going to do a track to give it voice!!! fuck you wifey!”), but just feels weird. i guess some people stay in violent relationships because they believe they deserve to be beaten up daily, or something, but that’s got nothing to do with hatred towards renoise from your gf anymore, does it?

37

@esaruoho: well, seems to me what i said a couple posts before is true, judging by your explanation. your last post is a lot more nuanced than you put it at first, and i can totally relate to it. so to be brief, i think we both agree with .not on this.

38

rhowaldt: this is what .xrns nails 100%

39

i was able to comprehend everything you said up until you wrote the fateful “.not on this.” especially with the dot before the n!

40

^ oh damn been mixing up usernames from forums… ‘.not’ is a user on another forum… i meant ‘what .xrns said’!