What Are Your Goals With Music?

I’ve seen a lot of technical discussions on these forums (just joined yesterday) but very little discussion about the reasons you make music, or aspirations for the future.

This thread will be for discussion of the reasons you write music – what drives you to do it? do you do it for fun or do you have dreams of being a professional musician someday?

or maybe you already are a professional musician. i would love to hear any accounts from people who already make money from your music (even if it’s just a little bit) and what you’ve done to get where you are today


me personally, i have been making music since 1997… started with Impulse Tracker, finished about 20 or so songs between 98-2001 … went for a while without really tracking much (but I was practicing DJ’ing a lot at the time) from mid 2001-mid2003… then i really wanted to get back into making music again but realized Impulse was just getting too dated. i was looking around at some different software to figure out what i was going to use… a friend unfortunately told me about fruity loops and i wasted over a year using its not-so-useful interface… started a bunch of songs but only finished 1 during that time. a few weeks ago i decided to do a search for “tracker with vsti support” and came across the wonderful renoise and i’ve been hooked ever since. finished 1 song already and started 3 others. i’m impressed with some of the songs i’ve heard people post and upload here and excited about the possibilities. i would eventually like to release some music on a semi-major label… i don’t think my goals are to be a professional musician like a pop star or anything, but i would be very happy with having a record or a CD pressed and have like 100,000 people hear it … and if even just 1/4th those people liked it, i think i’d be happy :)

right now i am just working on honing my music writing skills, making more complex song structures (both more complex than they currently are, and also more complex than the average song), and working on making my productions sound professional. i still have a long way to go but i am enjoying it.

so what about everybody else? :walkman:

partially, your question could be answered here.
when it comes to me, i do not earn any money with my music… i only won some compo prices here and there in the past and once got some $$$ for writing loops for a flash page.
but basically the only reason for me to write music is still the same as it was back in 1993, when it all started : fun and self-realisation. :)

Started (for fun) in 1993 making junk and just messing around with available trackers available in the local BBS scene. Played around with some friends Amiga Pro-Tracker as well. Got “serious” in 1996 and released 1000 copies of a CD in a duo known as PFD. That duo got on a few compilations (both Maz-Sound comps, Alt.Noise on Switch Records, Omniscience on Interchill, and Toryumon then a sublabel of Sony). Personally worked with artists like Arkin Allen/Mercan Dede, 1-Speed Bike, Krinjah - from tech support, to beat production, minor engineering, and playing gigs. I have a Bachelor of Fine Arts from Concordia University in Digital Image & Sound/Electroacoustc. Blah Blah Blah.

Music making changed on me (what happened to destructive editing?!) … and I got bored. My projects never seemed to go very far other than a hobby respected by some better known peers. I had lost all interest until recently, thanks to Renoise.

I now accept my fate as hobbyist and with Renoise I actually rediscovered what I enjoyed about music, not fame & employment - but fun and executing ideas that aren’t accountable to sales.

I don’t care about labels or hype anymore. I care about making art, anyone else caring is now a bonus, and I’m a better person for it.

i think everybodys dream is to make money with your hobby… what could be possibly more wonderful than if you can do what you like/enjoy and make living out of that??

So basically i think that we all have (or have had) a dream about becoming “professional”

For me music making is still hobby though… which hepls me to overcome some sad mood from time to time and so on… This is just a thing that i enjoy doing…
But of course, one of my dreams is to quit my crappy job one day and make money with my music… Will it happen? doubtful, but… we never know… .)

Music creation for me is making something I want to listen to, also I see a future working with something creative, either it’s a producer for other artists or sound engineer or whatev…

What I don’t see is me on the front cover of some solo-album. I need to work with other artists to fully function as a musician/producer, if I one day find my perfect counterpart, who knows what will happen… I’m currently expanding my contacts to include people who benefit either need commercial remixes done, have ideas they need produced, need original music for performance/tv etc etc, have high hopes but realistic views of my future. :)

So far I’ve had one really enjoyable, paid studio engineer-job (if you could call recording a storyteller, making fx and mixing tracks for a theatre-play on my own comp using free software + renoise that, hehe), and one unpaid, uncredited little thing for TV. I feel that I’m actually in the beginning phase of everything NOW, even though I’ve been toying with trackers on and off since 1997!

i have always had this drive, like i feel like i know i can do something really revolutionary in music and change peoples’ lives. maybe i’m just delusional :dribble:

music composition is my main hobby since 1993, and I don’t think it would ever turn into a work:

what I’ve understood with time is that the best situation, at least for me, is to spend your favourite talent in hobby, and your second one in work, given that you have at least two talents, of course :)

This idea comes from the consideration that I would never accept “do this instead of this” from anyone in music, while I can accept this in computer programming.

In the last 7 years, I’ve managed to do so: I work as a programmer, and I’m an hobbist musician.

My goal:

  • To expand and develop my consciousness through music creation.

  • And, to expand and develop the consciousness of the poeple who get to hear what I create.

Computers, Renoise and other tools are the current mode of production, but given any other eon or incarnation I’d be using whatever else was handy.

The more ideas shared the more people develop. The better people develop the better choices they make. Better choices means a better world and, ultimately, the progression of our evolution. Music is an essential part of that.

There are loads of other things that artists should not let get in the road of what they naturally do: like money, like legality, like obligations, like conformity, like fashion, like physicality, like ignorance, like war, like f**** it just make music :)

btw, the quality post above you just enjoyed was presented to you by marc

It was clever posting that anonymously but now you just blew your cover. :)

I am doing music since 94 or something, and I think its now time to make some money or get something back for all those years. I dont want a contract or something, basically I will try to get some tracks put out on vinyl and/or get a few dj-gigs.
basically I reached a point where I dont see a sense to make music just for me or a few friends.

It is my hobby . not my business. It won´t become more than my hobby under any circumstances.

The thing I liked most about trackers was the simple ability to remix any exiting song. Because I like always to have versions from tracks nobody else has got.

Or to make fun of exisiting songs. Simply think of building a “f****ing da pizzamen” track from a song called sex on the street by the pizzamen ;)

Why not produce some other artists? Be in the background and let others front the stuff. :)

Btw, where is your exellent Nightmare In Blue? That track gave me sweet nightmares in broad daylight! Hehe…

I’ve got you on vinyl already (tdr compilatoion 1), and would buy any album you make if you include Nightmare… and Streets of San Fran Sisco!

Wanna burn one, make some handdrawn cover, sign it and send it to me? I’d send money! :walkman:

Goals: To someday be succesfull with my music and leave this depressing country/lifestyle i’m in.

In the meantime i live for the rush of releasing a newly composed track in great expectation on the net and getting feedback that ppl enjoy my stuff :walkman:

Just a hobby for me. I’ve always made music for fun. I’ve thought about going more serious from time to time (try to get a contract), but I’ve realized I’m not that talented and don’t have the time or dedication to spend all my energy on music, to make up for my lack of talent :) Then I have a lot of other interests as well… guess I’m a multi-tasking sort of person :)

I’ve made a few pieces for flash anims and some other company presentation, but never got any money for it. Plus I did two DJ gigs too, getting paid with a pizza :D Well, that’s enough goal for me. For now, at least.

It-Alien said: “(…)spend your favourite talent in hobby, and your second one in work(…)”

This must be why so many people are incompetent in the game industry :)

I dont want to become a popstar, dont worry ;) also, I would not change my music for some A&R or something, the thing is that at the moment I am into alot of stuff, minimal house stuff gripped me lately and I am also still in all this hiphop/downtempo thing … I really just want to do some tracks and offer them to a label and maybe get some stuff released.

and nightmare in blue … now that was the perfect track for the net, I dont have anything like it and I dont think people would buy a mcd only with this track :D I am really glad I made this one, its was a test and it worked out very well, but as I said, the net was the perfect place for that one.
and streets of san fran … well that just really oldschool hiphop … but I still have all those samples, hehe … (all in all I have some 30 licks I sampled like 6 years ago from the TV while watching that series, and just recently I used a bass-lick for some minimal-house attempt … hehe.)

Dr. dre, Snoop Dogg, and the chemical bros got their succes when they started working for a pizza margherita… I’ve read it somewhere

Mine was a frozen veggie pizza… damn I got screwed :lol: