Do You Listen To Your Own Music?

Be honest.

I do. 

only the good ones.

it's like they're done by another person. it's not natural to make beautiful music. because you cannot be attracted to yourself. if you can anticipate exactly what will happen, then it's boring to listen to. that means that when you composed the music you switched perspective in a way that was not intuitive to you, (probably thru a composition secret/technique, consciously or unconsciously).

Yes, I do. Up to the time that it becomes crystallized in my mind, I listen to a composition a lot. After that, less. It is as if I need to listen a lot to it before it becomes crystallized. Perhaps the crystallization process is a process of the new music forming new brain circuits and until those are formed, the music doesn't become truly crystallized. By crystallization, I mean that it reaches a state where you realize every note is in the right place and don't feel the need to make any changes, even potentially. This is also why I am not in favour of revising pieces after the piece has been crystallized. Posting the piece somewhere online, or otherwise introducing it to an audience can serve as an indication that the crystallization process has finished. I have rarely revised a piece after posting it here for example.

After the crystallization process, i.e. concerning pieces I have composed long ago, I listen as a way of remembering what I have composed in the past. It becomes a memento of a past period in time. You are no longer directly in the piece as would be the case of pieces not yet crystallized or just crystallized. The piece comes at you from a past time. It evokes a memory of the past, from your past. To attempt to revise a piece like that would amount to an attempt at tampering with the past.

Finally, concerning pieces that have received a premiere, I listen to enjoy the interpretation and revel in the success of my piece. Unfortunately, those are the least frequent. Yet they are the best because a human performance is always different and says much more about a piece than a computer generated one. The performer feels the composer's meaning and interprets it. Such pieces can live forever, especially when interpreted and performed by a great exponent of the instrument.

I do, and I try not to feel too narcissistic about it.  If you go back now and then and revisit what you've done, you can decide where you want to go next.  So you don't just write the same stuff over and over.  "Hmmm...  I meant to do x, and I still never have.  Right, that's going into the next piece."  I think it helps you keep a more balanced portfolio.  

you cannot be attracted to yourself

Oh, I know plenty of people who are attracted to themselves.  Our current culture really encourages it.  (:

I do.  I only write music that I like  ;) .

Oh, I know plenty of people who are attracted to themselves.  Our current culture really encourages it.  (:

:laugh:

No, I hate it

No, I hate it

If you hate it, then why do you write it?

I do.  I only write music that I like  ;) .

2

Well, honestly I enjoy listening to my own works a lot. If I didn't like them enough, why would I bother myself to compose them?

All the time. 

Absolutely, I think it's awesome.

I do, just I don't have recording of all what I've written. I like almost all of it.

I hear it a ton as I'm composing it, recording it, mixing it.  Then I pretty much shove it in the archive and come back in a year or two when I've forgotten about it.  Every few years I'll go on a binge and listen to most of my history in chronological order.  It's quite the adventure and fun to hear the improvements.

All the time!!

I do, and I try not to feel too narcissistic about it.  If you go back now and then and revisit what you've done, you can decide where you want to go next.  So you don't just write the same stuff over and over.  "Hmmm...  I meant to do x, and I still never have.  Right, that's going into the next piece."  I think it helps you keep a more balanced portfolio.  

Yes, and for all the same reasons that Madame Pate has mentioned. I tend to forget what sorts of things I was aiming for in earlier pieces or what kinds of offshoot ideas were ignored so I could finish a piece I was working on. Going back I usually remember what those were and try to follow up on them again.

I listen a lot when working on it.. Then usually don't.. Once in a while, I'll go thru some material, and cringe, 'oh did I do that?"..  Other times, I'll find something years old.  and not have thought a lot about it at the time.. and chuckle to myself that it was good.. Other times I listen to really old music I did..  And I can't remember doing it, how I did it.. and how I really might be hard pressed to recreate it.. (for me the technical aspects of kids, music software, virtual instruments governs that)..  

To me, they are creations you generate.. Then you put it out in the world,, and it has some life, or gets forgotten..  Elton John once referred to his music as disposable like tissues, you use it, then toss it away, to be replaced by something new.  

Paul McCartney was once asked about "Yesterday" (probably for the millionth time..  His response was 'Hey it's only a song"...  

i do listen to my music, with different effect. In a nostalgic mood i can appreciate early work in an endearing manner. ah... cute what i did there. it is not working, but young me was trying :D

There is also the, what has been called, narcissitic side. I like to call it healthy pride in what I was allowed to do. And yeah it feels pretty good to have a folder in my itunes with my own name. I think everyone who does something, really as general as ths sounds, can have some pride :)

I listen to it so people can go like "Hey what's that awesome music you're listening to?"

and then I troll them by saying some nonsense and ruin my chances of ever being famous D:

Whilst still working on it, yes, of course, so I'll know what to change and how to go forwards.

Afterwards, don't see much point—I already know what it sounds like??