Nikki and I were talking the other day and I had some music playing in the background.
Somehow the subject of the music were listening to came up in our conversation and she shared with me what she thought about it.
She was telling me that it was poorly done and didn’t sound like ‘real instrumentation’ . One comment I remember her sayng was, “It sounds like the soundtrack from a bad 80’s movie…”
Interestingly enough (and unbeknownst to her) it was MY music…
Ouch.
I used to run a production studio years ago and had just found some of my old music. I thought I’d lost a lot of my music in a computer crash years ago, so I was really excited about finding these tracks. They were the ones I’d taken the time to record to wav (we didn’t have mp3 at the time 🙂 ). I spent a lot of the day listening to the tracks…they reminded me of some really good times.
So you can imagine how I felt sitting there listening to her describing my music.
However, it made me think of a couple of things that have allowed me to choose to let this situation be empowering instead of deflating:
1) I can’t expect ANYTHING I do to appeal to everyone in the world…not even the people who care about me. Whether it’s music, a seminar, a blog post…ANYTHING…I do, I have to do for me. I can’t stop what I’m doing to appease others. If I did, I’d never do anything.
2) It made me a little more sensitive to my own comments about things. I’ve been known to say something is ‘stupid’ or ‘garbage’ because I didn’t like it…geez, how arrogant is that? It’s one thing to not like something, it’s an entirely different thing to trash it.
I’m going to be more careful with my comments about things from now on. You never know who you’re talking to.
Peace,
Antonio
Antonio,
I do not think that Nikky was meaning to hurt your feeling with the things she said about the music. If she knew it was your music she would not have said it. You shouldn’t be hurt by that.
Geraldine
I think you missed the point the Antonio was saying. the post isn’t about the hurt of the comment, it is for doing what makes you happy.
I think?
You must realize that Nikki has an extensive musical background. She was analyzing the music only. You have related thoughts to the music that make it meaningful to you while Nikki doesn’t. Music is a universal language that is open for interpretation by anyone. There is no right or wrong when it comes to interpretating the communicative aspect of generic music. Again she was just analyzing the music. Keep your head up if the music fulfilled the purpose you intended it to do.
Faye,
Hi there… I didn’t realize that was you at first. 🙂 Thanks for stopping by.
I understand your point about Nikki’s background…I can always appreciate constructive criticism. However, several of the comments (not included in the post) wouldn’t have qualified as ‘constructive’.
But I’ve learned not to take things personally.
I love the music I did…and I’m proud of it. When I listen to it, it takes me to another place. It’s very spiritual for me and no one can take that from me… so I’m not put off or anything by what she said.
The lesson for me was to keep my own comments of other people’s work, ideas or lives as ‘constructive criticism’ instead of judgmental or demeaning.
There’s a difference between “I don’t like this” and “this sucks”.
The comment was mainly a lesson for me to improve how I interact with other people.
Thanks again for stopping by the blog 🙂
Hope to see you soon!