So what does everyone do when they're not making music?

[MorteMcAdaver]

I enjoy putting together outfits for occasions (particularly formal, goth, and fetish events), playing video games (horror being my favorite genre), writing stories when the mood strikes me, working, attending shows, dining out with someone I am courting, being snarky on Facebook, and making vain attempts to promote my work when I can overcome my shyness.

[SpyPie]

Clop...

clop...

CLooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooP!

[SwissArmyCheese]

and making vain attempts to promote my work when I can overcome my shyness.

Any particular work you would like to promote here?

[MorteMcAdaver]

and making vain attempts to promote my work when I can overcome my shyness.

Any particular work you would like to promote here?

I've been doing my best to shamelessly drop the names of my three active projects. Alas, my pony-related work is still in production phases and isn't quite presentable, yet. I'm no electronic artist, so it takes me longer to get everything recorded in the studio, playing each instrument, editing it, etc. But hey, any of the three projects listed in my signature could certainly use attention and listeners who may enjoy some darker stuff! Pandora's Toybox is easily the most whimsical of the three.

[Counterwise]

When I'm not actively sitting at home on my computer making da musics, I play outdoor laser tag skirmish. Me and my friends have also formed a team and play competitively against other teams. Last year we actually won a local tournament and got sponsored to fly over to Perth (which from where I live is from one side of Australia to another) and played in the nationals tournament, and in about a week and a half we're going up to Queensland at the Gold Coast to play in the nationals again!

[Pickslide1992]

I draw. I'm like a poor man's hotdiggedydemon/John K. but pretty decent by and large.

I also play loads of older video games (We're talking NES/SNES/Genesis stuff).

[FlyingNinjaBannanas]

I play way too much Fallout.

Seriously, for the last 6 months I've been traveling the Mojave and Capital Wasteland like I was born to do it.

Other than that, I read books and fanfics, and I'm trying to get off my ass and write one, but that's not turning out so well.

[TheDnBGremlin]

Draw, play TF2 and Amnesia, listen to music that isn't mine, surf forums.

Wee.

[DasDeer]

Short story, anything video game related and sound design.

Long story:
I do pretty much anything you can think of it when it comes to video games. I play video games(duh), i create games and i also analyse games. I try to learn how a good game is built. Not only things like gameplay design and level design, but also what feelings and emotions games try to enhance. Why is a good game good, and why is a bad game bad?

When it comes to sound design, it's quite simple really. I like to create new sound effects and alter already created sound effects.

[TheSyrethClan]

When I don't practice making music, I do the usual stuff: 3D Art. (They're quite awful when it comes to ponies, though.)

[Peak Freak]

Music....?

[Applejinx]

I write- I'm actually a much bigger deal as a poni writer than with my music. I'm heading into the final act of a second poni novel on FIMfiction (both of which are real cloppy because it's more fun building characters through such activity and you can't have it through the Hub or EQD)

http://www.fimfiction.net/story/2124/Trixie%27s-Magic-Bit
http://www.fimfiction.net/story/22044/Rarity%27s-Worst-Day-Ever
http://www.fimfiction.net/user/Applejinx


I also do what I learned in a thread here was 'day sessions', building gear and tuning it, which I can do for hours without recording or composing anything. Picking up an instrument and noodling or grooving is never wrong, ever. I've ordered a Voodoo Labs power supply so I can have my whole guitar rig on one power strip, hooked up and ready to go at all times- right now, I have to plug in all the stompboxes to make the pedalboard go, and then they're losing batteries so I'm constantly just grabbing a few and hooking them up. No good for grabbing a sound quickly, defeats the purpose of a pedalboard.

What I learned from the writing is useful to the discussion about not getting any love from EQD. I have the awesomest readers of anypony- a real star-studded collection of name poni writers with way bigger reader numbers than me, and I think that's part of where I'm getting new readers- people looking at which ponies writers like Sleepless etc. read (or biologic orthodoxy, who follows only six writers and one of them's his alt). The point is you have to devote yourself to the art that is yours and judge it by how awesome your fans are, and if you get the love of folks who are amazing themselves, that's what you want, not numbers...

You have to not try to go for a mass audience (such as EQD). It's fickle and it doesn't mean anything. I pulled 200K views for the song 'On To Something Good' and nopony at Bronycon had ever heard of it- and when they started singing fan songs out in front of the convention center, the only ones I knew were WoodenToaster songs I'd covered myself.

Glaze liked my 'Beyond Her Garden' cover (yay! I literally bled over the guitar part that goes with his synth hook, getting it to hit percussively as hard as it needed to) and that means MORE than the 200K drive-by views on the other song.

The secret is to find something you care about, get expert at it (which will take years, what have you already been doing for years?) and look for where you can be the most incredible thing ever to some specific person or people- not 'everypony'.

Also, look to which things make you the most insane when they're unappreciated. That guitar soloing contest was like that for me- that one jazzy entry I did, I just went out, jumping into atonal stuff, pulling off some timing things that really clicked but they were JAZZ lines, drawing from like Scofield and Allan Holdsworth (not like as good, but from that world) which is utterly different from shred values. I did horribly with everypony judging, and I said nothing but was really frustrated. So what I'm going to do is get my guitar rig together at the flip of a powerstrip switch, start doing the daily music blog again- and play MORE just like that, going 'nyaaah! I like it anyway!'. And that's the right thing to do.

Those are actually the things that the mass audience goes, "Oh hey this is cool... SQUIRREL!" and it's gone again but threw you a million hits for about five minutes. It's all about living the way you want, so you know who you are when the spotlight sweeps across you for a moment

[SpyPie]

When I don't practice making music, I do the usual stuff: 3D Art. (They're quite awful when it comes to ponies, though.)

Moots approves of this picture

[SwissArmyCheese]

I write- I'm actually a much bigger deal as a poni writer than with my music.

Your whole post was motivating. I am also going to check out your fics!

When I don't practice making music, I do the usual stuff: 3D Art. (They're quite awful when it comes to ponies, though.)

That's actually really cool! Do you have any more?


Also apparently everyone loves TF2.

[xadobex]

Play piano or bass. I longboard occasionally. Lots of web surfing and minecraft. Looking for ways to make my music better.
Talking to my friend on Skype. Yes, I said friend. Most of my other ones I text.

Sounds to be about it.

For anyone who is going to inquire about longboarding: I have a stock landyachtz bamboo longboard. The name eludes me, but its the one with the fish on it. I got it before the new one came out.
Bamboo ripper maybe