I am confuse

[GumsOfGabby]

Since the recent thread about EQDMusic was published I've seen many "artists" express their concerns over where they're going to get exposure from now. This has always bugged and confused me that people would even complain about this, so I'm wondering...

As an "artist", shouldn't your main goal be to progress and become a better musician? Shouldn't improving your skills be more of a priority than getting a couple hundred views on the internet? I'm not saying wanting exposure is a bad thing, we all have our motivations... But seriously, subs and views are not going to help you in any way to become a better musician. And if you do want people to hear your work, don't you want them to hear the best you have to offer? Don't you want to treat people to something inspiring?

If you put in the effort and persevere with your art, you'll gradually build an audience without even having to get slapped on the bottom of a MoTD post. As well as that, you'll improve at a greater rate that other artists that are too preoccupied about where they're going to send their next track for promoting.

I can understand that people like getting attention for their work. Who doesn't? But if it's more important than progressing as a musician, then why are you making music in the first place? If you want attention, be a comedian, or a daredevil...If you want to be a musician, spend less time complaining about blogs that won't upload your tracks which aren't up to its quality standards, spend less time on forums and spend more time in your DAW writing stuff. Then maybe, just maybe, one day you'll be spotlighted on EQD and become the greatest person in the whole of human history.

[itroitnyah]

There's nothing wrong with wanting some recognition for your work, or trying to promote your work. It's making music purely for the money and fame that are wrong. I'm sure that the majority of the people who are complaining are complaining because EqD was their only source of promotion that was actually good in the brony community. And it's not that people are "so concerned and preoccupied about where they're going to send their tracks", it has more to do with spending a whole bunch of time on a track that they put a lot of effort into and simply wanting to promote, because they either want people to see it or think that other people will enjoy it or such.

[Nine Volt]

^Basically that. Nothing wrong with wanting recognition.

[FLAOFEI]

1:17

Yeah, and nothing wrong with wanting recognition n' stuff.

[Freewave]

My goodness I agree with Nine Volt again!!

People want their music to be heard, to justify that month or so they put into all the edits and work into it and not just disappear from view because Simgretina spent 4 hrs on a track and deserves another EQD spotlight and a track of the month from Sabrespark for a limp effort. It's the people at the the top who are wanting to make money on this fandom or that regurgitate the same tracks who aren't growing as they make easy to digest pop that people lap up to score popularity and have Seth give an immediate spotlight. The rest of us are doing it for free, getting a lot less recognition, taking more risks, and getting all kind of accusations on how we're the ones who are doing it for the popularity. Are you kidding me??? Why are WE the ones on MLR trying to continue to learn, trying to talk about the community, while all the top musicians have fled this place?

In the end all we want is a fair playing field. These new policies are just going to toss out a lot of the work of the people who are just hanging in there trying to make it all worth it while those at the top can put out turds that are considered gold.

[Lavender_Harmony]

I wish people would stop crowbarring pony into their tracks just so EqD will feature it, and instead focusing on making top quality music, then if you want exposure, send it to proper promotion networks and labels, shit, you might get signed, and you'll play gigs and be properly famous, how about that?

FiM is a nice show, but my interest in making music about it or inspired by it is depleting dramatically, because of crap like this constantly happening. I don't make music to become popular, and I know I am unlikely to achieve any kind of recognition in the fandom. And I don't care.

[CommandSpry]

I have to say that I have a feeling that people feel entitled to their EqD feature. The minute they are not featured it's because EqD has a bias towards fame and is unfair.

How about you aren't born with the right to your own EqD feature, get it yourself, we'll be glad to feature your quality work. Get over rejections; we're not a prestigious music magazine, and if you have no fun in making music and only make it to get noticed, I suggest you stop sending in songs altogether.

I mean do you even know how hard it is to get notoriety OUTSIDE of pony music even? Some of you do because some of you have done music before ponies and you know exactly what is like. The moment you get one feature you feel entitled to not improve anymore and have every subsequent song featured to ride the EqD train to fame or something. I know a milion people who do music that puts The Living Tombstone, Aviators, you name it, to SHAME. And they cannot get a thousand views on their songs that they spend months working on. Do you know what these people are? Grateful for the views they get. Just listen to this

http://jrdubstep.bandcamp.com/album/grand-scheme

I don't believe 500 people checked the album out yet he was so grateful to get 14 reblogs on tumblr about the album! Are you people seriously saying that the quality you have takes priority and you are entitled to your own 10k+ video views on each song? Get a grip with the unfair reality!

Anyway I've answered MoTD inquiries in the EQDmusic thread so there's that.

[TranquilHooves]

I wish people would stop crowbarring pony into their tracks just so EqD will feature it, and instead focusing on making top quality music, then if you want exposure, send it to proper promotion networks and labels, shit, you might get signed, and you'll play gigs and be properly famous, how about that?

FiM is a nice show, but my interest in making music about it or inspired by it is depleting dramatically, because of crap like this constantly happening. I don't make music to become popular, and I know I am unlikely to achieve any kind of recognition in the fandom. And I don't care.

SO MUCH THIS.
(But it is still nice to be appreciated by people who share a common interest.)

[MixMastaCopyCat]

http://jrdubstep.bandcamp.com/album/grand-scheme

nice..sanic chat,....bro hoofe...?? thanjs

[Freewave]

FiM is a nice show, but my interest in making music about it or inspired by it is depleting dramatically, because of crap like this constantly happening. I don't make music to become popular, and I know I am unlikely to achieve any kind of recognition in the fandom. And I don't care.

Lavendar you have 2,800+ YT subs, are a mod on MLR, were on Balloon Party, have been to Bronycons, are an EQD listener, and are a well known for music quality and your musical production know how. I think that's pretty good recognition and certainly nothing to feel bad about (feeling unpopular OR unrecognized). That's clearly was also done through hard work and quality not by sitting back and expecting it.

[Soultension Music]

lets pretend there was no youtube, soundcloud or any sharing site, would you still make music.

[Nine Volt]

I probably wouldn't work on it nearly as often, but yes I probably would still make it.

Also Soultension, you know you could've asked Makkon or Stars to change your username, right?

[FLAOFEI]

lets pretend there was no youtube, soundcloud or any sharing site, would you still make music.

Probably, assuming my interest got kick-started by something the way youtube did.
I probably wouldn't be going the same direction I am now, but as long as I listen to music I'm going to want to make it to.

[Lying Pink]

lets pretend there was no youtube, soundcloud or any sharing site, would you still make music.

Yes It was called 2002-2011. Well those sites existed but I didn't use them. You know what I meeeean.
I haven't had any real recognition, either within the fandom or outside of it, for my music -- because I haven't put out anything that quite deserved it (the more optimistic part of me wants to add "yet") -- haven't put anything out full stop until the end of last year -- and I haven't had a break. And I don't care. I make music because I'd be cheating myself if I didn't. I make music as part of this fandom because 1. it's always seemed like an enjoyable and nurturing community to be a part of, and 2. Rarity is a boss. Anything else is a bonus :>
Although yeah, getting paid to make sounds rather than admin work would be a pretty huge bonus huh

[Freewave]

I made music for nearly a full year as thescientist before MLP and so did several other musicians make their own music on the same forum. We often listened to each others albums, collabed, rated each other, and followed each other's work. There wasn't a lot of talk of production and many of us didn't have much of a clue about it, so we focused more on concepts and experimentation and just having fun doing our own thing. At the end of a year i only had about 50 ytube subscriptions but i had a multitude of albums & ep's under many genres and some feeling that others appreciated my music and thought i made decent music. I can go back and look at some of this music as novice, experimental, badly eq'ed, and completely missing a mainstream audience but i can also see a lot of cool ideas, a plethera of music, and the fact that i stand shoehorned between Prince and Zappa in genre exploration (when you look at the stats). I guess that's not a bad year of outsider music as it prepped me to do a better job when it came to brony music, focus on good techniques and eq'ing, focus on EDM, and i finally found more people wanting to hear what i was making. But i do miss the comradery over the competition, the more lax standards in appreciating the end result, and the willingness to really experiment. Alas.

[Applejinx]

lets pretend there was no youtube, soundcloud or any sharing site, would you still make music.

I did. The youtube track 'Dragons—Full Album' is just one of a number of albums I did back when there was no youtube, soundcloud, or anything. I didn't even do it on a computer. I did that shit on an ADAT.

I'll always do music of some sort. The type and the AMOUNT is another story. I got a hell of a lot better through doing a bunch of pony music, and then doing a bunch of Toastbeard, which I'll still do but maybe not every single week.

I have a funny sort of outlook on this stuff. I don't see any special advantage to getting the big numbers: I've had three things on EqD, and I had one track top two hundred THOUSAND views (so now YouTube lets me do whatever I want and offered to let me run advertising and monetize my videos, LOL)

I get very little out of that mega-hit track. It's a crowd of gawkers. I do like that some of the listeners got a hell of a lot out of the track. But what I really like is when I do something bizarre or just very personal, and some random guy goes OMG AMAZING! It's like that with my writing, though that is a lot more popular: most of my readers have always been other writers, the most notable ones. I've got like 265 subscribers on Youtube, including a few ponimusic celebs, which doesn't mean they're listening, just that they could if they wished.

The important thing is not how much of an audience, but WHICH audience you have. If you're getting the listeners you want (or the readers you want) it's encouraging, if you don't then the motivation isn't there. In my writing, I've got some of the most articulate readers. I have some pretty killer listeners, too, but the readers talk to me and the listeners don't, so I find my interest in music is only simmering along with me amusing myself through tech and mix discoveries, new gear and such.

If there's anybody you'd like to see do more of something, talk to them about it. That's frequently all it takes.

[Freewave]

Comments really do go a long way. If you like a track a lot don't just give a thumbs up, give a comment. It means so much more. Enthusiastic comments really do make it all worth while. Enthusiastic commnets from other musicians even more so.

[CommandSpry]

I too "made music" before; http://www.youtube.com/user/SMRDcompany
CommandSpry is just an anagram of SMRDcompany, my original artist name, and it was quite interesting to me when I was very happy to get 5 comments on a song I could work on for months; nowdays it's much more rewarding but I for one know to appreciate that, like some brony musicians do as well (: Now when I look back at it, it seems very depressing xD

[itroitnyah]

lets pretend there was no youtube, soundcloud or any sharing site, would you still make music.

Let's go back to the 80's and the time of the garage bands. Of course they made music because they wanted people to hear it. They didn't have the internet, but open up the garage door and jam down a beat, people will come to the driveway and cheer you on. Of course, if you opened up your garage door and blasted some music in modern day times, probably the only thing that would happen is your neighbor's calling the police on you.

If we take what you said literally and there was absolutely no way to ever even share a song online, then I might possibly still be making music, but maybe not. I probably wouldn't have started even. You see, I'm an entertainer, and if I'm going to do something, I want there to be an audience. There's no point to telling a joke to yourself in your bedroom, nobody is actually there to enjoy it. Or maybe I would have. Making music and sharing it between my friends, seeing what they think about it. This part would be hard since I'm a bit shy about sharing my music with friends and people in real life If there's one thing that is certain, I would definitely not be as motivated as I am at this time. My music would not be anywhere near as good as it is now, and that's really saying something. Nowadays, you have a whole audience of people waiting to listen to what you have to say. That's what motivates me the most, having the ability to say something. Anything. And people will listen. They may not listen for long in the start, but fine tune your speech enough and it will capture the whole world. Just like Hitler did. That mofo was apparently fucking awesome at giving badass speeches, and that's a huge part of the reason he was able to take power. I suppose that the quote by Victor Hugo in my signature applies here.

[PhillyPu]

I agree with OP. I guess we need to talk about extrinsic and intrinsic motivation now.

Ahem.

In psychology, motivation is defined as "a psychological feature that arouses an organism to act towards a desired goal and elicits, controls, and sustains certain goal directed behaviors." In laymen's term, it is the incentive for people to do things. Motivation is then further divided up into two types: extrinsic and intrinsic. Extrinsic motivation "refers to the performance of an activity in order to attain an outcome" (ie. preference of ends over means). That means if the result can be obtained via other means, if the activity itself is of no interest to the doer, he will not be opposed to switching such another mean. Intrisic motivation "refers to motivation that is driven by an interest or enjoyment in the task itself".

Now we have to ask a few questions. First: Why is it that we create music. Is it for the act of making music itself (say, if in the end we won't have ANY product, would we still do it?), or is it for the perceived gains of making music (subs, views, and if you write your music on paper, having a few really cool pieces of pages you can plaster your wall with it's artistic)? With this question we can safely say that the people who would prefer being featured on EqD over the process of music to be more extrinsically motivated than otherwise. That's fine. Lots of people do things on extrinsic motivation, and in fact, most government programs that try to promote science or art or civil duty are done so based on extrinsic motivation (grant money! Recognition on the national bill board! Take pictures with Obama!). In fact, the people who are truly intrinsically motivated are pretty hard to find, since they just do their stuff and wouldn't mind leaving whatever they make in their personal cupboard out of public view.

Second question we have to ask: What purpose does this website (MLR) serve? Is it a promotional platform for new "up and coming" artists to be raised to the top and beyond the stars? Is it a social networking site for easier connections between musicians of any level? Is it a workplace promoting the joys of making music and a market for different ideas, to be exchanged freely and without monetary concerns? In a way, and in different degrees, all of them, I believe, are involved in the making of this site: My Little Remix. But the problem here lies: did Makkon create MLR for people to become extrinsically motivated, or intrinsically motivated? I'd like the bet the latter. And so talk of extrinsic motivation should be moved off this site and into private chats or other, more appropriate places. Because this place is not designed with the extrinsically motivated in mind, and neither would the people running this site push those motivations forward. This is an artist-oriented community focused on trying to better ourselves and our crafts, not a community focused on getting the best extrinsic benefits from a third-party website.

Also, on the topic of "oh it's just so painful for musicians to put in hours, dozens of hours! Weeks, months! into music and songs just to have it brushed aside to the 'famous' people waaaahhhhh."

You guys haven't heard the story of Van Gogh? Or Grigori Perelman?

Van Gogh spent his entire life working day and night perfecting his technique and cranking out paintings after paintings. How many did he actually sell? One. If it weren't for his brother, he would've been lying on the street begging for money and food. It doesn't help that he associated with the Impressionists. His entire life dedicated to making art! With no pay!

Grigori Perelman turned down the Millenium Prize after proving the Poincare conjecture, 80 years after the first attempt. He also turned down numerous prizes of the mathematics field. Why? According to his close friends the prizes and awards were "not mathematics, and took the spotlight away from what really mattered". In 2006 he was reported to be unemployed, but when the Clay Institute decide to give him the $1,000,000 prize for solving one of the Millennium Problems (Poincare Conjecture) he rejected it.

These people spent their entire lives dedicating themselves to what they enjoy doing with no need of external rewards, with their path and craft their enjoyment. Yes, it's impressive you spent 50 hours into that song of yours, but if Van Gogh didn't receive recognition while he was alive (not even as much as a single YouTube "comment"!) why should you deserve it?

Yes yes, I realize not everyone is Van Gogh, but the group of people I associate with do not care about recognition the slightest. And it shows. They keep on improving and improving, through sun and rain, wind and snow. Fame is a fickle monster. You do not command for it to come. It comes to you through perseverance, and most importantly, sheer luck. I mean, if Friday has 50 million views and Rebecca Black has 250,000 subs...

ISN'T IT OBVIOUS SKILL DOES NOT CORRELATE (linearly) WITH RECOGNITION?

So if you're really going for "fame" or "recognition", best thing I can advice you is to better your craft. Put in the hours (more hours. ALL THE HOURS). If you can't command fame, least you can do is to become so good that you can amaze anyone you want to. Once you're at that point, you've pretty much gotten all the recognition you need.

But then again, this is my philosophy to art. This is my reason for doing what I do. I do not expect everyone to agree with me, but I do expect the musicians, artists, content producers, to understand that (excessive) extrinsic motivation is a dangerous one.

[CDPP]

I agree with Philly. Art for art's sake. Fame's secondary.

[Counterwise]

I'm with Gabby on this. Fame and exposure doesn't matter if you enjoy making music for the sake of it in the first place. Besides, being rejected from EqD should be more motivation to improve and to get featured (if that's what you so desire).

[Evine]

Most people here don't realize that a song you've spent 50-500 hours on isn't that much. Because really you're just making a song while you practice. It takes about 10,000 hours to master an art, never believe you can skip that. And If you put 10,000 hours towards something it damn better be intrinsic motivation that drives you.

Edit2: Desire to be viewed is as far away from intrinsic motivation you can get. That also include wanting comments and just in general wanting interaction with fans is extrinsic motivation.

[Nine Volt]

Most people here don't realize that a song you've spent 50-500 hours on isn't that much. Because really you're just making a song while you practice. It takes about 10,000 hours to master an art, never believe you can skip that. And If you put 10,000 hours towards something it damn better be intrinsic motivation that drives you.

Edit2: Desire to be viewed is as far away from intrinsic motivation you can get. That also include wanting comments and just in general wanting interaction with fans is extrinsic motivation.

Sorry, but I can't quite tell if you're trying to say that wanting recognition is bad or good. It seems like you're saying it's bad, in which case I disagree with you wholeheartedly (in the same scenario of 50-500 hours on a track).

[Freewave]

500 hrs on a track is ridiculous although I've spent 2 months on a track several times and 6 months on a collab (with some time-mismanagement and it was rejected by EQD anyway).

Again this isn't about fame over art, it's a about a fair playing field. EQD should cut the fat out, not the good meat.

I'm happy with the music i put out, with the subscriptions i have, with the comments i get, with knowing some people legitimately like what i put out. I'm not after fame and i spend a lot of free time on my music. What I aim for for is the ability to be creative, not repeat myself, to create music that channels my love of the show into music, and that celebrates my love of all music, and for it to be heard, and then to learn from what i may have missed. In the end though this is still music about MLP, made for free, to be free, and made by part-time musicians but not professionals.

It's never going to be in a museum, it shouldn't be compared to Van Gogh (in his day his music WAS considered to be poor production quality FROM the norm), but it is still ART if it was made with some passion and with a lot of work. All I ask if there's existing systems in place by a wide brony community to get that good music out there so people can listen to it, that they do so. There is a legitimacy to free non label music that might not be as polished as what's on the radio and that do things differently. This is music ffs ir comes in all kinds of flavors. Let people choose what the hell they like and don't. I'm all for standards and people putting a lot of work on their tracks until they are complete. Don't let EQD be the equivalent of mainstream radio with glossy production but with little variety or flavor. That's not the best music, it never has been.