...and sometimes that song of yours that you think is so awful turns out to be a chart-topper:
The thing about 'Sweet Child o mine,' it was written in five minutes. It was one of those songs, only three chords. You know that guitar lick Slash does at the beginning? It was kinda like a joke because we thought, 'What is this song? It's gonna be nothing, it'll be filler on the record.' And except that vocal-wise, it's very sweet and sincere, Slash was just messing around when he first wrote that lick.
That's a great quote. This is very common in pop music. The songs that resonate most with audiences often seem trivial at first to the artist.
I think partly this is because we are less creative when we have a lot of preconceptions about how a "proper" work is supposed to go. It's supposed to be hard, for example. Throwaway work can be free of those preconceptions because one isn't taking it seriously. What one ends up spontaneously creating can thus turn out to be more valuable. I'm sure I'm not the only one who finds Sweet Child to be the only memorable thing they ever did.
Wish I could remember other famous examples of classic songs being this kind of toss-off. Blowing in the Wind is one that comes to mind. But there are so many.
There's a long history (going back to at least "Rock Around the Clock") of single B-sides becoming unexpected hits. Searching for the phrase "started playing the B-side" brings up several examples:
My favourite is the story of "Amen Brother", a forgettable (?) b-side instrumental by sixties funk band The Winstons that just happened to feature a really sweet break beat ... which went on to spawn an entire musical genre.
not only can something that you think is awful be instead widely appreciated, but sometimes what really is awful at an intermediate stage will somehow evolve into something really cool as you massage it further.
I question this. I'd like to see an example of something that really is awful, as opposed to just appearing awful, turning into something great later. I think it is likely that the seed of eventual greatness is present from the beginning.
Of course it may appear awful along the way, even to the creator, have many incomplete aspects and so on. But is there an example of something great that didn't start out with its greatness somehow latent, in a way that can be traced in retrospect?
Here's an interesting case study, the first public performance by Rage Against The Machine: http://www.dangerousminds.net/comments/rage_against_the_mach.... I'm not personally a fan, but certainly they grew into something a lot of people feel is great, and the seed of it is very clear in this performance.
> I question this. I'd like to see an example of something that really is awful, as opposed to just appearing awful, turning into something great later. I think it is likely that the seed of eventual greatness is present from the beginning.
"greatness" is sometimes in the eye of the beholder. For example, awful movies can sometimes gain a cult following.
I bet there was a time that the individual musicians in Rage Against the Machine were pretty terrible, and that the songs they created when they were in a nascent stage were pretty terrible as well.
Whether from the first time one of these artists picked up a guitar you could retrospectively identify latent aspects of their style that would later make them so innovative, I'm not sure, but I would doubt it.
While their first public performance might have been pretty good, I'm guessing that their first band practice would have been pretty terrible and disheartening.
I agree with things said in here and it is a surprising anecdote considering it is probably one of their most famous songs and one of the most famous songs ever but I want to throw in:
It was created in five minutes, yes, but by artists in GnR so those five minutes for them might have taken the average player days to weeks to deliver something like that. It sure is simple, just three chords, but you need a lot of skill to pull something like this off and make it sound full, interesting and catchy.
Yes, creating something and inspiration can come in the absolutely weirdest, strangest moments and situations but then it takes a whole lot of skill to actually make something of the idea and ultimately deliver a song.
Many people like to call it "talent" then but I like to believe that talent is rather what non-musicians like to call the result of countless hours or practicing, playing and studying and applying music theory.
Judging by the number of uncompleted projects littering my hard-drive, this idea obviously has a wider application.
I think Mayer's real point is that, unless you finish something, you don't gain the benefit of the experience of completing something, and you can never get to a point where you can judge your results.
In my case, I've switched to using git which encourages me to make lots of small commits, and I'm really making an effort to 'push the big boulders up the hill', just a little at a time. I just have to finish more apps, both because I need the experience, and I need to improve.
You might write shit code, or you might write great code, but unless you finish, your work isn't going anywhere.
"I think Mayer's real point is that, unless you finish something, you don't gain the benefit of the experience of completing something, and you can never get to a point where you can judge your results."
This article described my exact experience with writing songs. In the end, you wind up with a bunch of half-baked, fragmented ideas that don't fit together into a cohesive whole. Music, like programming, is meticulous, but also mysterious in the way that sudden inspiration can light a fire under you. When inspiration fails, however, we have to soldier on and get the work done, all in the name of self-improvement.
Another way to look at it is that "You have to perservere so that your execution catches up with your taste."
I read a blog post explaining that this is the reason you dont see great writers who have a Masters or higher in literature. Their taste is so refined that when they read their own attempts at writing they get very discouraged and give up.
A lot of the time you don't even have to begin... they write whole songs for you. And being a guitar player myself I know Mayer gets a lot of flack for his pop tunes.
But all snide remarks aside, listen to some of his blues stuff like the John Mayer Trio - it is nothing short of amazing, from playing and dynamics and "feeling" down to tone to gear used.
I agree that it is written unclearly. One problem is the use of the word “possible” where he means “possibly”, but there are many more badly worded parts. This is what I think he’s saying:
Many people give up on writing songs before the songs are
finished because they don’t expect the songs to be good.
Most people are wrong about this, for one of two
possible reasons:
1. they are just being lazy and making up excuses for
not finishing
2. they are underestimating the quality of their work
because they're looking at an unfinished product; if
they saw how the finished product, they would think
it’s okay.
Therefore, you should finish writing your song, even if
it’s a ‘bad’ song, because in the end, it probably won’t
be bad after all.
In art it is entirely personal whether you finish "awful" songs. You really think Rilke would have been better off finishing every poem he started writing? Nonsense. If you have a Muse, better obey her.
When it comes to software: perhaps you ought to give things more thought before you begin?
The thing about 'Sweet Child o mine,' it was written in five minutes. It was one of those songs, only three chords. You know that guitar lick Slash does at the beginning? It was kinda like a joke because we thought, 'What is this song? It's gonna be nothing, it'll be filler on the record.' And except that vocal-wise, it's very sweet and sincere, Slash was just messing around when he first wrote that lick.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sweet_child_of_mine