What Motivates You When Frustrated?

[RickElliott]

What Motivates You When Frustrated?
Well...

Drugs.

Just kidding!! Happy Holidays to all!

Casey

AH! Pepto Bismal, Advil, Coffee.

[RickElliott]

At Taxi, you have to realize it is what it is. I get frustrated. I get returns for all the stuff: "Too repetitive, not enough forward motion, not what the client asked for, you put percussion in there when the brief said not to do that, etc." If I wait a day, I usually find out that they were correct. Sometimes, I'll check out to see what DID make it in the forwards blog. Then, there'll be some kind of demon telling me, "Hey! That dude with the name you see a lot around here did the same thing you did, nut yours was returned!" Or I'll get a return that said mine wasn't long enough even though it was 10 seconds longer than the minimum.
You know what though? I don't care anymore. I'm not going to bother Craig about it. I'm not going to whine here anymore (even though I just did, so I'm not saying you are). "Too repetitive" is a running joke for me now, but I think everyone is getting tired of it. I think it's been a month since I've mentioned it.
ANYWAY! I deal with it because of some of the things you've said. I'm getting better at it. I'm learning not to be envious. My rose-colored glasses are getting more and more clearer. My catalog is getting bigger. The number one reason is... I love the people here. The people that I thought would look down on me do NOT look down on me. Number 2... I don't take anything personally here anymore.

I'm going to add one more thing. I heard an interview with Denzel Washington. They said that he didn't get an award several times when everyone knew he should have won. He said, "So what? What are you going to do? Quit?"
I don't want to quit. I'm not going to quit.

[douglasricketts]

I deal with it because of some of the things you've said. I'm getting better at it. I'm learning not to be envious. My rose-colored glasses are getting more and more clearer. My catalog is getting bigger. The number one reason is... I love the people here. The people that I thought would look down on me do NOT look down on me...

I'm going to add one more thing. I heard an interview with Denzel Washington. They said that he didn't get an award several times when everyone knew he should have won. He said, "So what? What are you going to do? Quit?"
I don't want to quit. I'm not going to quit.

BINGO! 1000%.

[MBantle]

To answer the question raised in this thread: Get faster. Instead of spending an hour being frustrated over returns, you should focus on finishing instrumentals more quickly, as Matt describes in his videos (great channel BTW https://www.youtube.com/@mattvanderboegh). The frustration of a return will still remain, but it will hurt less if you only invested a few hours into completing the track rather than an entire week.

Critiques will always be subjective, and the world will always be unfair. Therefore, the "numbers game"—overwhelming the system with a large volume of tracks—seems to be the only reasonable approach.

[Casey H]

Keep in mind also that when you pitch directly to music libraries, sync agents, supervisors, etc. outside of the Taxi world, 99% the time they only give you a yes/no response. You have no idea why that party did not want to sign the track for sync. And you will find that one library will reject while another will not only accept it, they will get it placed. It's not a black and white world and you have to roll with the punches. That doesn't mean I don't ever get angry or discouraged. I do. But I have to keep reminded myself that it's all part of the business. We don't get every job we interview for.

Casey

[cosmicdolphin]

And you will find that one library will reject while another will not only accept it, they will get it placed.

Or you might even accidently pitch the same album to the same library twice, 6 months apart and have it accepted 2nd time around. True story.

[gitanosoy]

The $2.02 cents I am going to receive from royalties on Feb 15th 2025 from SOCAN. ,then I look at Cosmic Dolphin's 9 year update and keep going.

[davidagates]

I submitted, at one point when I first started, to almost every instrumental listing. I got forwarded a few times, but despite my work being good, not being arrogant in that regard, I can objectively say it was good, it was returned. This used to make me feel gutted, then angry. I wasn't going to renew, but I got a good deal and thought, "eh, why not". I got contacted by my first Library earlier this year, and now have quite a few tracks in their catalogue.

Having a track rejected is something that's very disheartening, and can feel unfair, but then we are dealing with a very subjective art form. Often it's not fair. You roll with the punches and just keep writing. For me, what makes me keep going, is the fact that I'd be doing it for the love of it, even if I wasn't trying to make a living from it. I want to get better, and given the great feedback I've had on here over the last couple of years I've definitely improved, no doubt about that.

It's a long old process, you get rejected ALOT, but in the end what motivates me when I'm frustrated is that I love music. To me there is no better art form, so to be creating that is enough to keep me going. To be quite honest, despite it driving me nuts sometimes, it's probably the thing that keeps me sane. Hours with my DAW, writing something, struggling, and then, something beautiful.

My advice? Just stay the course.

[superkons]

This seems appropriate:

https://youtu.be/nLmaIsUvjFk?feature=shared

You are welcome