SheezyExplosion

[davidn]

It's been said before that submitting anything to the Internet is like doing stand-up to a brick wall. For the most part, people don't feel the need to provide feedback or commentary on anything, and because you don't see who you're reaching or how many there are of them, you have no idea whether you're going in the right direction or not.

Predictably, this happened when I started submitting MP3s to SheezyArt as an experiment a while ago, so that I would have a place for my music where I wasn't hesitant to give out the link. (Although to be honest I'm still not entirely certain what the site is, largely due to its slick Web 2.0 interface rendering it completely innavigable.) I put a couple of my newer pieces up, often forgetting that I had the account and leaving a few days between submissions. By gradually hacking at the bricks with each submission I got a thin trickle of commentary back through it, which is nice to have when starting out.

Yesterday morning, I took a swing at the brick wall again and it exploded. I cannot imagine why over a hundred people decided to click on that submission after having a maximum of ten or so before, but the reaction has been pretty amazing.

"I can definitely hear some elements of Maiden's Powerslave era in this..."
"I really wish Maiden covered this to hear Dickinson yelp out to it... it would be incredible."
"This would be interesting to hear actually done live, or with actual performers."
"I listened before I started reading, and the Maiden elements are very clear."
"Might be interesting to hear a band like Dream Theater perform it..."
"Also reminds me a bit of Nightwish, their older pieces of course."
"Awesome stuff here. It reminds me of Iron Maiden, SNES games, and sometimes anime music."

You know that bit in Black Books 2 when Bill Bailey screams "Ahh! I can play!" at his hands after discovering he's actually a master pianist? That was roughly the reaction I had this morning when I checked the site again.

But, again rather frustratingly, you can see the theme of "Do it with real instruments!" coming up as always - the inescapable electronic sound is something that I've half-heartedly tried to get away from over time, but I've never been able to shake it off just using the computer, and putting together something "real" is a bit beyond my time and ability at the moment. Although there was a guitarist on FA that seemed quite interested, now I come to think of it. Perhaps computer science isn't my calling after all and I'm actually the next Kai Hansen. I'm a whole inch taller than him, you know

(By the way, I should mention this too - I submit music along with lyrics to two pretty major public "art" sites and have no hesitation in doing it, but as soon as I paste a link to one of them in my journal, where people I know rather than anonymous entities on the Internet will probably see it, it becomes an immensely frightening thing. That's one of the most illogical things ever.)

Comments

[kjorteo]

(By the way, I should mention this too - I submit music along with lyrics to two pretty major public "art" sites and have no hesitation in doing it, but as soon as I paste a link to one of them in my journal, where people I know rather than anonymous entities on the Internet will probably see it, it becomes an immensely frightening thing. That's one of the most illogical things ever.)

Makes sense to me, or at the very least, I get that too. I think it's because failure hurts more when you know the person involved. Like, if a bunch of random strangers on SheezyArt hate your music, so what? Most of them can't put together comments more profound than what you see on YouTube videos anyway. If I hate your music, then that's going to at least be in the back of your mind whenever we talk, which is often.

(Fortunately, I think your music is awesome. And you know I'm not lying, because if you recall correctly, I actually installed QuickTime just to hear it. If being worth inflicting QuickTime on my computer isn't praise, I'm not sure what is.)

[stubbleupdate.livejournal.com]

Quicktime isn't so bad.

If something is so good it's worth installing RealMedia, THAT's impressive.

[davidn]

Surely nothing's worth installing RealMedia for!

[stubbleupdate.livejournal.com]

really, nothing is. I'll spend ages converting something into another format to avoid RealMedia taking over my machine.

that's a music CD! I'll play a music CD!

You're listening to an mp3! I can play an mp3! I'll play it for you now!

[davidn]

iTunes is pretty bad for that too, by default deciding to load up 20MB of its bloatware just to play a WAV sample lasting half a second. I actually use Windows Media Classic, which can play virtually anything - including, crucially, FLV and RAM files.

[davidn]

That's a very good point, actually. It's quite easy to "turn off" anyone you choose to on the Internet, so that probably increases the appeal of releasing anything on it even more.

I've discovered only one place more awful than Youtube, and that's the comments section on WorseThanFailure. It's pretty much exactly the same, but worse because they use longer words.

I actually resisted installing Quicktime for ages too until iTunes told me to do it, but I did find myself appreciating the resultant browser plug-in.

[pami-zee.livejournal.com]

Yeah, that does make sense - it's easier to perform to a bunch of people you've never met and are never going to meet again than it is to perform to a relative or close friend, I've always found.

Oh, and it's harder to submit it to people you think are "better" than you, or on par with. Suddenly the comments matter, because it's people who actually understand what they're on about.