Rejection.

How do you feel when you work for months (or longer) on a piece and you finally become happy with it, only to have your peers tell you they don't like it? I mean, a LOT of people say they don't like it, not just a few.

It hasn't happened to me yet, but I do dread it. What will/have you done to deal with it?

:)

It depends how confidant you are in it; how passionate you are about YOUR music.

If YOU feel strongly about it, ignore people who don't like it. If your goals are to make aesthetically pleasing music and money (see what I did there?!), sure...compromise yourself for the sake of good reviews. Otherwise, stick to your guns, and be positive and passionate about it.

Contrary to some beliefs, you CAN NOT write a piece of music that everyone will like; nor can you write something that no one will like.

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[sorry I took so long to reply...some members would already have complained twice by now! ;) ]

You know, I had a choir teacher tell me in my youth that if you wrote something, and truly liked it, others are bound to like it, too.

However, I've written thing I don't like and havehad others love it.

It just...depends, I guess. Haha.

Dealing with rejection is one of the integral parts of being a composer no matter what kind of music you write. As Robin said, it is essentially impossible to write a piece everyone will like. Not letting a rejection hurt you, and using it to move forward as an artist is what composing is all about.

First of all it depends of course who rejects the piece. If it is your teacher or somebody you are working for then it is quite hard. On the other hand you are dealing then probably with somebody who has the knowlegde to judge the piece and reject it with a reason. The best you can do then is to take as much distance as possible from the piece and try to observe it in an objective matter and look why it is rejected. Probably after some time you can find some good reasons and or feedback that can actually improve your piece.

If the piece is rejected by the public then you have to start wondering about a few things:

1: what is the public, are they ready for your music

2: how was the performance and could it be of influence of the rejection

3: what went wrong in convincing the public what your piece was about and what your intensions are with the composition and would it be better if they would have listen to it again (always ask the people if they are willing to listen to it again to see if they still have the same judgement).

Rejection is never nice, but mostly it contains valuable assets to improve your work or maybe even more important on how to show and perform your music.

When I was working as contemporary music composer I had a lot of music rejected by the public in the beginning, but I figured out after some time that I did not took the public that serious and automaticly put them in a corner and judged them that they had no clue about what was going on.

Even if they don't have a clue what is going on, it is our job to make sure that they know and try to get them involved.

First of all, it should be a given that you think your piece of music is just indescribably awesome.Your standards should be that high.

If other people have different taste to you, then accept it, and move on to the next piece.There's nothing else you can do if you have the piece sounding as good as possible to you, unless you have telepathy and know what other people want to hear.

Anyway, that's my 2c.

How do you feel when you work for months (or longer) on a piece and you finally become happy with it, only to have your peers tell you they don't like it? I mean, a LOT of people say they don't like it, not just a few.

It hasn't happened to me yet, but I do dread it. What will/have you done to deal with it?

:)

it depends on who your peers are (as has been said)

it depends on WHY they don't like it (as has been said)

If you're a high school student and the peers you refer to have no more formal training than you do (or less than you, as the case generally may be), then you may probably want to take it (the criticism) with a grain of salt.

if you are a doctoral student in composition and other doctoral composition students are telling you they don't like it, first of all, figure out WHY they aren't like it. Some of their reasons may be valid.

"I don't like the theme" means a lot of things. It can mean unfamiliarity with the material you are using when stated by someone without much knowledge of classical music. And unfamiliarity with a topic isn't always the best place to start when criticising something.

If you're writing music that is highly "advanced" (ie: non-traditional harmony, non-tonal music, experimental) the above reason can often pop up when your peers are not equipped to understand the things you are doing.

On the other hand, if you're writing neo-mozart and your peers are doctoral candidates in compositon, there comes into play the issue of your music not fulfilling their expectations.

As the creator of any work of art, we are always happy with our children, particularly those we've worked very hard at to bring into this world. Criticism isn't always easy to take. Criticism we find unjust is even harder to take.

Without knowing your exact situation, I can't offer anything more than these round-about approximations of what might be. Just remember that "peers" aren't always the best placed to MAKE those critiques. One of two things can affect peer judgement: either they lack proper foundation for their criticism, or they lack the ability to distance themselves from their own work while criticizing another's output.

Everything can afford more work. I had a performance recently, and I was literally tweaking lyrics up until and including the day of the show.

Even if you've worked long and hard and are proud of the work, that does not mean it's reached its potential. That just means you've spent a long time and a lot of hard work on it. There is no limit to how long you have to work before its finished.

Take every piece of criticism for what it is. Don't try to rewrite the piece to please everyone, but listen to the critique and see what you can take from it to make the piece even better.

If your friends simply say "I don't like it," then they're not being very helpful. And, of course, no matter what you do there will always be people who don't like it. It sucks, but it's true.

But rather than letting it get you down, try to see and hear what they see and hear and use it to your advantage. The worst thing you could possibly do is say, "Well, what the gently caress do they know? This is perfect!" Conversely, you don't want to say, "Well, I guess I suck. There's no point in writing music." There's always room for improvement, and if you use their critique to improve, you will always write the best stuff you can.

Contrary to some beliefs, you CAN NOT write a piece of music that everyone will like; nor can you write something that no one will like.[/Quote]

Nah man. Everyone likes Coldplay.

Everything can afford more work. I had a performance recently, and I was literally tweaking lyrics up until and including the day of the show.

Even if you've worked long and hard and are proud of the work, that does not mean it's reached its potential. That just means you've spent a long time and a lot of hard work on it. There is no limit to how long you have to work before its finished.

Take every piece of criticism for what it is. Don't try to rewrite the piece to please everyone, but listen to the critique and see what you can take from it to make the piece even better.

If your friends simply say "I don't like it," then they're not being very helpful. And, of course, no matter what you do there will always be people who don't like it. It sucks, but it's true.

But rather than letting it get you down, try to see and hear what they see and hear and use it to your advantage. The worst thing you could possibly do is say, "Well, what the f*** do they know? This is perfect!" Conversely, you don't want to say, "Well, I guess I suck. There's no point in writing music." There's always room for improvement, and if you use their critique to improve, you will always write the best stuff you can.

I agree with the above post. ^ :)

i dont care about what other people think of my music. if i like it, its good. if other people dont like it, i would listen to their suggestions, and would not get offended at all.