The other day I posted about how music can be humbling. Yesterday I got a big dose of it.
I had a lesson, and I really struggled with a fingerpicking pattern. I just haven't been able to get it consistently. It's going to take a lot of repetition on my part, and honestly, it'll still be hit or miss for a while.
That evening, I went to a songwriter’s circle. If you write songs and you've never been to one, you should go. Last night it was at Queen Bee Music Association here in Santa Fe. (https://www.queenbeemusicassociation.org) They run a great program, and I highly recommend them.
At a songwriter’s circle, you play a song for the group. I almost always try one I wrote that week. The group then critique you song. The feedback is usually helpful, but you have to be willing to hear it: that the song you just wrote isn't ready for prime time, that it's "a good start," that your message wasn't as clear as you'd hoped.
What makes it useful, at least for me, is what happens after. I go home, and I sit with the ideas and suggestions. I try to understand them and try to work them into the song. It's my song, and ultimately I'll do what I want with it ‚ But I always want the song to be as good as I can make it right now. Feed back usually makes the song better.
But the truth, at least for me, is that criticism occasionally touches the ego. I loved a certain part, and someone else really didn't. I have to let that go and look at the song objectively. Stephen King said it best: sometimes you have to kill your darlings. Every now and then, a line I really love has to come out and go into the bone pile for the good of the song.
Being an artist is hard sometimes. Being creative can be challenging. But I love that challenge. Tom Hanks put it well in *A League of Their Own*: "It's supposed to be hard. If it wasn't hard, everyone would do it. The hard... is what makes it great."