[eleven59]

Exactly: write it for yourself, but when you're really excited about something and other musicians are telling you it's not fast enough or complex enough, go and talk to some non-musicians who might like it, because they'll make you feel a lot better.

There's nothing wrong with complex music, but there's also nothing wrong with simple music.

[Petef2007]

I personally love getting opinions from non-musicians about the riffs and songs i write, and if i want to get deeply involved with talking about the technical side of it, i can always do that with some of the musicians i know.

As a musician myself, and one half of the primary riff writers for my band, i tend to be something of a perfectionist about my riffs, but at the end of the day i always tell myself theres no point in changing a riff just because its a little cliche if it sounds good.

I find most of the time, if the finished piece sounds awesome, then both musicians and non musicians appreciate it for what it is, rather then picking it apart.

[7slinger]

Being the only songwriter in our band, I've made a conscious effort as of late to really try to write "songs," instead of writing riff A riff B riff C etc...

I've found that as I've gotten older, the music I really enjoy listening to isn't the face-melting shred I grew up with (though I still prefer it to most everything). I think I liked it at the time because it was impressive from a guitar-playing standpoint, but now I listen to alot of it and find that the song writing often leaves something to be desired. Intro-verse-chorus-verse-chorus-bridge-verse-chorus-outro just doesn't do it for me anymore most of the time.

I'd love to have more people to talk to about my music face to face, but my wife I think would rather listen to nothing at all most of the time, so I can't keep her interested in a "music" conversation for very long. The guys in my band most of the time aren't much better. I do my best to write music that we'll all enjoy, cause they rely on my for the songs. But when I ask for feedback on things I'm working on, I often times get responses like this:

Me: What do you think of this riff?
Bass player: Meh, I don't really like it.
Me: Why not?
Bass player: There's nothing amazing about it.

- or -

Me: What do you think of this riff?
Drummer: I play drums.

Moral of this story: I try really hard to write music for myself and not worry about whether or not others will like it. It's hard to really commit myself to that line of thinking when I'm writing music for the rest of my bandmates as well. I mean, I could tell them "This is exactly what I want, no changes," but that usually leads to unhappy bandmates, which sucks.

:blahblahblah:

Sorry for the rant, just write whatever you want, and screw everybody!!!