Q: hi bill. when making music, making ideas and stuff comes easy but when I try to revise them I just never get it done. my teacher and my parents push me to revise my works, but it's hard to find motivation. any thoughts? (btw you're amazing)
A: the risk in 'revising' is that it might make it worse and less genuine. The benefit, however, is that it might make it more coherent. I spent a long time being unable or afraid to do this. i just kept writing new things. but eventually i just got so jealous of 'normal' songs, for having a repeating chorus, etc, that i figured it out. Half of the struggle, i think, is just choosing which item you're going to work on. for me it was necessary to first gather all the items into a list. Then i would go through the list one at a time, and make a few moves on each one. the 'diagnosis' is important. Play through the existing material, get a first impression, see if you generally like it or if it sucks, .... then start diagnosing it. If it's a small idea, figure out if it's the beginning or not the beginning. If it's already a long / complete idea, just go through from the beginning and find the first place where it truly sucks or is not good enough. This point is what i call the 'split point', the point where the existing material stops being good enough. So you put the rest aside, and write from there. I generally don't think it's good to plan on writing to connect to what comes after -- very risky and strange to do this. But it might happen automatically. so you can be open to that, but, plan on just writing from the split point and doing what's truly right from the split point