How NOT to Share Feedback with Artists

My search for performance coaches has not yet yielded a viable one. These individuals are highly accomplished and trained individuals whose fees are like sledgehammers, something someone making a living in India will struggle to meet.

Hence, I turned to my extended friend circle and asked around. Basically, I texted a select few friends to query if they had such a skillset, and if they did, I asked if they would be interested to coach me. In all fairness, it was not so difficult to find the likely candidates. Both the people I got in touch did have the skillset, one of them, said they could work with me. Yesterday evening, I had my first meeting with the one.

It’s a he. It’s a he who I have had a physical relationship with. It’s a he who has been there for me, by my side, in some of my darkest phases. It’s a he who has given me unforgettable experiences of various kinds. It’s a he who has been consistently welcoming toward me in the several versions that I have iterated myself through. I’ll refer to him as SP.

SP, in a nutshell, said that the most important thing that I need to do is to believe in myself and my potential. He wants me to be confident to ‘market’ myself and work on my networking skills. He thinks that one needs to have a certain blend of arrogance and indifference toward the world. Our meeting ended with the promise of a few more at the very least.

I was also left with an assignment. Somewhere in the middle of my narration of what I thought ailed me in terms of sharing the output of my creativity with the rest of the world, I mentioned that I have had a few traumatic experiences while attempting it previously, with some of them being with people what one would refer to as “friends”. He asked me to write down two such experiences, which will immediately follow this. I am to share these with him and we are to discuss these in our next meeting.

Traumatic Experience #1

Age: 21
Year: 2001

I had just recorded and mixed my first original song called Castle Without A Rock. The song/lyric writing, and all the performances (guitars, bass, drums, and vocals) were by me. The song itself was about the experiences that we (my close friends and I) had had around our first-ever concert as part of the New Year's Eve celebrations for the coming of 2000 (Y2K).

The landmark album Parachutes by Coldplay had been released only a few months before, and the hit song Yellow was on everyone’s minds. The reason I mention is that I thought it was a masterful song arranged relatively simplistically, which is what I was attempting to go for in my song.

It was late afternoon on a mid-summer day. As soon as I finished a decent mix for the song, I exported it in the mp3 format, copied into a portable USB drive, and ran over to my friend’s place—our usual meeting place.

The house was that of a friend who was much older than the rest of us. He was a music connoisseur and had been collecting CDs and records for years. He had a high-end hi-fi at his place. On that particular day, we were three—the older friend, a younger friend (who since then went on to be a drummer in many bands I have played with), and I.

I excitedly announced what I wanted to share with them, and I figured out a way to play the song on the hi-fi. My friends did not demonstrate any excitement. In fact, halfway through the song, the older friend started laughing, which prompted me to stop the playback. In the ensuing conversation, I explained what my intent was (in terms of artistic style). I only remember getting more chuckles and laughter. At the end of my explanation, I remember receiving some critique (on the following lines) from the older friend:

“Such work will never be received well. You might as well as give up on writing/performing music. You shouldn’t set high hopes for being a professional musician.”

Years later, I would take courses on Coursera, with some of them being on songwriting and musicianship. One of the important aspects of every such course is the importance of learning to share feedback with peers. The entire focus is on the need for kind, constructive feedback, with strong advice against harsh and hypercritical ones. I guess my friend did not know this, despite him being a popular and successful teacher in accounting.

I don’t remember my younger friend sharing anything on the song. This despite him and me having been jamming regularly for several months and having dreams of being in a band and writing songs. Years later, I remember him coming around and admitting to how highly he thought highly of some of my later work.

This incident was followed by another traumatic incident with the younger friend’s family. These two incidents were triggers for my eventual move away from Thiruvananthapuram. The incident also started the gradual severance of the friendship with the older friend. Although I continued to work with and be friends with the younger one, things have never been really the same.

Traumatic Experience #2

Age: 28
Year: 2008

I had just released an EP of five of my songs on MySpace. Although I was sure of the quality of my songwriting, I was aware of my production and performances not being up to the mark for radio airplay. The songs were actually recorded with the aim of a submission for a talent hunt by the premier indie record label then. The idea was for me to showcase my work so that they would consider me signing with them as an artist under their label.

Back then, I was actively involved in networking in the music scene, being part of two popular bands on the rise. I also personally knew many active musicians and was friends with some of them. Internet chats were popular. I had just struck up a chat conversation with one of the scene guys on MySpace.

He was someone who I respected and looked up to at that time. He was funny and charming and was part of at least two successful bands. Later on, I’d realize that he belonged to a clique of musicians who were fortunate enough to know each other from their school days, with their collective might propelling them to the top of the indie music scene.

I remember thinking that I will ask his opinion as to how to go about taking my project on live touring, considering that he and his bands were doing that consistently for a few years. I had shared the links of my songs and asked him for his opinion. The lasting memory that I have of this conversation is him telling me this:

“Who is this fucking singer, man! He is so baaadd, oh my god. I have never heard worse singing in my life!”

I left the conversation with him and have never talked to him properly since then. This crushed me in ways that I can’t even describe. It triggered my reluctance to share my work with my friends and “scene guys”. It also created roadblocks for me to share songwriting ideas with my then band, which I partially overcame in the coming years.

Like with the previous incident, I experienced a life-changing traumatic event soon after. This time, I would almost lose my partner to near-fatal health complications during his visit.

He had come to Mumbai from New York City, with the intent of figuring out a way to eventually move to India to be with me. In the course of the next few weeks in India, and in the following months in the US, he would go through multiple devastating health events which would render him in a state of dementia, where he would not even recognize me or our relationship. This wiped out our bank accounts, and would eventually result in me failing my exams for the first time in my life.

The series of unfortunate events triggered the darkest phase of depression I think I have gone through. I would spend several months toying with the idea of suicide. Eventually, with the help of some close friends and the partially-recovered partner, I started taking medications for depression. I somehow found the courage and drive to give my post-graduation exams, and would eventually pass them on second attempt.

On the positive side, this incident also guided me to explore ways to improve my voice, and I eventually even found a vocal coach, who restored a lot of the confidence that I had lost. Eventually, I would find the courage to share my work with a select few friends, and most of them would end up having startlingly different opinions.

The band that I am in right now includes two such people. I remember having played my songs on the car stereo on a ride back from a rehearsal. I was only seeking feedback on my choice of guitar tones. After listening to a few songs, they would tell me how awesome these songs are, why I hadn’t yet shared these with them, and that they would love to work on these songs in a band project.

PS: The one thing that I realize after my first meeting with SP is that performance coaches (and performers, as a matter of fact) are those individuals who have figured out ways to overcome their self-doubts and negativity in a consistently replicable manner.

What does one do?

What does one do when the phrase "Happy New Year" sounds even more ludicrous than it has ever sounded? What does one do when despite being convinced about the sheer pointlessness of celebrating the turn of the year, one happens to have memories associated with the event that are attributed to the associated holidays, which coincide with vacations, and the relatively pleasant weather in the subtropical Northern Hemisphere at that time? What does one do when these memories are laced with people who once used to make sense to you—or that it made sense for you to inhabit the same space with them at some time in the past—who still want to make more sense with you when you are absolutely convinced that the sense that they made was more nonsense than anything else? What does one do when those people interact with you while being immersed in the sense of well-being that this phenomenon tends to bring about while one is bereft of such feelings? How does one stop being disappointed and stop disappointing others in these communications? What does one do when ever communication that you engage with is so loaded with the feeling how you fake it feels when reacting with a sense of political correctness and social righteousness? What does one do when, after spending the evening doing something that one thinks they ought to be good at, one is convinced that they aren't really good at what they think they are good at? What does one everything they look at or think about is loaded with memories of feeling of ineptitude and lack of self-worth?
I guess one thinks about make one's loved ones sit at a table and ask leave from them for life—to disappear somewhere and start over.

The artist/creator conundrum

Yet another outstation gig. More time to listen to what you created in the past few years. So many interesting things that were thought of and executed. The realization that somehow you have managed to create things that you are currently proud of and what you could continue to be proud of.

There are very few such things in my life.

I have no idea how I have managed the creation bit so far. In such phases, I don’t even understand how I could have created those things in the first place. I often wonder if the things that I think I should be proud of are things that are actually mediocre.

Yet, I am proud of them.

In the past, when the sense of pride overtakes the self-doubt, creativity was straightforward. You just get stuck to what you have to do. No realistic roadblock that you can’t overcome.

So what’s changed now?

Well, the things that I have to do at work—that never seems to go away. I still do things that I don’t think I should be doing. I know that day by day, the time that I could possibly devote to creating is diminishing. I know that with every moment, the likelihood of what I can create is losing its relevance in the world.

I want things to be simple. Straightforward. You want to do something—you do it. Nothing much gets in the way.

Maybe it is middle age. Maybe I don’t have it in me anymore. Maybe I never had it in me.