Don’t listen to the roughs1 too much is a lesson I’m actively fighting by writing this right now. My impulse is often to listen to my works in progress, to get lost in ‘em, to let my head swirl through the music that I’m making.
The impulse makes sense. We want to fall in love with what we’re creating, otherwise why create it?
But what we’re in the process of making is not what we will eventually make. And Pygmalion2 is not a love story; it’s fucking creepy.
We’ve all had the experience of reading and re-reading the first (and only) three lines of an email we’re writing, and never has it led to us finishing very efficiently. Getting stuck in the middle of any creative process – even if that’s in the obsessive editing, rereading, or, in my case, 1am listenings – is itself just a form of resistance, of procrastination, another way the fragile ego takes aim at anything resembling a question of its inherent perfection.
The thing about works in progress is that they’re going to change, and often dramatically. In music we talk about “Demo-itis”: falling in love with the way you’ve heard it on the demo, incapable of letting go of that which is simply familiar in favor of what may be best for the song. Roughs often have one part turned up louder than it will eventually be, or a lick you don’t need where space is just better. We get real used to how we’ve heard it (over and over again).
And it’s hard to let go of what we’ve gotten really used to. We cling to things that are familiar, especially in our work – especially in music3 – as if the way it is now is the only way it could possibly be done.
It’s not. There are a million ways we can do anything. And the first idea, while often the best, is not always so.
These days, at the end of the tracking process (i.e. the actual “recording” of parts before we mix them all together), pretty much every time I want to get distracted or run away from something else, I want to get lost in some headphones and hearing how my songs sound, thinking about the minor tweaks and changes or just daydreaming about what it will be like to play ‘em for other people.
This is escapism. It is dissociation, it is fear, and it is harmful to the creative process. Of course, a little bit of this is to be expected, necessary even, but in order to create most effectively – and, at the same time, deal with what’s actually in front of us – we need to leave room for what is still to come.
So, now, I’m going to make lunch, and I will not be listening to the roughs. I know they’re good, and I know they’re still evolving.
Roughs, or Rough Bounces, are a step beyond “Demos,” a musician’s term for a true work in progress: you’ve properly recorded many of the instruments and parts, but not everything — often, crucially, the final vocal, which is typically the last thing you record. Making minor edits, adding parts, replacing “scratch” or placeholder parts will all up-level the record before the mixing phase, where the delicate process of balancing all the sounds together into a 3D space makes your song sound remarkably different from it’s “rough” version.
The Greek Myth of an incel, woman-hating sculptor who falls in love with a statue he made, fondling it, kissing it, and praying to the gods for it to come alive – somehow became the inspiration for “My Fair Lady.” Beats me.
“Cold Heart” is a cool song. But we like it so much because we’ve known “Rocket Man” for over 50 years.