Dealing with rejection.

[Dancebass]

Ok. It happens to all of us, we try for something and don't get it and it can feel sort of personal sometimes.

 

Kind of like a good quarterback that has to get over an interception and play aggressive on the next drive. What can be done to buck up the campers??

[sabriel9v]

 

A bad review or a rejection can cause a week long black cloud over everything and slow our progress a little.

 

 

You guys got a bad review, which publication?

[Dancebass]

 

You guys got a bad review, which publication?

 

 

NO man!!! That would never happen! ha ha

 

The album will be out soon and all the press we've recieved so far has been good, so I'm actually expecting a couple of real DOOZIES around the corner! ha ha

[Poker99]

Them them its better than total indifference.

[Dancebass]

 

Them them its better than total indifference.

 

We get some of that too! ha ha

[sabriel9v]

 

NO man!!! That would never happen! ha ha No, we haven't yet but we have recently had a couple of "no call backs" about some business submissions that looked really good at first. The album will be out soon and all the press we've recieved so far has been good, so I'm actually expecting a couple of real DOOZIES around the corner! ha ha

 

 

Dealing with rejection is tough man, but I'm sure something very positive will peek its head around the corner. I remember in my last band I would get so stressed out over bad reviews, poor feedback, any kind of rejection. If you're the one booking and promoting all the shows, rejection is even more a pain in the ass. However, you just have to remain positive and remember that there will always be another opportunity out there for you.

[paulz]

So I had this dog with separation anxiety, the vet said when you leave don't make it a big deal - If you sit around and comfort the dog he gets the idea that it's a big deal. I think it's the same way with rejection a little - when someone goes all cheerleader or gets too positive or something it feels like they are TRYING to shrug it off, but they feel the sting. I think just kind of keeping it real with 'well, not fun but its to be expected' and driving home that 'its to be expected' part - like a batting average, a 300 is really good. That's 30% success that means U mostly fail and U are still a badass

[Blackwatch]

For me it wasn't so much the rejection as the inability to get to that "Next Step" Where you're playing better places with better crowds. Here it seems difficult to break through from the small bars to that better class club where people actually listened to you.

 

And that was a good point that sometimes it's not so much rejection as indifference, which I have to say is worse sometimes...

[daddymack]

Thomas Edison actually had 3,000 attempts to create the lightbulb. When asked about the failures he said "I didn't fail 3,000 times. I found 3,000 ways how not to create a lightbulb"

The point: Learn from your setbacks. If you get a bad review, fix what the negative issue was. Try something different.

[Dancebass]

 

Thomas Edison actually had 3,000 attempts to create the lightbulb. When asked about the failures he said "I didn't fail 3,000 times. I found 3,000 ways how not to create a lightbulb" The point: Learn from your setbacks. If you get a bad review, fix what the negative issue was. Try something different.

 

 

True, but when it comes to reviews I've seen some really good bands screw themselves up by trying to adjust to please their critics.

[daddymack]

There's an old saying: You can't please everyone.

....if the band believes in it's vison, then no bad review will matter. But if there is reason to adjust, then one should.

[sabriel9v]

True, but when it comes to reviews I've seen some really good bands screw themselves up by trying to adjust to please their critics.

 

This is EXACTLY why I hate music critics. When I started my blog I realized something. All I had to do was go to wordpress.com, register and now I'm a music critic I don't think my tastes and opinions in music are bad because I listen to a variety of material and I am a musician/songwriter. But the fact that I can just go to any site, set up a blog and now I'm a music critic...it's too easy and doesn't require any solid requirements or criteria. I've made up my mind that I will never change up my style to please any music critic.

[tacdryver]

In business..some of the top guys have this attitude...'every failure, is one step closer to success'....a motto of mine...'is that I look for failure, a problem, mitigate it, so it doesn't happen again'

 

Different types of rejection...business, personal, love, ..the last probably hurts the most...but the more I get older I realize I put very little stock in most peeps opinions, sounds terrible, but it's true...most people, don't think very logicaly, unemotionaly...they think very subjectively..

 

I really like what one of the guys from Metalica said when they went maintstream, and took criticism for 'selling out' ...he said '..yeah...we sell out every night'

 

When someone comes out of thier wallet, pays you...for your services...all the criticisms, opionions from the peanut gallary, the jealous guitar player in the corner....all that bull{censored} goes out the door...

 

Success, really is, the best revenge....I would rather be sitting on a fortune and a few assholes hate me vs being broke, living under a bridge and I am the most well liked bum in the group...

[3shiftgtr]

Here's a few famous quotes and opinions I've gathered to share with you in your time of need dancebass:

 

1) The only applause that means anything in the music business is paper applause.

 

2) Music critic is the only job on the planet where you don't have to know ANYTHING about the subject matter. 99 out of 100 rock music critics wouldn't know a major scale from a minor scale if it bit them in the ass. The one that does know the difference is a ghost writer and plays in a cover band.

 

3) Rock critics are more concerned with culture than music. They don't write about music, they write about the cultural implications of the band whose music they are supposed to be reviewing.

 

4) When asked about the 5 cannons of rhetoric used in critical thinking, jazz critic Nat Hentoff asked "What's a rhetorical cannon?"

 

5) "There is no city in the world where they have a statue of a critic" Jean Sibelius

 

6) "Most rock journalism is people who can't write interviewing people who can't talk for people who can't read." Frank Zappa

 

7) "Don't pay attention to critics. Don't even ignore them." Samuel Goldwyn

 

8) "Writing about music is like dancing about architecture. It's really a stupid thing to do." Elvis Costello

 

9) I've never read a negative review that focused on the music and the notes. Seriously. Think about it. Never. Always about aesthetic context and not the actual music it self.

 

Dancebass, you've got to know a few others, doncha?

[Toto99]

It depends on what the review actually said. Was the criticism justified? If so, perhaps you could use it as a constructive exercise with your bandmates to try to address where you're going wrong.

 

If the criticism was totally unjustified, then just tell your band that the reviewer clearly doesn't know anything about music. That's why he's a critic and not a musician! The fans are the ones who decide whether they like the music or not, they are the ones who buy the music. Critics are like spoilt little brats because they get given any album they want for free. After years of that, they become accustomed to listening to new music all the time, so their criteria becomes stricter and stricter as they get older.

 

Go back to your roots and ask the band why you started the band in the first place. Was it to play great music for the fans or was it to please (failed rockstar) critics?

[michael_B]

The rejection issue is where the serious get weeded out from the not so serious. Almost every single successful act, movie idea, or author has been passed over countless times. The difference is they never gave up, no matter what.

[paulsmith]

Think of your rejection as a challenge to change for the better. Remember the saying "in life there are no mistakes, only lessons to learn" Hope this somehow enlighten you that rejection is not a thing to worry. Instead be it your guide to success.

[Dancebass]

We were very close to getting a song placed within a very large videogame launch and it all fell apart last minute.

 

No suicide's yet, just a bit of a grey cloud with some of the guys for a week or so. We're through the woods now, but I was searching for ways to get everyone's head back in the game.

[restart]

Unless you hear the same remark coming out of random people's mouths, I'd think you don't have a problem. And even then, what is the remark? "They suck?" Unless it's a valid point, i.e., the guitarist is always behind, or the singer is off key or the sound is muddled, I wouldn't care. And like I said, it had better be the same thing over and over.

 

That deals fall apart and five people showed up are facts of life in this business.

[Matximus]

Rejection in any competitive field is there to weed out the candyasses and poseurs. There's no secret to overcoming it: Just deal with it. Or don't: Stay home and cry about it while those with thick skins are out there hustling for shows.

 

And nobody wants to admit the dirty truth: Music writers often know what they're talking about. That's why musicians hate them; they're the only ones honest and critical enough to call people on their derivative bull-{censored}.

[Matximus]

... and good luck with the video game. The fact that your even in contention seems like a minor success. That's another tact: looking on the bright side. Better to have loved and lost, ventured and failed, all that cliche BS. It really has merits.

[whiteop]

be realistic. Keep in mind that:

 

 

 

there's always going to be someone better than someone else. It's not personal it just happens that way.

 

sometimes the rejectors are the rejectees. Even they get dumped on from time to time.

 

failure today leads to success tomorrow. You can try over and over again but that one time that you succeed you feel like you're on top of the world. You hear this time and time again from people that are successful; they just never gave up. Sally Jesse Raphael was fired 17 times at different jobs then got her own talk show.

 

If every one could do "it", it wouldn't be worth doing.

 

[SnowVox]

I just shake that s**t off and tell myself better things are yet to come, it wasn't my best work anyway! It wasn't my last performance/set of lyrics/recording whatever. I can't speak for anyone else here, but I know I haven't created my greatest work, so I look at the little glitches as just that: small steps and obstacles on my way to something greater. I used to allow myself a few days of wallow time, where I lay in bed, unwashed, with my hair a disaster. Now I make myself up like a tramp (one of my fave things), put on a gig outfit, record a nasty little something about the experience (for my own musical amusement) and move on. One day I'm gonna release a two album set of all of my 1:30, you suck but thanks for the motivation pieces. Some of them are kinda good. You should try it. It gets you working again and after you laugh at the bs song you created, you can move on with rehearsal, some more recording, etc.

[Mcfontio]

Two completely different views coming from two completely different regions of the "music" populous.

 

Rejection in any competitive field is there to weed out the candyasses and poseurs. There's no secret to overcoming it: Just deal with it. Or don't: Stay home and cry about it while those with thick skins are out there hustling for shows. And nobody wants to admit the dirty truth: Music writers often know what they're talking about. That's why musicians hate them; they're the only ones honest and critical enough to call people on their derivative bull-{censored}.

 

 

There is a reason why the critics are critics and not musicians... The only real tools here are those who talk without the walk.

[paulz]

Mcfontio

A quote disappeared about theory and practice.

It was pretty cool. Any idea who said it?