Friends

Ever hear someone say “My stuff is stuff is great, all my friends say so!” huh?? I still hear adults who should know better say this. #1 your friends don’t want to be jerks so they will always tell you your stuff is great #2 Unless they share the same craft as you they probably don’t know how to critique it anyway. If you only surround yourself with cheerleaders and yes men you will never improve. You need a group that can give you real and specific feedback.

Personally I am lucky, I am surrounded by a bunch of fantastic artists. But I built my feedback team out of three people, two are musicians and one is an artist. They will ALWAYS tell me when stuff sucks, they will also be very specific down the the last detail about it. I will of course do the same for them. And I think they like getting early releases of records I am working on even before the label does. Consequently they are also the same group that motivates me when I am down.

That is important as well, making art and sending it out to a unforgiving world can be rough on a person. It feels almost manic at times. So having someone to vent at when you are down is needed, but never and I mean NEVER let it become a cheer squad. When someone offers feedback or a critique, thank them sincerely because it takes guts to give a real critique. Then take a step back and evaluate truthfully if they are right. Often times they will be and you will improve, often times they won’t be. In those times have the courage to stick with your vision. KNOWING when to is the key to becoming great.