JPF Home Page Forums General Messages Songwriter Message Forum Do you primarily write for yourself or your audience?

This was harder to answer than I thought. I usually write a song with a goal in mind. A lot of my liturgical songs are written to fulfill a need in worship. I don't usually sit down and say I want to "express" myself. Even the few secular songs I write usually have some sort of parameter involved. I feel that I have expressed myself creatively through the song writing process itself and that is usually where it ends. Essentially I want to create a song that others may want to listen and relate to, whether it is religious or secular. So to that extent, I guess I write for others. But on the other hand, I write to my own satisfaction in regard to standards, so in that way I write for myself.

I don't usually care too much for purely cathartic writing from others or myself, however at some point, I think we all subconsciously include some of our own opinions, attitudes and feelings in our creations. How could we not?

Perhaps the one area that I truly write for myself is instrumental music. I do compose that to please myself. I hope others will like it of course, but I don't keep the audience in mind at all when I write instrumental music. I write it just for the pleasure of exploring melodies and harmonies.