The Perfectionist Mindset

First off, I'd like to raise a toast to a good friend of mine: Amy Baack, who was sweet enough to feature public-meta on her own Blog. Note that she's taken up a permanent residence on my side bar, so Please do stop by and say hello, as I'm quite a fan of her works as well. I'll dive into more reasons why at a later date, but suffice to say for now that she's a pretty rad lady and deserves your attention.

Today's blog is a brief introduction to a concept I'm going to refer to as the Perfectionist Mindset: at all times both blessing and bane for the creative endeavorer. On one hand, the drive towards infallibility leads us forward to produce works of art we revel in sharing with our peers. On the other, the endlessly narrowing lens of insufficiency convinces us that our creations are worthless – undeserving of praise or acceptance by the establishment.

Every artist of whom I extend my respect struggles with the perfectionist dilemma to some extent. There are those who seek harmonious equilibrium between quality and sanity and those who do not. One end of the scale is occupied by the group of artists who fire and forget - “the first pass is the right pass”. Their counterpart is the group who revises to a fault – never finding peace with an original production.

If you've ever felt this internal turmoil then my I reach out to you now to let you know you aren't alone. In subsequent articles, I'll focus on artists of various mediums who've come to terms with their perfectionist demons (for better or worse). For now, I'll leave with a sampling of music from across the spectrum of detailed introspection...

Raw energy. Not much attention to perfection... but who cares. They still hit you in the gut.

Did you know that Kurt Cobain didn't want to double track his vocals on Nevermind but he was convinced when told that one of his idols (The Beatles) double tracked many of their hit vocals?

Almost perfect to a fault (Some would say that it is too pefect). Not a single note out of place or chord change out of line. Music at is most orchestrated. Definitely not easy.