My Roommate

So I'm in college and one of my roommates/best friends is a pretty fantastic guitarist and singer (in glee club and just really musically gifted and all of that good stuff). He's always making stuff up and has some recording equipment but never seems motivated to do anything but jam.

My question is, does anyone have any advice on how to motivate him? He's written acoustic songs and I'm trying to convince him to sit down and record them so I can post them on here and get some feedback to show him as motivation.

any advice?

blah... all ya can do is appreciate what he is doing and tell him so.
It's up to him to follow through...
If he isn't motivated, then maybe music just isn't for him.

Regardless of how talented he may be... if he doesn't enjoy what he's doing, then there's no point in him doing it.

thats the thing! he totally enjoys playing guitar. It's basically all he does all day, but he is the definition of just jamming. I'm just trying to get him to take it to the next level and actually put down some recordings.

So ... get sneaky on him.
Get a decent recorder...and tape him playing.
If you want to go all out, get one of them Zoom stereo recording machines and hide it somewhere when he's playing. Then transfer his recordings to the computer and beat match them to some loops at the same bpm.
Post them online and wait & see if anybody responds...

I don't know; you can't really motivate someone to take a talent to the next level if it's not something they may want. For him, he may be terrifically talented but music may just be something very personal. Maybe he just likes entertaining his friends/family. I would just continue to express how much you like what he does and ask him point-blank if he intends to do anything with it. You might be surprised by the answer.

Originally Posted by: Kevin Taylorblah... all ya can do is appreciate what he is doing and tell him so.
It's up to him to follow through...
If he isn't motivated, then maybe music just isn't for him.

Regardless of how talented he may be... if he doesn't enjoy what he's doing, then there's no point in him doing it.

I wouldn't say that maybe music just isn't it for him, but maybe recording just isn't it for him. I have to be in the mood to record and honestly, that's pretty rare, but I do it because I know it will help me. There are a lot of musicians who hate recording. so, my advice I guess is to just be patient, keep suggesting it and if it doesn't come, well then that's what he chooses ya know?

Why don't you record your singing and playing in his presence. Ask him for some help. Be as terrible as you can without be so oblivious. He will probably try to help and in turn sneak in some recording of him. Maybe he doesn't really feel he is good enough. You may have to show him that he is as good or better than what is on the radio now.

Good luck!

Yeah I'm with Mr. Taylor on this, let him be.

All I do all day is jam, I record when I'm in the mood. If you don't pressure him than maybe he'll just get in the mood one day.

But maybe it's just not important to him, he can be as talented as he wants but unless he is willing to put in the time and effort to share it then it doesn't matter. And you can't really make him do it.