Of all the posters on this board, I might be the one most fitting these lowly amateur lines. Played guitar for a decade plus, but lack of confidence and raw practice time, conjoined with career and family, imparted a stark realization that the skills were slow to develop and I was experiencing more progress as a writer - self-publishing several books of experimental literature. The music piled up on cassette tapes with elaborate fantasies of dumping it all into a DAW one day to pull together several nearly complete CD?s. Having known more accomplished musical friends and spending time in home studios, I eventually set up a basic DAW to record with and finally archive the old tapes.but very few who record "just for fun." I've also had very few musicians who have gotten into recording primarily to record their own music.
Currently, on the musical front:
1) Accepted that most of the tapes were recorded with no awareness of noise level, tape hiss, mic placement, room acoustics, noise reduction, horrid gear, tape quality (used dozens of grandfather?s 10 year-old cheaply mass produced New York Life Insurance seminar tapes), instrument quality, etc.
2) Accepted that the monumental work to salvage and use the tapes ignores that they have only captured the common delusion that great music can be pulled from hours of shit and mixed into a song at a later point with the right gear.
3) Accepted that the few moments of brilliance within the years of practice and playing will actually be only a few dozen minutes of usable material. I?d have been better off to never tape any of it and use all effort to practice more.
4) Accepted that recording when learning to play an instrument instills an artificial importance to what is otherwise rightly judged as deficient.
5) Accepted that much of this struggle was unnecessary and I should have been reading and listening more.
6) Emboldened with Tape Op methods, humble skill, renewed practice, and better gear- I have created a soundtrack for my book series - ?fence posts rotting in the acreage?
7) I continue to play and record. The DAW helps make the sounds I hear in my head. I consider it another instrument.
I imagine in one way or another this type of misadventure is relevant to what you are trying to study.
I can also discuss how Michael Gira and Swans completely wiped away the artificial person I built into adulthood. It doesn?t seem as on-topic, though I look for any opportunity to mention Soundtracks for the Blind.