Welcome to the Songplistic Blog!
I'm Ross and I am the person behind Songplistic! I have been in love with music for over 13 years and for the better part of that time I have written song after song continuously, some good, some not so good, but all a part of my learning curve. Song-writing, I find, is such a wonderful thing to do because it is so subjective. What one person deems to be incredible, another would not even give a second thought, and this applies to both creating music and consuming it, allowing for such a wide spectrum of musical ideas. The personality one can display through music is really what makes it shine and through all my self-criticism (as a creative, this tends to come in abundance) I have used this concept of subjectivity as an anchor to which I have tied my song-writing development to. My point here is to highlight that regardless of how others may feel about your creative work, it is your personality, and if performed to a certain standard (Which I believe everyone has the potential to develop) then there is indeed a reason to create it, even if just for simple self-satisfaction.
I want to stress here that there are some objective factors to consider when creating music that will influence it's quality: keys, scales, etc, but all of these can be understood to an appropriate level by someone who spends a year or 2 with a musical instrument without even being able to explicitly state what they are doing, as long as they go in with the intent learning to create. Look at the many famous musicians who have never taken a music theory lesson in their life: Elton John, David Bowie, The Beatles, and so on. After an incredibly basic foundation is laid out then song-writing is more than possible for anyone. Write as much as you can and write for the love of writing, if you don't love the process of writing then maybe it isn't for you, and that's ok, if everyone was a song-writer then other important things wouldn't get done. Write past when you think it's time to abandon an idea, develop it to within an inch of it's existence and then put it in your own personal idea vault. Years down the line it could easily become inspiration for another better idea, or your perspective could change and maybe you will see where it could be developed. The important thing is you are developing as an artist, not everything needs to be your best work.
Another thing to be taken into consideration is criticism. I would advise taking criticism as an opportunity to learn how to enhance your art, even if that was not the intention of the criticism (sometimes people are just mean and not much can be done about that!). Some of the worlds greatest artists have been told at one point or another that they weren't any good, but who's laughing now? Not everyone needs to shoot for the stars, and that's ok, we can't all be huge multi-award winning titans of the music industry, but creating, be it music or otherwise, is what gives us as humans a sense of purpose, and the worthwhile benefits of creating cannot be overstated. Keep in mind that failure is the path to success, if you never fail then that means you have never tried, and without trying then how do you expect to get anywhere with anything? So don't let criticism get you down! Also creating with other like-minded people will develop your craft at an unbelievable rate. On my own personal journey there have been significant musical relationships along the way that have increased my song-writing abilities in ways I could have only imagined when I started out, and don't be intimidated by people you think are better than you, those are the people you can learn from the most!
To conclude, making music can be one of the most rewarding things you can do if you are creatively minded, take everything that is both positive and negative as a stepping stone to your own personal and creative development, and don't be discouraged by your lack of skill or knowledge, every day is a school day, there's always room to improve and your personality could well be what someone else has always been looking for so don't give up!
Ross