Initial and later reactions to one's own music

[Derek]

Do you wait til you're inspired to improvise? Does perceived quality in your music coincide with times that you really "felt" it was good?

At this point I'm starting to think how I'm feeling on any given day has almost nothing to do with the quality of my music. I've made recordings I found boring while I was making them and later thought they were good, and also recordings where I felt utter elation while playing them and later found them very boring. It's like there's another person in my head that makes the music regardless of whether I'm in the mood to hear it. Anyone else feel this way?

[ted]

Do you wait til you're inspired to improvise? Does perceived quality in your music coincide with times that you really "felt" it was good?

No to both questions. Years ago I often erased recordings I found unsatisfactory immediately after making them. Then after missing a couple and finding them good after all, I made it a rule to leave listening for at least a day after the recording. This, I now think, is overly strict. Regardless of how I feel about a recording at any time I listen, I now erase nothing.

I am, however, highly thoughtful and critical about my own improvisation nowadays. (While listening, NOT while actually doing it though !) I do not think beginning improvisers should worry too much about self-criticism as it might impede the acquiring of habitual flow, which process must be established first. An experienced improviser though, can enjoy listening analytically and self-critically, taking mental note of the sorts of features which retrospectively transport, and events which might have been better left out or handled differently.

[pankrpec]

Yes, I wait untill I'm 'inspired' to improvise, but the result certainly does not match these times. Often, I string a few notes and just feel, that it won't work and I have to stop. It is quite frustrating, really.
There were also times when it felt good playing, but after listening to it later, it wasn't that all that (Actually, it's like that most of the time). And I also suffer the 'red light' syndrome, when recording, I don't feel so free, and hold back a little.