AGBFunkyBassman
I love loads of different things about music, writing a song, listening to my favorite artists, playing in military bands, steel bands, bavarian bands, gospel bands, 10 piece blues bands, rock and roll bands.
 
But there's nothing like a recording session to make me feel inadeqate, It doesnt matter if its a vocal or instumental recording it never take me long to find the 'Warts' i what Im doing

It seems to me that you are wanted by other musicians that is enough praise. 

What these guys have said.
It's the curse of the artist. We tend to be our own most brutally unkind critics. What you hear as "warts", others hear as what gives our creations character.
Don't sweat it.

There is a high that comes from active creativity that colors our perception, not just of the process, but of the product. Performing music is a physical activity, and to work successfully there needs to be a suspension of self-criticism or else, like the centipede in Craster's poem, we may be paralyzed. Listening to a recording presents us with the product with the magical state reversed. We listen critically to the sound without the physical and emotional connection to the creation of the music. That focus is the other half of the work. But that critical second apprehension is the opportunity to study the music in a different language. To hear it as a stranger, and to compare what is real with what we have imagined. If we can listen critically with intelligence and humility instead of despair, it provides an opportunity to bring the real closer to the ideal over time. In the end, we want the sound that a stranger hears to be the sound that we imagine, and the act of listening to result in the same suspension of the critical mind that the process of creation needs to function.
 
A centipede was happy – quite!
Until a toad in fun
Said, "Pray, which leg moves after which?"
This raised her doubts to such a pitch,
She fell exhausted in the ditch
Not knowing how to run.
 
 

Anderton
If it's from your heart, there will be people who want to hear it. 

I know you are trying to encourage the OP but that's ****.  I'm sorry but no matter what, if it's crap it's crap no matter how heartfelt. I don't know what the OP's music sounds like, so I'm not going to judge and I could be all encouraging e.g. oh all it takes is practice and more practice but you have to have a modicum of talent too.  Look we live in the helicopter parenting world these days where everybody is "special" but you know what?...****.
 
Sorry I'm not going to give you a sugar hit and candy coat things.
 
Ben  

Anderton
If it's from your heart, there will be people who want to hear it. 

Personally I've never wanted people to hear my own stuff or at that was not the aim... if someone asks what Im doing and wants to listen .... great but its allways been for my edification rather than anyone elses

Anderton
If it's from your heart, there will be people who want to hear it. 

Personally I've never wanted people to hear my own stuff or at that was not the aim... if someone asks what Im doing and wants to listen .... great but its allways been for my edification rather than anyone elses

Another way to look at this is that your recordings will be a history of your music and your skills. My granddaughter is learning to play the flute (she's in 5th grade and this is her first year playing an instrument). This can be a discouraging time, because in a lot of ways they don't see how much they have improved. So when she practiced I would record her - not all the time, but maybe once a month or so. Now when she feels she is not getting any better, we play those early recordings, and she can hear how much she has improved.
 
I think the same applies to us. I listen to my early recordings and there is a lot I don't like - from the technique on the instruments, to my mix, to just about everything. But when compared to where I am today - I can hear a difference, and that is worth a lot. This doesn't mean I am where I want to be (and to be honest, I don't know if I'll ever get there), but it provides perspective, and that can be worth a lot.
 
Keep your old recordings, and learn from them. You may not think you are improving, but you are.

The first time I set foot in to a professional studio was the most intimidated I ever felt in my entire life. But after hearing some world class musician's tracks soloed and hearing every flaw in their performance you start understanding that these people we hold in such high regard really are like any of the rest of us. Each player, what ever level they play on, is still striving to be better.
Over the years I have come to think of a studio class mic and a compressor as an audio magnifying glass. Those two pieces of gear can really make you sit up in the chair and LISTEN to every single scratch, bump, hiss, etc.
I'll close by saying listen to the artistry involved in a Segovia piece. Commonly referred to as the world's greatest classical guitarist. After that, listen to a Robert Johnson track. You will be hard pressed to not admit that Johnson's performance is just as, if not more, emotionally and in it's own way artistically, a masterpiece as well.
As long as we keep on striving to improve our technique and compose songs that are relevant to making the world a more tolerable place, we all will find our place. It is the imperfections as well as our perfections that make us who we are. 

Anderton
If it's from your heart, there will be people who want to hear it. 

I have found this to be the truth. No matter your chops, technique, or fashion, if it's from the heart, it will be enjoyed by someone.

AGBFunkyBassman
 
Personally I've never wanted people to hear my own stuff or at that was not the aim... if someone asks what Im doing and wants to listen .... great but its allways been for my edification rather than anyone elses

+1
 
The stranger is never really outside of you. There is a story about a great poet of ancient China who would write poems and then drop them into the river from a bridge. No one ever thought that these were flawed poems. They were offerings, probably the best he had done, but no one else has ever read them. You cannot really escape the need to shape your work to its best quality by not caring about how it will sound to others. That is as much a false path as trying to distort your work to please someone else, if it does not ring true to you.