I feel the same way. I make music primarily for my own enjoyment and like you I hope others also enjoy what I’ve created. My short-lived professional music career ended over 40 years ago and while I have fond memories, I would much rather pursue it as a hobby. Although I’m sure things have changed dramatically, trying to make a living as a musician was tough then and may be even tougher now. At least we can produce and share our ideas with relative ease. Cutting a record meant having a contract and you were at the mercy of the record company. Things are much better these days.
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I don’t even have to enjoy the process (although it’s nice when I do), sometimes the emotion being conveyed is one of loss and suffering and those are no less valid to me. Having an artistic practice is just my way of coping with the world.
Agreed. If being a professional illustrator has taught me anything it is that monetizing your passion often means just doing it on other people’s terms in order to pay rent. Day jobs are underrated.
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Well said!
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I suppose I see it a bit different. The goal is to tinker away over a long period, trying to pick up the various “rules” for the genres. Producing something that would count as a legitimate contribution to an evolving cultural collection, is something I would like to be able to do.
I know that on paper, so to speak, I should just enjoy it for myself but deep down I hope that the people I admire will in some sense appreciate something I do.
That being said, I am not all that satisfied with anything I have made yet. It seems as though muses are fleeting and there is a limit to how to remain interested in a song. Still, I am somewhat happy with how it’s all went and hope that can be a base for much better music in the coming years. If anything, by noticing how subtle and difficult production is, I myself have greater admiration for the work of others.
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That’s actually a much better way to express it! For ‘Imperial Heart’ to become something, I went through a very painful process of sorting through ~5 years of memories of a time with someone in my life that we each had thought was going to extend on into the rest of a happy life spent together. Obviously, destiny had other plans in mind for each of us, so things didn’t pan out that way, and as all of our plans and dreams disappeared, ‘we’ drifted into ‘her’ and ‘I’, each singular, becoming strangers to each other. All that remains now are the memories of what was, and the wonder about what beauty could have been.
The piano melody of the first half perfectly represents the sense of loss I still feel when I think of my life with her. So what you mentioned is a really great point; it’s not always about enjoying it, but there is a certain sense of satisfaction I get when I have arrived at what I feel is the best possible sonic expression inspired by my emotion(s). Then when I share it, I want others to feel like they got something out of hearing it, whether it be a sense of understanding, a memory made or recalled, or something else that they can relate, and find enjoyment in it. That is my ultimate goal, and the reason why I do this. 
This is another track I wanted to share, which is another great example of what you mentioned.
Silverstein - The End
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I really love the arrangements and the vocal delivery. The fact I can’t understand it makes me pay more attention to it as a timbre. hellodear
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more pixel music
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I wish I was associated with this!
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I am for free association.
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One instrument sounds exactly like a hammered dulcimer although you would be hard-pressed to actually play some of the riffs on one. Lovely piece!
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Indeed, it is an Iranian instrument similar to the hammered dulcimer called a Santoor.