I've learned a lot from critiques. More than anything from the lyricists here at JPF, who's level of talent is unrivalled in any comparable Internet forum, I believe.

I think the exact thing is that I've learned to pay attention to details. No matter how small they seem, every syllable is really huge in a 3min song. One minor drop off can make any listener zap to the next song, so every small comment can be important to direct attention to those small but very important things.

About concrete examples, I think I haven't been able to finish a single song in a year due to critiques. I rewrite, rewrite, put it down for a while, reread the critiques, rewrite ect. So for me, critiques are definitely not helping to speed up the process, but to slow it down. Just like a session with any good teacher would, if you choose to listen that is. The more annoyed you get about the critique, the more there probably is to learn from it, is my experience.

And sometimes a comment on a song just means "hello, I hear what you are up to", and that's also allright. Appreciative in it's own respect. So there's a difference between a comment and a critique, but both are viable in building relationships, I think.

Like with any new relationship, you have to tolerate a certain amount of babble to build a safe environment for others to speak what's on their mind. So comments and critiques are also to be seen as statements in an ongoing conversation, and not isolated. Folks are too smart to pour their heart out to complete strangers.

If I were to say what the ultimate quality of appraisal was, it would be that the listener would risk something of their own in the poster-commenter relationship. Like an A&R person who after having listened, saying they want to sign the song, or an artist saying they'd like to record it, or a Radio promoter who want's to put the song in heavy rotation.

Those kind of responses are not likely to happen (that's the attraction of getting pro reviews from Publishers, A&R people ect.), and I believe that is the exact reason we never really experience fulfillment from posting a song. There's always something wrong with it in someones eyes, and if everything is great we feel the critiques are sloppy. What we really, REALLY want is to have someone say, this is a classic song, I'll sell my house to market it for you.

So, as posters we need to understand what we are dealing with. Posting a song is really about beginning a conversation and inviting relationships, as much as merely asking for a "peer review" or an "expert advice", and it's always up to us to decide how far we'd like to take it.