Is believing you make good music essential to making good music?

The converse is the talented fledgling who hears so well his limitations as a beginner that it cripples him from going at the business of writing & playing & having the balls to take it to an audience and, ultimately, of realising his true potential.

I guess I just don't believe this happens to people who are "meant" to be playing/composing music. I mean, in my experience, musicians can have problems adapting to the rest of society, but the one thing we can always come back to, the one thing that really makes sense is music.

Performing your music in front of an audience is something that musicians do because either 1) they love performing (hardly a requirement), or 2) they want to promote their stuff. I don't know how much it has to do with realizing their "true potential" though; potential is a usually word that other people use to talk about a musician, IMO not something musicians use to evaluate themselves.

Erm, about every other electronic track ever produced. Electronic music is the chance every musician with low self-esteem/performance anxiety has been waiting for. Your question reeks of rockism.

I think what you meant to ask was:
"Is believing you make good music essential to getting recognized and creating a successful music career?"
-Still no, as long as you can make yourself marketable and people like the music (i.e. - you're in the biz for reasons other than love of music in the first place).. although it's probably a lot easier if you really do think your music is worth listening to.

Which proves...something.

I was putting forward the idea that, perhaps, a good song only gets written when the writer makes something that meets with his own approval. If he writes noise but his ear hears angel song, angel song he's made he will believe - a spur to produce more of the same. But if he writes angel song, and lacking belief in his ability to do so, hears only noise (an affront), there'll be no more celestials from that lonesome lute. Or another way. The trajectory from silence to music worth the name derives its force from the strength of the artist's obligation to express. But then, what the bugger does that mean?

*exits weeping*

Regarding the opposite scenario mentioned by surface noise- I think this is how I tend to dabble in music production. I end up making things that I want to listen to, but I think my tastes in electronic music are pretty narrow in some respects and I doubt many other folks would care for it much.