Unsprung Media

Bruce,

thanks so much for your post - I'm really glad you liked my post. It always strikes me as odd when people get really into 'new marketing' and future music ideas without first reminding themselves why we do what we do, and that nothing has changed in terms of the passion, dedication and commitment needed to make great music.

Make the music because you can't not make the music, THEN work out how to make some money out of the music you're passionate about.

thanks again - I really enjoy your blog, so thanks as well for all the great information!

Steve

Bruce,

First thanks for the link in your reply to my previous comment on the last blog. I enjoyed reading it.

Second I think this "..thinking out loud..." blog ties into the debate from the last blog comments. I could not agree more with the points made in your selection from Steve Lawson's article.

For the artist the music must be compulsive and involuntary to a certain degree. The music / art must be something you can not escape from but must embrace and or integrate into your life. If you are lucky enough to be single and childless then you have an edge in making a career from it and embracing it fully...but still find people you trust to work the business end!

Is music art or product? I guess that depends on the form of "consumption" in which it is heard. For the musician consuming it while playing it; certainly it is art. Once it becomes the desire of the artist to sell this art; then certainly it has taken on the properties of a product too.

(That sounded simple enough, to easy maybe?)

Anyway, I really enjoy your blog and thanks for taking the time to put it out here!

Cheers,
Milton

I remember when I was in the midst of my year at Drumtech Percussion School, we were in the midst of a particularly challenging lesson and the teacher could see that we were losing interest. We all had our drumsticks out practicing sight reading. He stopped the class and said

"OK, just hold your sticks in your hands." he said "Remember why you love those things, how they're a means for self expression, how important they are to you personally and how you couldn't live without them" It was a powerful aside which served as a refocusing tool for me for the rest of the year. Up until that point I did indeed see drumming as a "body of knowledge that needs conquering".

Although I firmly believe that being a musician and working in the music industry require some very mutually exclusive skills, the ability to remind oneself of WHY you're working at a music business (in my case, to allow great music to be heard that wouldn't otherwise garner much attention) rather than the economic or ego driven motivations of "building a successful business" is one of the most valuable lessons I can think of.

Thanks, Bruce and Steve, for serving yet another reminder.

Well, the Steve Lawson post certainly appears to want to get away from the 'sell relationship' angle on which the discussion of online music tends to focus. However, it only appears to want this: the writer embraces precisely the 'art as personal utility' attitude that caused the music business to become pre-occupied with marketing concerns in the first place.

Steve exhorts his students to be mindful of what they want from music, what they want it to do for them. To paraphrase JFK: ask not what music can do for you, ask what you can do for music. Music is a time-honoured tradition to which it is your duty as a composer or musician to make meaningful contributions. When a musician considers the utility of music to him as an individual, he is only three steps removed from being overwhelmed by marketing concerns.

Steve Lawson: "I encourage the students to want to change the world...but to remember that that's vital to them - not to the people they're playing to."

It is in fact vital to the people they're playing to that musicians not only want to change the world, but that they succeed - it ought not to be vital to musicians themselves (or three steps later they'll be considering marketing concerns.)

Musicians have a duty to be visionaries. They have to look at life (not just their own lives,) and create art that speaks to people. Rather than provide people's lives with a soundtrack, they must make music that impacts upon people's lives. Being a musician brings with it responsibilities, such as preventing music business from deteriorating into a big internet sand-pit.

...That does not mean to say that this post was not by far my favourite in a long time. Thank you Steve and Bruce.

Sebastiaan.

"Musicians have a duty to be visionaries."

I think it would be much safer to say that musicians have a choice to be visionaries. No one who is talented at anything should feel compelled or obligated because of that talent. Not everyone who makes music can be as visionary as some of our favorites and I really don't think it is anyone's "duty" to attempt it.

Just a semantic haggle I think.

Cheers,
Milton

Good quote from Steve.

With some obvious commercial anomalies, the best music comes from people who write and play with their entire being. It is their strength. At the same time, it is good for artists to realize that another person's strength may be in business processes. With both people focused on their strengths, it lends for a potentially higher recognition for both their work.