Why you shouldn't let the music biz spoil your love of music...
One of the burdens of being "young and talented" is the potential for getting confused about why you are pursuing your efforts. People can fill your head up with a lot of making it big nonsense.
It's usually put there by both well-meaning folks who don't get it and, all too often, by 'music biz pros' intent on exploiting the artist's ambitions and dreams -- often for the short term goals of simply extracting money for various production an promotional services -- it's a dirty little secret that that is considerably more than a cottage industry within the larger music business, and that it is also a steady ancillary source of revenue for 'legit' service providers in the industry, too -- as a former studio engineer at the low end of the food chain, I can tell you that the attitude of "If they're stupid enough to spend the money, I'm smart enough to take it" is a highly prevalent one.
That can really get in the way of having a clear relationship with your music and your writing -- and then the burn-out from that and from all the usual lilttle unpleasant brushes with the user/loser denizens of the music biz can sometimes drive a wedge between an artist and his work.
Which is a damn shame, because the problem is not with music. The problem is often with people. Both ourselves, if we're unclear about why we're pursuing music and writing, and, of course, with those who would, knowingly or not, lead us down the garden path to "big dreams" of success, a life of glamor, wealth, and no day jobs...
If musicians keep their heads straight about their relationship with music and love of it, they can survive with their love of music intact. But I've known far too many people who, one day, sometimes in their late 20s, sometimes in their 30s, just put the guitar in a closet and forget to pull it back out for, sometimes, years...
And that is a very sad.
It's usually put there by both well-meaning folks who don't get it and, all too often, by 'music biz pros' intent on exploiting the artist's ambitions and dreams -- often for the short term goals of simply extracting money for various production an promotional services -- it's a dirty little secret that that is considerably more than a cottage industry within the larger music business, and that it is also a steady ancillary source of revenue for 'legit' service providers in the industry, too -- as a former studio engineer at the low end of the food chain, I can tell you that the attitude of "If they're stupid enough to spend the money, I'm smart enough to take it" is a highly prevalent one.
That can really get in the way of having a clear relationship with your music and your writing -- and then the burn-out from that and from all the usual lilttle unpleasant brushes with the user/loser denizens of the music biz can sometimes drive a wedge between an artist and his work.
Which is a damn shame, because the problem is not with music. The problem is often with people. Both ourselves, if we're unclear about why we're pursuing music and writing, and, of course, with those who would, knowingly or not, lead us down the garden path to "big dreams" of success, a life of glamor, wealth, and no day jobs...
If musicians keep their heads straight about their relationship with music and love of it, they can survive with their love of music intact. But I've known far too many people who, one day, sometimes in their late 20s, sometimes in their 30s, just put the guitar in a closet and forget to pull it back out for, sometimes, years...
And that is a very sad.
posted by TK Major at
7:58 PM
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