“In terms of priority, inspiration comes first. You come next. The audience comes last.”
― Rick Rubin, The Creative Act: A Way of Being
Making music for a living is hard, making music professionally without being influenced by popular trends is harder.
From 2014 - 2018 I studied music production at the College Conservatory of Music in Cincinnati. This was an artistically rich and challenging time, for I had one foot in pop music production, with classes on songwriting, audio engineering and music marketing, and my other foot enriched by the fine artist through music theory, classical orchestration and jazz music courses. In both spheres, a high premium was placed on musical ideas that were unique. Sometimes this was taken to an absurd extreme, with hour-long compositions that were so strange and purposefully confounding that the average listener would be lost, bored, offended, or a combination of all three of those things. Often, something beautifully was also made, and this was exciting as well as intimidating, since I felt as if I was surrounded by people that were infinitely more creative than I was.
Flash forward to today, I have now spent five years living in Nashville TN, participating in the music scene as an artist, producer, engineer, and songwriter. I am extremely grateful for the music I have gotten to make here thus far, and for the important lessons working in this city seems to teach me every day; It is tempting to avoid new ideas, and seek for approval and applause by chasing cultural or musical trends, but doing so ultimately makes for an unfulfilling creative experience, and compromises the quality of the music.
I wish this were not the case. It would be less scary knowing that if I write specific lyrics, or play certain notes, or work with the right person that I will without fail receive professional applause, financial success, and opportunities to make more music. However, the truth is that no one knows what kind of music will make money, and it's never clear what kind of music will appeal to a listener until they... well... listen to it. By the time that happens, the thing has already been made.
So, instead of chasing an illusive, self-created, comparison based image of "Good, professional, commercial music." I instead am seeking to first make music that I like, and try to encourage others to do the same. It seems that the world is better off when artists do this anyways.
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