abZ wrote:
Nothing wrong with making music for money. I would leap at the chance to make music I hate for money over doing what I do now for money. It probably won't ever happen for me though. I have barely enough time to work on the music I do enjoy let alone some other shit for whatever reason.
No there's nothing wrong with that attitude, personally I wouldn't leap at the chance to do it. Mainly because I'm bloody lucky to have a decent full time job which I enjoy for the most part and doesn't involve me rotting in an office 9 to 5. But if you do go down that route, you'll quite possibly be a slave to whatever is 'in vogue' at the time and you won't really be pushing yourself or developing your sound or learning anything of value.
I would always say that you shouldn't be afraid to experiment and try to create art that's outside your normal comfort zone. These days, we're incredibly lucky to have places like Soundcloud, this tool can be used to your advantage as a gauge to what might or might not work musically. It's not the be all and end all, but it's a fairly good 'barometer' of what people will sometimes listen to.
I post stuff up that goes completely against my released material and quite frankly I couldn't be more happier doing this, it means I can find out if I actually like the tunes. give them some consideration because they're 'out there' for
people to hear, and if anyone else does like them, it's a bonus, but it's no great shakes to me. The bottom line is if I like the tune and can happily say it's good enough to pass my quality control.
There are so many sides to consider as a musician. Gone are the days of labels paying for gatefold double concept LP's and hiring Townhouse studio's for a month just to keep the band sweet in the hope they might 'lay down' some tracks.
Nowadays most labels do a little promo and leave a large chunk to the musician. Is this fair? it depends on your point of view really, in the past the labels did most of the media promo and the artist the live and appearance/interview parts.
In these times of multimedia the artist is asked to do a load of stuff like podcasts, mixes, remixes, collabs, gigs, DJ slots and so on.
It's great but can also be problematic to try to do all these things, particularly if you need time to practice on the decks/live set up, record backing tracks sequences ETC ETC.
It's a balancing act and fitting all these things around everyday life can be a real test. Consider things carefully, do you need to really do that podcast, remix or whatever? if you can't fit it in or do it for whatever reason, be honest and tell whoever it is the reason. They'll understand, they may not be over the moon about it but at least you've been clear and upfront, if they get the arse about it the sod 'em, they probably weren't worth the effort in the first place. Bear in mind that even in three years tie, a lot of these online blogs fanzines and the like will have gone, moved on or changed and there will be new and different ones. Like I said in my original post, patience is good, overnight success is rare and sure, it's probably great. But when it wears off, the artist spends the rest of the time trying (and failing by degrees) to live up to that original expectation that was so hight. And mostly, this seems to be the case. It can be a slow decline to try to follow up success like that. I'm happy doing what I do and enjoying it, I can experiment 'without prejudice' and worrying if I fit in anywhere, how many units I have to sell and so on. But like I said, I'm very fortunate.
