I want to explore the two-headed demon of the music world. It’s a constant source of internal strife for a lot of people because ultimately, if you’re a musician, you want to make music. At least I know I do. Maybe some people don’t care about making music. That’s going to be part of our discussion today. But personally, that’s what I want to do…make music.
Ah, but I also want to eat. I don’t want to starve to death. I don’t want to be homeless. I don’t want to die. I think those are reasonable desires to have. I don’t know too many people personally who don’t care if they starve and die or have to live out on the street. So let’s for argument sake say that every musician wants to go on living. Well, in order to do that, you need money. Can we agree on that much? Because if we can’t, then the rest of this article is going to have very little meaning for you.
Okay, so we all want to live and we all want to make music. Well, living means having money. Making music, as you probably know, doesn’t always result in making money. And it’s not because there isn’t a demand for music. There’s plenty of demand for music. What there isn’t plenty of demand for is art.
What’s the difference between art and music? Well, there’s a big difference. Music is just sound. It can be art or it can be a calculated mix of sounds designed specifically to make a buck. And if you don’t think that stuff exists, you haven’t been listening to the industry the last 50 years or so.
John Doe comes out with the latest “sound” and everybody and their grandmother jumps on the gravy train to get a piece of the market. They analyze the song to see what makes it a money maker and then they scientifically duplicate it in order to make money for themselves. I could give you plenty of examples of this throughout the ages but we’d be here forever. So I’m asking you to just take my word for it. The “me too” stuff has always been more prevalent than the original stuff.
When that happens, what we have isn’t “art.” It’s just making money. Heck, you might as well just be printing up the dollar bills in your basement. You have your formula and you crank out your “hit.” Yes, there still has to be a slick polish to the production, but that’s all it is…slick polish. Underneath is very little of any substance.
And that’s what we call making a living in the music business. But it has very little, if anything, to do with art.
Then there is the guy who sites in his basement trying to come up with the next “Planet Rock” or “Flying Saucer” or whatever it is that’s so different and so unusual that it’s almost beyond art. Genres are invented from these innovators. Groups like Gentle Giant and King Crimson paved the way for all the prog rock groups to come after until eventually the genre itself died due to the lack of real creativity. Even in something as “artistic” as prog rock, there were the “me too” bands.
Now admittedly, it’s getting harder and harder to create real “art” because just about everything has been done to death. Sure, there have been some innovations over the last few years but not nearly as many as the early days of music. And the reason is simple. Once something has been done it’s been done and can’t be new anymore. The more things that are done, the fewer things that are left to be done, even if you believe in a near infinite universe. Taking one from a gazillion leaves us with one less option than we had the day before. That’s just basic math.
That doesn’t mean we’ve approached that point yet. I am sure there is still plenty of innovation left. But is that innovation going to make us money>
Ah, therein lies the rub.
We can assume that it’s still fairly easy to come up with something artistic (it’s really not) but even if we do, is that “art” going to put food on our table? If history is any indication, probably not. The innovators who made a living at this are very few, relatively speaking. And I give them a lot of credit because they had a lot of guts. They made the music that they wanted to make and the heck with what anybody thought of it. You can add Tangerine Dream and Kraftwerk to that mix. On the more rock side of things you can add the group Sparks. If you’ve never heard anything by them, listen to the album “Propaganda” because you are in for a treat. I don’t know how successful they were but they were truly unique. Nobody ever tried to copy them either.
Personally, I’ve tried to do art but I’m not really talented enough to come up with something truly unique that hasn’t been done before to death. I’ve also tried to make money by writing formula pieces. But I’m not really talented enough to write those either. So I’m kind of stuck in no man’s land. But that’s besides the point.
So let’s get to the point.
I think you can do both. I think you can write your art and write your stuff to make money, just not at the same time. Break it up. Spend a little time on your art and then, so you’re not totally frustrated by being poor, spend some time on the stuff that’s going to make you money. For example, spend some time writing your experimental music and go out on weekends and play in a cover band to make a few bucks. Lots of people do just this. Or you can work at a music store. I wouldn’t mind working at this one Sam Ash in Springfield if I ever had to work for a living. Great bunch of musicians there, all doing the same thing. I could think of worse things to do with my time, especially if I didn’t want to starve to death.
So yes, you can have your art and eat it too.
For The Love Of Music,
Steven “Wags” Wagenheim