I just returned from Utah and was surprised to see snow capping the mountains in Spring, blue skies and green hillsides.
Man, I really miss my dad and my sister!
This month I’m getting to see them and my family in Japan. I’m really thankful for that. I need the family connection to fill my hole-y heart, being single, quite busy and uninterested in romantics at the moment.
So, I’ve been thinking a lot about my artist friends and friends who are creative and hard workers, but who I don’t consider artists and also thinking about how people will describe or give a person a title as an artist, when they are really… a performer, or an entertainer. Maybe it’s difficult for some to distinguish the difference.
Can you be an artist who makes art for money? How much money? What if the money is just for basic living? Can a person who wants more for themselves than just basic survival and living consider themselves an artist? Can you call someone cheap when they are broke?
The thing of it is…. there’s a lot of judgements made on how things may appear. The way things appear are usually never equal to the way things are. Can I give you some insight you may have heard before… a little lesson? Please?
Okay, here I go…
Most musicians barely squeeze by in financial terms unless they reach a critical mass audience. In order to reach a critical mass audience, you’ve got to follow the science of how to make money. You’ve got to get a lot of attention. People have to like you. People have to like what you put out there. It must be controlled to only put out there what a lot of people like. If people like your image and what you look like, and music got their attention, you can get paid a hundred times more. Is it weird that you get paid more for what your mamma gave you than for the actual music you made. Sponsors pay more than record labels.
Guess what? A lot of people like crap. Just like a lot of people like fast food and don’t care about processed food, factory farms and chemicals. You keep consuming it, they’ll keep producing it from the sound factory… the image factory. Not a lot of people know what art is or appreciate art or the livelihood of an artist. And a portion of the people who know and like art, will pay for it. It’s just the way it is.
Regardless if you’re an artist or not an artist… doing it for the money, or not for the money. You have to do it because you love it… or you wouldn’t keep doing it. So, that being said, I appreciate anyone who pursues music as their livelihood. And I admire and relate with an artist, in the pure form of the meaning and the message. But I also give big whoops to strong business sense…. and people who use all they’ve got to make it in the world.
Well, I will have to stop myself for now….
