Perseverance
I’m not worried about anybody competing with me.
Because they just don’t have the dedication, they just don’t persevere.
In other words, if the first thing you’re thinking about is money, you’re doomed. It’s just too tough. Not that it’s illegal to think about getting paid, but if you don’t love what you do, if you wouldn’t do it for free, give up now. Because you just ain’t gonna make it.
The artistic life is truly about getting in your car and driving away from the action, away from the city, charting your own course and hoping the public catches up with you. And if they don’t?
You’re probably not doing something they’re interested in. Swallow that. There’s a good chance you’re not good either, but I won’t make that judgment. But the best work is done when the public is not in mind, when you’re following your own muse. And following and following and following.
I don’t know what inspired Daryl Hall to start "Live From Daryl’s House". But I know it was about music. And music is always about collaboration. Sure, you can make that record at home alone, but how you gonna play it live? Furthermore, with a musician’s life so hard, you’d better enjoy the camaraderie, the give and take, the playing, because that’s all there might ever be.
Artists are a different breed. They’re not about capitalism, but capturing emotion. Telling an aural tale. Hooking you and me not by dunning us, but through their music. I’ve never been closed by an e-mail, especially an unsolicited one. But music? You can hear it once and get it. You’ve just got to be exposed to it.
And one place to be exposed to it is "Live From Daryl’s House".
I used to go. In the beginning. But now that Fitz and The Tantrums was on I decided to check back. And was stunned that there were 39 episodes. Sure, there’s been some TV action recently, but that was years later. Are you willing to invest for years, with almost no financial return, just because you believe in yourself and are having fun?
I went to Daryl’s site and could now surf the archive and hear so many cuts. I could spend some time there. And this only occurred because Daryl Hall stayed at it.
Almost no one stays at it anymore. They want a quick return or they’re on to the next thing. "If this music thing doesn’t work out in 24 months I’m going to graduate school." There’s no time limit on making it in the arts, you can work your whole life and never get noticed or be noticed when you’re sixty or be noticed immediately and then forgotten. That’s the worst thing, to have quick success and never be able to walk away, trading on it for decades, stopping not only your creativity, but your life.
A great artist grows.
Daryl is just not presenting these artists, he’s playing with them.
That’s what a musician does. Play.
All that social networking crap is secondary. One great performance can eclipse a lifetime of tweets. And if someone can find you on YouTube, they’ll spread the word themselves, they’ll discover a way, you don’t need to work it on Facebook.
You see almost no one perseveres at their dream. Certainly not once they’re out of school, when there’s little financial reward. We revere those that do.
But we’re only interested in excellence.
When we find it, we stick to it like glue. We tell everybody about it.
Don’t worry about holding on to your fans tight. They come, they go. But they’ll always come back if you produce great new work.
But that’s hard.
Can you stay in the game when no one is paying attention, when not only do you not feel like you’re going forward, but you’re locked in the Sargasso Sea?
That’s the question.
