I get e-mail every day giving me shit for not offering solutions.<\/p>\n
It’s very simple.\u00c2\u00a0 Make good music and don’t rip people off.<\/p>\n
I know, I know, you want it to be more complicated than that, you want multiple entry points, you want to believe it’s about Twitter or Facebook or Spotify or…<\/p>\n
Usually, anything but music.\u00c2\u00a0 Because music is hard.\u00c2\u00a0 Requires a ton of practice and moments of genius.\u00c2\u00a0 Speak to creators.\u00c2\u00a0 They know when they nail it.\u00c2\u00a0 The Stones don’t think everything is "Satisfaction" and U2 doesn’t believe everything they cut is "I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For".<\/p>\n
Then again, I’m doing it again.\u00c2\u00a0 Pointing to those who’ve already made it.\u00c2\u00a0 You haven’t.\u00c2\u00a0 You’re frustrated.\u00c2\u00a0 You want to take your anger out upon someone.\u00c2\u00a0 You want someone to listen, to take you on a trip, from obscurity to ubiquity.\u00c2\u00a0 If it were that damn simple it would happen every day.<\/p>\n
We’re in a fallow period in mainstream music.\u00c2\u00a0 No, I don’t want to talk about jazz or klezmer, or hear about the obscure person who makes a living playing music most people don’t give a shit about.<\/p>\n
Kids would rather spend their time in the world of technology.\u00c2\u00a0 It’s easier.\u00c2\u00a0 A great idea triumphs.\u00c2\u00a0 Come on, you don’t know a teenager with an Internet idea?\u00c2\u00a0 Tell that kid to sit down at the piano and bang out a winning tune.\u00c2\u00a0 Can’t be done.\u00c2\u00a0 Because music is more than conception.<\/p>\n
In other words, conception comes after tons of practice.\u00c2\u00a0 Only after paying your dues, learning everybody else’s music, becoming completely comfortable with the territory can you achieve moments of insight, that allow you to create brilliant work almost instantly.\u00c2\u00a0 Yup, it’s just that simple.\u00c2\u00a0 But the preparation’s hell.<\/p>\n
And the reason music doesn’t drive the culture is the public doesn’t believe it’s vital.\u00c2\u00a0 Come on, if you want to know what’s going on do you play a record or surf the Web?\u00c2\u00a0 Used to be the artists were uncompromised, searching for truth, now they’re completely sold out, looking for endorsements from the same corporations the public abhors.<\/p>\n
Huh?<\/p>\n
Now I’m doing it again.\u00c2\u00a0 I’m getting too deep.<\/p>\n
I’m just saying EVERYBODY knows a hit song when he hears one.\u00c2\u00a0 And if you can write one, you’ve got a momentary flash of notoriety.\u00c2\u00a0 If you can write a few, you’ve got a career.<\/p>\n
If you can’t write any, you’re a nobody, complaining that no one will pay attention.<\/p>\n
Shitty sports teams have shitty attendance.<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, the athletes on those teams have years of dedication and practice invested in order to suck.\u00c2\u00a0 Do you really think just because you pick up an instrument and want to be famous you should be?<\/p>\n
We live in an overwhelming world filled with over-zealous marketers trying to sell us mediocre wares.\u00c2\u00a0 But if we find one good thing, we tell everybody we know about it, we want others to share in the joy.<\/p>\n
There I am, repeating myself again.<\/p>\n
But you don’t want to believe that.\u00c2\u00a0 You want to believe it’s about getting an MBA, or having a spiffy business plan, or Daddy’s Money.<\/p>\n
It’s about the music.\u00c2\u00a0 Now more than ever.<\/p>\n
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I get e-mail every day giving me shit for not offering solutions. It’s very simple.\u00c2\u00a0 Make good music and don’t rip people off. I know, I know, you want it to be more complicated than that, you want multiple entry points, you want to believe it’s about Twitter or Facebook or Spotify or… Usually, anything […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2773","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-music-business"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p96vPs-IJ","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2773","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2773"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2773\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2774,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2773\/revisions\/2774"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2773"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2773"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2773"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}