Dave Wirth
I chatted yesterday with another guitar teacher in Austin. We both have super-busy professional lives that we are thankful for, no doubt, but we also had one other thing in common: We don't have as much energy to write music since our focuses shifted to teaching and developing our "careers." We both felt that teaching was the easiest way to make a career in music start to happen. The mix between our professional lives and our creative lives has shifted as a result.
I've started to wonder about business and creativity. Do they really mix? Is this just another one of those "Artists are suppossed to suffer" kinds of things? I'm getting more and more disappointed in myself for not creating more music.
Its inspiring to read and follow the exploits of Hugh MacLeod, who has made a steady living off of his prints, the business he promotes, and now his book Ignore Everybody. He did all of this by refusing to act out what he describes as a drama queen moment. It's that moment a person just gives up their job in order to pursue their own work. I think his point is that the drama queen moment is not a well-founded attempt at preparing for a more creative, satisfying life. This doesn't mean I am not tempted to do it! But he started from nothing, and now he is doing great. Even better is that he did it all DiY style.
I really like Hugh MacLeod's book a lot. I sometimes wish there was a better boundary between my business and my creativity. This brings to mind the issue of creativity vs marketing, i.e. which one comes first. I think of how the major record labels develop crappy singers, aka the very best vanilla to promote to an already bored mainstream audience. It's a hope to strike gold once again. It is also putting marketing in front of creativity. The marketing (the dough, the moolah, the greenbacks, the SALES) is more important with this mindset. The product reflects this mindset.
No One Cares. The product is disposable.
The trouble with putting creativity first, like before the marketing, is that one has to really and truthfully follow what they are doing even if it takes them to the grave. Maybe this is why we like entrepreneurs and artists, people who never give up: They build totally from scratch. Most people are fond of using the Van-Gogh example. His creativity was off the charts, but no one cared about him or his work in his time period. The hard part when we mix business and creativity is how to keep them both alive once both are fully developed, or are still being developed. There is always the chance that a bad business decision could set me back a year or two. There is always the chance that I could dry up creatively to the point of never wanting to play guitar again. I hope neither happens.
I guess I just wonder what that balance is. If you know the answer, tell me.
