Because communication is no longer a problem in our culture, that is to say, access to a large audience no longer requires a large capital investment, there is a belief that any individual should be able to pursue their passion without compromise. This is false.
Life is a web of compromises. Dropping everything to pursue my dream of writing art music would mean sacrificing things that are just as important to me, if not more so, than The Work. That is, if I wanted to pursue my dream in its purest from.
My dream is to spend hours creating beautiful canvases of sound that follow organic forms. I want to explore the limits of technology and music. I imagine trying to capture the sound of Love or Death or Joy. The means exist. If only I could translate that passion and its product into food and shelter. Then I could live the life that is so obviously within my reach, right? And with blogs and the Internet, that’s a breeze, right? Problem solved!
And that’s the source of my frustration. Not every artist has work that can be monetized. And not everyone wants to monetize her work. Does that mean that The Work isn’t important? Does that mean that the artist is a failure? Does that mean that this individual will not contribute to the canon or to the cultural consciousness? Clearly not.
I have been reading a lot lately about creativity and how it fits into the world today. From writing a memoir with no intention of publishing it to finding ways of sneaking in bits and pieces of what we consider to be our calling into our daily lives it seems to me that there has been a demonization of The Day Job in the life of a creative person. As a result, I started writing something down the other day and it won’t stop pouring out. I struck a nerve and it turns out that my relationship to my creative work and what I do for a living is important enough to me to take the time to explain it.
There is a lot of ranting to come. My inner monologue is pretty high pitched right now and the six people who read this blog will be subjected to my manifesto soon enough! But for now, this is a public declaration for accountability purposes. Getting this thing down is important to me and maybe it will be to you.
In the mean time, I am back in the studio tonight and recording more tunes for an upcoming collaboration. Stay tuned!
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