As musician's and an artists, ¿what are we willing to trade of for making it? Some would sell their sole’s to the devil like in the movie Crossroads, ¿But is this true? Not quite. The devil doesn’t want your sole he is after your integrity (bad word). Integrity meant in the terms of commercial compromise. Long since, music more than an art is an industry, musician's have soled their soles to record companies in return for the use of there marketing machine. Yet it is the ego of the artist that burns in this trade not the sole. When an artist wants to make it in the music scene, the first thing he need to realise is that he himself and his art are going no were. This only means that while he may have the talent and the art, he lacks the resources, connections and machinery to put it altogether. Getting anywhere nowadays requires a potent combination of both. The tricky part is that the combinations have to mix ingredients like ego and profit, to often a musicians ego will stand in his way, “I am the artist and nobody tells me how to do my art” well fine, but wrong. there is some one out there spending money making others work for you so that you can use your art, but there is a price to pay. This doesn’t mean that you are a musical prostitutes, it is a give and take compromise and most of times seen afterwards the give is not that much of an ego thing as you tend to make it. What the record company wants is to add some commercial value, Most of the times very subtle changes introduced by experts in the business that know more that you do of how to make a song hit. I have always thought that it is best to listen and talk to each other and try to se what is the purpose and how it can be achieved, you can be surprised at how close you can come and how easy it sometimes becomes to reach a compromise.
On the other hand what kind of an artist is oneself, if he cant bring his personality and ways onto everything he does, no mater what. This is one of the flags musician wave all the time. Some will agree with these words “I can play 3 blind mice and you could still tell it was me” and naturally they would be right. Try to imagine Jimi Hendrix, or SRV or Prince or Eddie Van Halen on a guitar, or Steve Wonder or John Lord on the key boards. how about Freddie Mercury, Robert Plant, Sting or Sneer O'Connor on the vocals. They would simply make the tune their own and print their style and signature on it. If you can make your self distinguishable as an artist in any discipline there is no compromise it is a signature, not anything to fuss about. So any musician that can come across as such will find a way to accommodate the commercial requirements without losing his self esteem and originality. Being flexible also gives you the opportunity to be stubborn at real critical things. it is as I said a give and take.
What is my purpose in this post? well really I see Slice and other young musicians very concerned in the bravado mega ego aspect. This is my song, my music, my playing I don’t allow any body to tell me, I am the artist, the creator and I won’t listen to anybody. I thinks that they need to re think this attitude and learn that everybody is on the same side, everybody wants him to succeed because his success is everybody's success. What is worse his failure, is everybody’s failure and failing costs a lot of money, time and resources. At the same time a musician wants to sell his music as much as the record company does. This binds both interest and differences in the same tie, levelling thing in everyone's stakes.
To keep it short Ill stop here, Please send you comments I am really interested in all different perspectives if any one has any.
Please keep track of Slice at his You Tube channel at http://www.youtube.com/user/inside71slice
thanks for reading I hope you enjoyed.
Ian.
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