Lonely London Lad: Musical Musings
Warning: This was written under the influence of snow. Not "snow" but the real, cold stuff, lots of it.
I've taken an unusual path to music. Instead of studying music when I was younger, or playing in bands, I was more interested in becoming a novelist. I did an extended Grand Tour in Europe for almost 10 years, most of it in France and Italy. For about 4 years, I lived in Venice. I talked my way into becoming a lecturer of American Literature at the university there, and had an office on the Grand Canal. I lived in a palace across the canal from the University, courtesy of some noble (in all senses) friends. I had no phone, no TV, no Internet.
Artisan v Industrial
What I liked most about Venice, and Italy, was the strong artisan tradition there. It's a country of cottage industries, most businesses run by families. Franchises were rare, and every shop or restaurant had personality, the DNA stamp of the people who ran it. Some artisan shops didn't even have signs out front. You just found them through word of mouth. Convenience and efficiency were always secondary to the idiosyncrasies of the artisans, and in many cases it was impossible to see the business of the business, as if economics were not part of the pursuit. Italians are not team players by nature, and thus business consolidation is not as prevalent as in Anglo-Saxon countries.
Back in America, the rush toward consolidation is apparent everywhere. America is a country of metaphorical fishing fleets, whereas Italy is a country of individuals in hand-made fishing boats. At least, the Italy I lived in. I also worked in Milano for an American management consulting firm, and saw the industrialized, "Americanized" side of Italy, as well. But the Italy I preferred living in was the traditional Italy of artisans and cottage industries, not of the multinational corporations and franchises.
In America, businesses are always trying to grow, to bring in larger and larger hauls of fish; whereas in "my Italy" subsistence was more the aim -- that you work to live, and not live to work. Lady Gaga is a particularly American phenomenon, a musical killer whale that seems to have no limit to its appetite for growth, and what's exhilarating to spectators is vicariously enjoying her over fishing. For me, LLL, I am more interested in cultivating undersea "dark gardens" of the imagination and appealing to like-minded (like-imagination'd) sea creatures.
Personality v Depersonalization
In the contemporary world, it is easy to feel like a fish, with thousands of hooks floating around you hoping you will bite. There is a strong push toward depersonalization in the contemporary world, since individual personality is too expensive to manage, being unpredictable. It is better to herd sheep than to have them run in many different directions, so over time, corporations and governments have been able to steer taste and behavior in an increasingly efficient way.
People have always been treated as sheep by those in power (political or economic) and that is no revelation. It's a fact that people cannot focus on too much information at once, and when something is put in front of your face repeatedly, you will get comfortable with it and buy it, if it's marketed well enough to 'manufacture desire' in you. There may be twenty brands of toothpaste in your supermarket, but they are all owned by one or two manufacturers. This gives a false sense of choice, and in essence many purchase decisions are not based on choice at all, but on mere positioning. MySpace, for example, knows this, and uses their front page to push artists that they have a financial interest to push. The same goes for the music media, who have existing relationships with suppliers (labels), feeding a reliable supply of news and review fodder to be fed to the music masses.
Studies have shown that it takes seven exposures to a brand before you recognize it. People will even grow affectionate to brands that slowly kill them. This tactic works in the music business, too. The most successful pop acts aren't the best artistically, but they are the best packaged, best promoted, and the best managed, and monetary success becomes synonymous with artistic success, at least to the large middle section of the statistical bell curve. It's not that bad music sells on its own, it's that bad music that is marketed well sells. The ideal "consumer" for a corporation is someone who has no independent thought, but merely reacts appropriately to Pavlovian inputs.
Your personality, in other words, is inconvenient, and is best disposed of systematically. To create music with personality, for people with personality, is not economically viable. On the other hand, it's the only music worth creating.
So it's no surprise that when I got into music, it was with artisanal intent. When you're a teenager and start a band, you want the usual trappings of rock and roll. When you're older, if you have focused on living a Renaissance style life, as I have, you want to make something that has value and that will last.
Indie music is, in theory, an attempt to create music that is more artisanal and creative in nature than that churned out industrially. But in most cases, indie bands, unless they are "indie-pendently wealthy", need to succeed economically to continue, so artistic compromises are made, and they become industrialized. As soon as an indie band gets signed to a label, the label expects the band to make money for it, or it is dropped; that's just common business sense. But compromises can be made for other reasons as well, unrelated to economics. Fame, sex, and status are also strong motivators to compromise artistic intent. If you want to be an indie artisan, and pursue music for artistic motives, the only viable best practices are those seen in the Italian artisan tradition.
But if you want to go the artisan route, you need a loyal core community (or "patrons") to support your work, one who believes in what you are trying to do, and more importantly genuinely loves what you are doing enough to pay for it.
Community
True community becomes difficult to achieve in the virtual world, as well, because it is at once simulates the totality of human population (millions of people online) and the isolation of the voyeur. On one hand, the Internet resembles New York City more than it does a Tuscan hill town. In any large city, a person can have a heart attack on the street and pedestrians will step over him (I have seen that in New York and London both). In a village, people will rush to your aid. There is probably a mathematical formula which demonstrates that individual accountability decreases in direct proportion to increases in population density. On the other hand, on the Internet, we are not on a crowded street, but often in a room alone. So we are anonymous, invisible, and unless we directly engage (which is why the social networks like MySpace are so popular, since they simulate social contact, which is essential for us as social animals), we are only voyeurs, spectators.
The challenge online for a musician, since there are millions of musicians online trying to be seen and heard, is to have "eye contact" with people. It's possible, but you need to defeat people's expectations that their communication with you will be impersonal. This involves a lot of work, time spent away from making music. It's basically going door to door, knocking on virtual doors until someone answers and you can engage with them. With tens of thousands of people as friends, this becomes quickly unmanageable doing alone, but I do it in my spare hours because I feel it's important to try to connect with people, and take things from voyeurism to engagement. The surprising thing is that even in this day and age, there are open-minded and kind people out there; but it takes a lot of work and luck to find them, engage with them, and keep the dialogue open.
Engagement v Voyeurism
About 100 people every day leave comments or messages to me saying specifically how much they love our music, how they cannot put into words how it makes them feel, even how they couldn't see living without it. These are strong professions of love for the music, and they are humbling. It is the ultimate dream of any musician to have people feel this way about one's music.
When people do this, I try to contact them to thank them, and also invite them to purchase the music directly from me, as that will enable us to create more music for them. It seems the most natural progression of events, but most of them will not buy anything. This is not surprising, and is in line with "sales conversion ratios" that exist in all industries. For example, companies who send catalogs to your mailbox on a regular basis are lucky if 2 out of 100 people buy something from them. But they send so many out, and have priced their items accordingly to pay for the high mailing expenses, that they end up being profitable. Still, this is different from the 100 people who said they love our music, and for each of them there is a reason why they don't buy:
Some are from countries whose currency is weak and for whom $13 for a CD is a significant expenditure, free shipping or not; some do not have the means to pay at all (Paypal, credit or debit cards, check, or cash); some are too young and are not allowed to buy online. Others are capable of buying, but are living from paycheck to paycheck, and need to save up even for a relatively small purchase. Others are capable of buying, but don't buy any music (dozens of people a day land on my website after unsuccessfully Googling "lonely london lad torrent"). Some simply use the term "love" loosely, and don't mean it literally. Some simply don't love the music as much as other music on their buy list. Some will get "analysis paralysis" and simply cannot commit to a purchase. Others will return to my site many times before deciding to make the purchase.
And then there are those who engage. Who simply buy the music. No big deal. It's done, mailed the same day, and they'll enjoy it for years to come. These are the patrons, the modern online Medici family. I lived in Firenze for a year, too, and had an apartment directly in front of Brunelleschi's Duomo; somehow seeing that achievement every day and night had an influence on me, and made me realize the importance of the patron-artist relationship. It takes an extraordinary effort for an artisan to create work with personality, find people with personality, and engage them enough to make the ultimate commitment, actually paying for the work instead of merely praising it -- but when it happens, everything feels like it works as it should, feels like we're in the midst of a Renaissance. When it doesn't, it's like being in the Dark Ages. Art matters, and patrons matter. Without both engaging and both reaching into hearts and pockets, art doesn't happen, and doesn't matter.
Postscript
I often feel like a throwback from 1603. I like to see the world as a village of people who meet, discuss, engage, and create together. The industrialization and depersonalization of everything, including ourselves, is something that doesn't gel with my Renaissance world view. So I continue to fight windmills and take risks that others won't take in the name of art and connection. When I find others who think the same, and materially support what I'm doing, it's intensely gratifying, and gives me hope that it's possible to have 1603 in 2010.
In summary, I advocate choosing artisanal over industrial; personal over depersonal; engagement over voyeurism; community over isolation; patronage over commitment avoidance; and self-nurturing over self-denial. Enough to be happy.
This has been my longest post to date, and if you made it so far, you are more likely than not a kindred spirit; either that, or you are snowed in like I am.
-- LLL
