Defining Success!
Music remains a uniquely powerful art medium because it is “performed” (technically) every time a song is played on any device or played live in any performance situation. The song, however dormant before, literally becomes alive again.
*I do realize this can also be said about visual arts. A painting or photograph or film also becomes alive again when viewed by someone. Each time observed or viewed the power of the moment is re-lived. I am focusing on music and its distrubution as an example here.
Today, listening to a recorded song is easier than perhaps any other time in history. People with access to the internet can play a song whenever and how often they want. They are no longer dependent on a third party to play a song through radio waves.
With this incredible accessibility comes the challenge that the sacrednes of music becomes diluted.
The more a song can be played to suit the whims of a certan mood, the more it becomes like a drug to induce a certain mindset. The wonder of the song gets compromised for our urgent need for a “hit.” The organic nature of music is thus upstaged by what it might produce in us.
The same sort of thing can happen when the general public can’t get enough of a certain song. A song that may genuinely have the magic touch gets played over and over and over again. Soon we start to blame the song for our own abuse of it.
Yet the song’s essence remains. The spark of life is still in it. What massive success (and even its opposite - commercial failure) show us is that we can not tie our most basic definition of success directly to commercial recognition and gain.
Wild success is the very thing most artists desperately want, though it is the very thing that could take the inspired life right out of them. At least for a time. We must come up with a better definition of success, for the sake of our artists and creative entrepreneurs.
Success must be more about getting the thing you imagined out of your head and into its viable expression. Did you get into the “real” world what was deeply planted inside you? Did you complete the idea to the best of your ability? Did you express your vision into existence? These are the marks of success.
And every artist knows the incredible joy of getting an idea out to its completion.
Like life, parenting completed projects is where things get complex, confused, and definitely beyond the scope of pure creativity. A different set of skills are required to negotiate life after the birth of a masterpiece, both for the artist and the pieces they create.
The goal is to not lose the magic behind the song, but to communicate it.
Like a performance. We perform a song with great emotion and gusto, recalling the essence of the song. Marketing can b like that. Don’t go beyond the song. Perform within it. Yes, of course there is the chance no one will resonate with it. But let the song do the talking.
Remember: there is no way to totally test market magic.
Eventually you have to take what you’ve created to the market to find out what you created. Will people get it? Will they connect with it? Will they even like it? We will only find out as the dust settles and we simply give the song away, one performance at a time. Enjoy the ride, your song deserves it!
