Wednesday 6th March, 2024
Being a DIY solo artist has its oddities…
For instance: your boss at work, your teacher at school, all of your employees, all of your suppliers… imagine that each time you’re having a bad day, you’re all having that same bad day. Then remove all accountability from everyone… & you can see how quickly a workplace can be ruined. What’s really strange about that is the opposite is true. Imagine you’re all having an amazing day, maybe all of your best friends have come to town on the same day, I guess we would all take the day off to see them. Let’s say you all fall in love at the same time, you all lose someone at the same time. If this was an actual business culture… it’d be studied for its dyfunction… & yet nobody is trying to study me. (except me… but that actually reinforces my point)
My personal life IS my professional life. At least until I build an actual team of people relying on me… & it’s really tough to keep focus on these nebulous goals & projects. honestly, one of my big flaws, is not a regular gig or release to keep me grounded. Right now I’m operating in hypotheticals. We have rehearsal today, & the work we have to get done is dramatic… but it’s so intangible right now that there’s no pressure. All of the motivation & urgency has to be artificially injected into the group. Which, as the leader of the group, is another job I’ve to take on. But that’s an easy job to do.
After three years of music business studies, I’ve really come to appreciate the artist way of thinking & living even more than I had before. Ironically it was a business degree that let me see & appreciate myself as an artist. I’m not efficient. I’m not even smart. I act on impulse & emotion. I’m reactionary. To put it simply, I’m a magical mess. My brain is the equivalent to a wizards study… cluttered with trinkets, potions, & tomes of ancient secrets… & that’s okay. The business stuff comes after the magic takes place. Business folk are always stalking their next project. What’s nice about the world of art is that not one person can be everything to all people. So no matter how many artists are out there… you don’t need to be better than all of them, you don’t need to be the best in the world because that’s not a thing. You definitely can try to be the best version of yourself, & more importantly, push the boundaries of what ‘yourself’ means.
But that’s a topic for another day… my bus is nearly in the city, so I’m gonna pop off til next week. I’ll chat to you then. I’m starting to think that I should make a short video version of these… but that’d be a while away.
Chat to you again,
Nathan
