Lethe wrote
I feel sometimes like my purpose for playing music is being warped by my surroundings.
I started playing guitar for the love of music and creation etc. Often lately, I feel like my drive is being warped by my surroundings. Mainly by the shallow need to play bigger shows and be more recognized. I don't think music is meant to be about that, but it's hard when most of the scene seems to revolve around egos and nepotism etc... It's kinda like being dragged into a race I never had intention to join... (could also be that this is just my insecurity speaking.... maybe I am just kak lol)
Sometimes I tell myself 'I hope people will like this'... but then realise... 'since when do I play or write to be liked? i used to play music to express myself... not to be cool'
Feels like my ...whatever it is... is being warped by popular culture...
Anyone else ever feel this? Or am I just being a sour p0e$?
( i can already hear the sniggering in the background followed by a pat on the back)
An audience (or buyers of your canvasses) comes in handy. If you sell enough then you don't have to look at other ways of keeping the wolf from the door - they allow you to be creative, to keep on doing what you doing.
I think there's lots of reasons people play guitar. Frank Zappa once said that the main reason most of us pick up guitars and join bands is to get laid.
I think it non problematic that your music reflects your surroundings or what ever is happening in your life. Art needs a subject, art communicates things. There are songs and songwriters that deal with this in a sort of way that has me yawning. Oh you broke up with another boyfriend? Oh it hurts? Hmmm.... let's see what CD is next in the stack.
But there's ways of drilling down into this stuff to tap into more universal things. Listen to Bruce Springsteen's
Tunnel Of Love album. His first marriage was busy falling apart at the time, and although the album follows the arc of a love affair (to borrow a line from Paul Simon) it's not just him rolling in his own misery, he taps into things that many people can recognise. So it's not just his breakup album, it's an album that deals with very human things that a lot of people can be receptive too. Loudon Wainwright is a master of this: Superficially his songs are about his own haphazard life, but they also tap into quite universal concerns and doubts and feelings and, sometimes, happinesses and satisfactions.
I don't know what the artist wants really, but there's been times in my life when I've heard a song that's crystallised something I've been feeling but not been able to express, or that makes me feel that hey! I'm not alone because somebody wrote a song about this stuff or that has given me a new perspective on things. And not just songs, though that's my favourite manifestation of art, but books or movies or plays. At those moments art is very worthwhile for me, and I hope there's something in it for the artist too.
PS: I read a book
Creators by the historian Paul Johnson. I'm a bit torn by Johnson because he seems to keep a lot of nasty company (I heard him on the radio in the UK making a defence for and playing down the deeds of General Pinochet), but he certainly thinks deeply about things and his research is rigorous and meticulous. Anyhoo... this an easier book of his to like because there's not much of a political agenda, and he makes the point that we sometimes downplay our own creativity or constrain creativity by giving it to grand a definition. What, he asks, about people who don't paint or write poetry but who create and keep a lovely garden that is pleasurable to be in. Isn't that creativity? What about coming up with a joke that makes somebody laugh and lightens their burden for a while? Isn't that creative and valuable? Springsteen once said that the whole thing about rock 'n roll is that just for a while it can pull you out of the mundane even miserable every day existence and offer you a moment of transcendence. That's not too bad a thing.
