Derek Sivers recommends the books ”Ignore Everybody” by Hugh MacLeod and “Small is the New Big” by Seth Godin. He wanted to know what working musicians thought of these books so he could better help musicians.
Both these books confirm my experience as a working musician. I agree with the gist of what the books are conveying. To sum them up: Work hard at what you’re doing, listen to the people who matter the most and be remarkable.
To illustrate, Seth says the future is about working hard and pushing ourselves, and I think most working musicians will agree with that statement. Creative challenges drive us. He goes on to say that working hard is about taking risks by doing something others believe is unsafe. Trying to make a living as a working musician is always considered to be unsafe, and to add to the challenge, making music that goes against the current trend is also considered unsafe. Hugh says in “Ignore Everybody” that great ideas have lonely childhoods. He believes “the more original your idea is, the less good advice people will be able to give you.” And this is what I do—work on music that’s different for what’s popular. It’s unnerving, compelling and exciting, all at the same time. Uncertainty and risk are a constant if you’re professionally working on albums.
Once you become a master of your work, fans can’t tell you what to do. At the start of your career it’s OK to listen to critics, but once you become really great at what you do, which is not easy, you become your own biggest critic.
Some artists on the other hand think they should look at their fans for creative direction. Consider this quote from Robert Green’s post on copyblogger: “He could produce testers (trial songs) for his fans, who were like drug fiends, constantly hungry for new product from Fifty; and he could get instant feedback on their quality. He could develop a feel for what they were looking for and how he could manipulate their demand.”
This approach is lame for a great artist. When Fifty started he did not have all these fans, yet his first major release was and still is his best work. From my experience, listening to fan feedback will keep you mediocre. Most fans will usually try to make you sound like something they’re familiar with or what’s trendy. MacLeod is right on this. The more original your work is the less advice people can give. Can you imagine Jimi Hendirx or Beethoven doing this? I can’t. If you are master of your work, sometimes your fans won’t grow with you; sometimes they won’t get it right away because it’s new and different. Fred of 37signals said he does not mind if people grow out of his products if more people grow into it. This should be same approach we as artists should take. Don’t be afraid of not appealling to everyone. If Metallica only wanted to please their hardcore fans, they would never have made the Black Album. They may have lost fans, but they gained a lot more than they lost; just as important, they did what was right to them artistically. Great artists know when they have created something great that it’s a part of mastering your art or working from the heart as Hugh would say … being passionate. Second, Fifty’s approach takes away the mystique from an artist, if a band like TOOL did that, their fans would say they’ve lost it.
Last but not least, if you have not listened to Seth Godin’s speech/talk on modern day marketing, you should at http://toccon.blip.tv/file/970223/ . This speech is great for musicians. The best quote from the talk is this: “The enemy of an author is not piracy, it is obscurity.” The parallels between being an author and songwriter are pretty clear.
