www.peteremms.net/lifestream

But the internet knows no physical bounds and you’re as close to everyone as you are to no-one. Displaying your full self will still push people away, it’s true, but the scale of the virtual population is such that you will always be able to find those you sync with, those who know you already, but just don’t realise it.

So do be yourself and let your extremities show. Like attracts like and intensity fuels devotion. People love interesting.

Tip of the post – Enthuse your music with your personality, let one become an extension of the other and then both will be authentic.

Actually, speaking of bland and average, James Blunt waddled somewhat ignorantly into the filesharing debate this week with this wonderfully misguided comment:

“people need to know that it [filesharing] is destroying people’s livelihoods and suffocating emerging British artists.”

Getting your music out there is the most important thing for emerging artists and filesharing (which isn’t illegal if you the artist chooses to allow it) is one the best ways to increase the prevalence of your wonderful work.

Who am I talking to now??

1 or 2 posts a month is “active” apparently, talk to your audience.

But I don’t have one…..

The age of idolatry is dead or dying, at least in the music industry. It’s no longer one way communication with stars in the magical Majors  protected against real people’s responses.

No more one way rants or rhetoric, demands or expectations; the consumer wants respect and access, attention, equality. The consumer doesn’t want to be a consumer anymore, we want to be fans, and if we’re not, we are finding ways to tell you. But does the musician still want or get to be a musician anyway? Or would they be a writer, an influencer or a fasionista? A tribal leader? A businessman? Or just a plain old fashioned cash cow celebrity? Some of those are so much easier.

We live in cultures built of conversation and trade, we always have, that’s how cultures work (at least to this lowly musician). Music is conversation, expression put out for attention, aiming to generate an emotional conversation and trade with those who hear it. And it’s becoming more prevalent than ever (1 week = 400 physical releases http://www.newmusictipsheet.com/page.php?id=week1). It seems everyone can create it – like words…

But “where’s the business” people say, “where’s the money?” – I don’t know – where’s the business in words?….

I talk to my friend I get no financial reward, but it’s still a trade. I talk at a conference with all eyes on me (I don’t), I get money, still just words. I write those words in a blog, money? Nope. I write them in a paper (again not likely), ka-ching! I write a bad script full of holes or ‘and then`s’ and the producer bins it, “wasted time on that shit”, but if I write a great story using similar timeframes and energies then the attention’s deserving, the financiers draw close.

And all of this is being done right now. All these words, all being created, all generating something, all requiring input of energy and time both to write and to read or hear. Most are forgotten within an instant, valueless in respect of both money and attention.

How does that conversation work? When there is no reply. Can money bring attention or attention bring money or does something else bring both? Scarcity of physical goods means fewer consumers, less attention and potentially higher prices, but fewer consumers of ideas leaves them valueless, or are they? Are fame and money the only rewards we seek? The responses of others are important and rightly valued but where’s the inner monologue with creation, the friendly chat?

Nobody wants our shit scripts, that’s understandable; a potential audience will put no time to it, let alone any money. But you’ve put time into it, energy and emotion, you’ve expressed in the hope of a response. Those hours or weeks you’ve toiled in your physical and emotional cell, wrestling with form and structure, tone and sentiment. All the time ‘going nowhere’ if you believe the notion of a creator’s need for “getting somewhere” or for things to “take off”, itself exacerbated against a backdrop of Hollywood or prime time television or The “official” Top 40. Inevitably this has lead to the concept of some holy grail or Jerusalem we’re all aiming for, a super supreme regime and requirement to be seen as ‘professional’ or even ‘famous’, dammit, some way to say we’re better that everyone else! And why not, fair play that sounds wonderful, the mythos of Hollywood et al fuels many a creative conversation and the idea that plinth is within reach drives many to try.

But the similarities to religion don’t end there, as along the line the mythos and its use have distorted reality. Our perceptions and understanding have become confused and the true course of the creative world has been buried beneath more critical goals of overheads and profit, fame and popularity.

Consumers don’t want to see development apparently, they want the end product before they know why and they don’t care how it happens. What’s so off putting about the reality of the creative process or what is it missing? Is it just less appealing than a world of lets pretend?

The arduous journey has been hidden or diluted and weakened, from nothing to ‘merchandise’ in a magical flash – who are you? WOW you’re amazing! Why? I don’t know, where’ve you gone, sod it, next!… – people as commodity and fame for its own sake, all because popularity increases trade, but trade of what? Grunts elicit only further grunts and shouting begets more shouting, the conversation’s monetary value may remain, but what is lost?

There’s little awareness of the hard work that’s actually required to generate creative value, the time and energy from you the creator, the development of skills and techniques to actually produce something of interest to a mass market and on top of that:

“the producers, engineers, attorneys, managers, publishers, booking agents, promoters, marketers, sales reps, publicists, spending anywhere from a couple hundred to a couple hundred thousand dollars over the next six months to make people aware that you have a record out” (Scott Perry – New Music Tipsheet)

Where are they on the X-factor and the other dream creation engines? The evangelists don’t think you’re interested, and we’re probably not, it’s too mechanistic; but more importantly it’s too impersonal. The larger the product sought the more complex, demanding and incomprehensible its creative journey becomes, inevitably uninteresting when seen as a whole. End product is all that’s left to sell. At least to the mass market. We want to be part of the crowd but are we interested in anyone beyond those we stand next to? Who do you want to go home with after the concert’s finished? The star on stage, or the friends you shared it with? After all what would you talk to Kanye about, we know little of him beyond his end performance, products and outbursts. He knows little of you and me but he trades his products for us to share and have conversations about. Products though are for consumers and there’s little conversation between creator and consumer. The information gate keepers pass media snippets between Jerusalem and our world, for a price, but we won’t pay for mundane normality, and that certainly wouldn’t generate discussion. Friends chat, keynote’s analyse, blogs cascade and the news machine continues to print its way to the grave. Words and words all about ‘the creator’, but rarely from them. And when they do speak we all listen, giving whatever they say great value but no matter how inane or profound, it rarely applies to us or warrants the importance it’s inevitably ascribed.

So where does that leave our shit scripts or music, our pieces that just aren’t popular, a seemingly one sided conversation in the mass market. This one’s no holy grail and we are not bound for Jerusalem, but does that matter? Or is this statement of expression leading somewhere else or even nowhere in particular. Is it simply part of our journey, part of our creative process, our chat over coffee with a friend or my inner monologue? A learning tool and step on the road.

I can’t get to the supermarket without the road that leads there, and the road is a prominent part of the shopping expedition? I’d certainly notice if it wasn’t there, I wouldn’t do good shopping if still half a mile from the door. Similarly you can’t get to your plot twist without an initial story development or rip that guitar solo without hours of practice. But did anyone you don’t know ever ask about your walk to the supermarket or query which scales you repeated till your fingers were sore? That’s not something you ask about, that’s something you share – if you walk together and practice in concert.

Don’t tell the story once it’s past, live it while it happens.

Does it matter which part will be the talking point on IMDB or at the office water cooler, are those conversations you’ll be part of? And could we get either to either to exist at all without years of practice?Don’t waste them.

So should we no longer aim for Jeruselam? – are we not mostly those who will never write the best, the groundbreaking or the revolutionary. Those without the financial capital and vast scales of manpower required to blow the senses off our little consumer faces. What about our normal every day conversation of emotion and ideas that has no explosive outcome, just a trial and error journey leading to mediocrity and symbiosis. What’s the value of my inner monologue?

As the value of the end product falls, so the true value of the journey can again become visible. It needs to be embraced and shared with the same, if not greater enthusiasm, for it’s the journey to our own creative Jerusalem.

So aim for your Jerusalem, aim as high as your imagination can see! But share the journey and remember its importance, as if you get where you’re going, you’ll have nothing but that CD.

Tip of the post – The world is a stage and you practice in your bedroom – but the internet is in your bedroom now, prepare to share your practice.