Sober Sunday Reflections on...A Field Guide to the DIY Musician

It's easy to see the increased opportunity afforded to the individual by the internet as categorically good. Freelance recording artists now have a widely available tool to make their own creative decisions and launch their content across the civilized world. But, there's another edge to this sword. In the altered landscape of online "DIY-dom", the more thoughtful independent musician may get the sense of participating in a system that is not as glimmering with manifest destiny as it is touted to be.

Maybe this has to do with the way DIY distribution channels are marketed. Sites like Reverbnation, CD Baby, MySpace Music, Soundcloud, etc. intentionally inspire a "world-as-oyster" attitude in their users, fostering a largely false impression that fame and recognition are waiting at the end of the upload progress bar.

And probably this is all connected to what my buddy, breakfastmakesperfect, has referred to as a "kinderngarten teacher" brand of over-validating artistic worth in the Generation Me culture. The Self-Esteem Movement has saturated the marketing world just as much as anything else, and the entire structure of the DIY music industry is founded on a set of personality traits that are shaped and amplified by this movement. 

So, without further adieu I present the three facets required to be a profitable DIY musician.

1. Self-Centeredness

   
Being a performing or recording musician requires a person to make a movement of soul that enables them to believe what they have to share with the world is worth hearing. This is the presumption that all artists have to muster (more difficult for some than others) if they are to be heard, acknowledged, and remembered. Of course, many musician's are worth hearing and this becomes self-evident over the course of their career. But, to get there a musician must embark from an inherently self-centered stance toward the world that can be difficult to reconcile philosophically.

"Der Wille zur Macht, or whatever..."

2. Delusion and Inflated Confidence

"Check this shit out, I wrote this backstage
while I was scarfin' my Goobers..."

DIY musicians have to believe not just in the intrinsic worth of their musical expression, but also in the intrinsic worth of someone else experiencing their music. When you think about it, this is a pretty audacious attitude that requires both a fundamental delusion about the social world, and an impractical level of confidence.

DIY-ers also have to achieve the delusion and confidence necessary to effectively monetize their creative product. Think about that for a second. Assigning a dollar amount to an MP3....a written sequence of data that represents a greater emerging idea, a poetry honest or dishonest, a cultural chunk of artistic identity. How does that work?

Balls.

 

 

Radiohead did it by pulling the rug out from under the traditional distribution model, asking their listeners to assign their own value to the band's music. In 2007, Radiohead released In Rainbows as a pay-what-you-want download via their own personal website. The crafty bastards paid significantly less to produce the album and made a healthy profit by axing the middle man. They eventually sold copies in record stores and through iTunes, which increased their profit margins even further.

 
Granted, Radiohead is no shabby DIY outfit toiling in obscurity, and In Rainbows was successful mainly because of Radiohead's ability to leverage an already vast global fan base. But, the idea of consumers using the internet to shatter the age-old record label hegemony is still compelling. Even for smaller bands with smaller followings, it can be done.

So, what exactly propels some DIY-ers toward profitability, exposure and recognition? What forces are in play that enable some bands and solo artists to rise the internet ranks and assemble their own cult of personality? The simple and lazy answer is luck.

3. Luck

"'Bout to play some tookin', lez dooo it!"

Let me begin by clarifying that I'm not using "luck" as a term that disparages the DIY artist by presuming their work and value have nothing to do with their success. By "luck" I mean the sum total of complex conditions existing together in an environment that can lead a person to succeed in spite of the odds.

Luck can include the shrewd publicity skills of a band's manager, combined with the controversial but charming antics of the lead vocalist, plus (dare I say it) the possibility of authentic talent and vision. Luck can incorporate a basic trust in opportunity. Being in the right place at the right time. Finding a weak spot in the wall of market entry, and attacking it with every molecule of persistence owed to your entitled upbringing, or maybe just a solid work ethic.

Luck can be anything. And luck, (the way I'm using the term), really is everything.

Conclusion:

DIY music channels and digital distribution packages empower musicians to distribute their product to an online audience, which affords them the opportunity to target niches and possibly become successful. But, the contribution of the DIY-er also becomes very quickly just a drop in the ocean.

The DIY infrastructure operates on giving the independent freelancer a sensation of importance, and a cheap way to feel artistic worth. This can be positive, but also surreptitious, because the growth of the DIY infrastructure and the expansion of a new flattened market of independent musicians results in a bloated "minstrel class" with diminishing opportunity to distinguish themselves.

The DIY musician would benefit from thinking:

"What cosmic force could possibly justify the notion that my music is particularly special? That I am somehow more than just another artist, user name, and password? More than another voice in a screaming sea, where mediocrity is propagated even more than in the mainstream popular culture that DIY channels are starting to supplant?"

The DIY-er should reassess their expectations and consider their intentions in being an artist, asking:

"What do I think music should be? A path to self-aggrandizement? A source of community? A harpooning toward higher reality?"

This simple exercise of self-examination is essential if a person is to become the burden on the world that is, to some extent, every artist.


On a side note, I also propose there be a disclaimer for users on digital distribution sites giving the following warning:

"Prepare yourself, brave dreamer, to be let down by an overwhelming disinterest in your own crying intellectual babies. You may have a fighting chance if you're bad enough to be funny, or good enough to be extraordinary. But for the rest of you struggling up the craggy slope of the bell curve, you'll probably just disappear completely."

"CLICK 'YES' TO PROCEED!"                           "CLICK 'NO' TO GIVE UP FOREVER!"