So, I've been trying to alternate song posts with meta-posts about previous entries and so forth. But this probably merits mentioning now:
As noted earlier, the idea behind TWC was twofold: 1) a diary to help me get a head of steam in my own writing, and 2) an opportunity to explore the creative process in public, with some level of interaction and participation by others. I think it's fair to say that there's been some success on both fronts thus far.
What I hadn't expected was what the experience of making unfinished music available to the public would feel like. And about the only way I can describe that feeling is that it's a mixture of exhilaration and sheer terror. Why is that relevant? Well, as I've mused elsewhere, manufacturing energy in pop music has become a rather laborious exercise. And it's not just at the mass consumer level; for aspiring songwriters, artists and bands, the rigmarole of practicing, of playing out, of building a fan base, and developing label interest has become so rote, so detached from the actual creative process, that we've taken to assuming it only exists to produce an end result — fame, record sales, sexual favors. To produce product, as it were. Indeed, despite an increasing number of tools available for artists to
promote their music with, CD's still retail for $20 a pop, and P2P
use remains rampant by all indications — to most listeners, songs are little more than aluminum discs or, worse, tiny files locked away somewhere on your hard drive.
Along the same lines, I've spent much of the last several years wondering why it is that I try to create music at all. Not in an existential sense, mind you, but rather what motivates me. To be sure, it isn't for any of the above reasons (though had fame or money come my way, it's not as if I would have exactly rejected them out of hand). But much as I prefer working alone, music isn't something I care to create in a vacuum. Like many writers, I like hearing what people think of my music — and what I like most is when it offers a perspective I didn't or couldn't produce on my own.
But as much as this effort is about how and why I write music, as TWC has moved forward, it's become increasingly apparent that it's also about how and why we LISTEN to music. To be sure, we all appreciate things like good melodies, snappy beats and engaging lyrics — and some of us are drawn to certain sounds more than others. But the choices we make during the creative process and why we make them can be pretty interesting in their own right. With movies, we get DVD's, commentary tracks, behind-the-scenes documentaries and other insights into what went into making the film; but with music, windows into the creative process are scarce.
So, how then does this all relate to TWC? Because in the place of a moribund, isolated writing process with little chance of the music ever making it into the public is a dynamic process, fraught with possibility and risk. Again, it's hard to overstate how fucking terrifying it is putting unfinished songs (esp. those with vocals) into the public sphere. It gnaws at everything a professional musician works toward — ie, convincing the audience he or she is doing something worthwhile, even important. Put aside whether putting incomplete work out there not only calls into question that the music is any good — it risks the underlying assumption that this person is even talented.
Of course, the flipside is that the trust you can build up with an audience is just not something you can buy at Sam Goody. Whether it's a note you can't quite reach, a ghastly lyric or something worse, you're essentially saying to the listener, "Stick with me — this is going to be interesting." It's the ultimate pitch.
Stay tuned...
