Re: Why SHOULDN'T musicians be paid?

["Warren Sirota" <wsirota@wsdesigns.com>]

Rick, I think the sacrifices you've made in pursuit of your art are inspiring, and (what I see the most) your efforts to facilitate and promote the art of others. And maybe I was out of line calling you on your phrasing and should have just left that to Travis if he wanted to respond. I've had my years of sacrifice in pursuit of art, too, and decided that for myself, I needed to "focus", if you will, on a "less-focussed" view of life. Perhaps the need for money is the universe's way of forcing us to engage with others on THEIR terms, and just maybe in one possible broader view of things, that's a good thing. We all have a lot of hard choices to make in the art-vs-income/time category. In another life I'd take your path. I find much to envy in it. But I wouldn't trade right now (well, OK, I probably would for a *while*), and I'm sure you wouldn't either.

And, I have to admit, my view of my own self-worth as a musician was pretty permanently undermined that evening in 1987 when I was sitting working on music (for my MFA from Mills, which I quit my corporate job to pursue - I would now be a retired millionaire with all the time for music in the world had I not done that) in an Oakland pizzeria, waiting for dinner, when the 17-year old server kid came by and asked, what was I doing. I replied that I was a composer, working on some music, and he said, "oh, well, who isn't?" And, you know, despite the obvious differences of years of experience and study and dedication, at core I felt that he was essentially correct in his attitude. He was me 20 years earlier. It was shockingly humbling. So yeah, Rick (tho you didn't say this to me, it felt like you did), I don't put that much external value on my own musical creativity. To me, that would be like putting value on breathing. If people choose to reward me in such a way that allows me or encourages me to do more of it, that's a special blessing, not specifically related to anything that I can perceive or measure except perhaps better politiking than I can manage. If not, well, I'm just another pizza boy doing my best to have fun. 

To shift to the present day:
Now I look around and see that the tools of production have been put fully into the hands of the proletariat, and the means of distribution are close behind. I think this is a good thing, but highly disruptive (to a system already dysfunction to the point of disease). Can I possibly do better with Garageband than a teenager with hours every night to surf the web for beats and samples? Not likely. Is it important or meaningful that I be able to do this? Also, not likely.  So I do two things - I make the recorded art I want to make and don't expect anyone to even really want to listen to it (at any price, including free), except under rare circumstances, and OTOH I cultivate skills (fingerstyle-jazz guitar playing) that are giggable and not-easily-duplicable. But, really, gigs are not the true motivation for doing the guitar practice, anyway - I'm doing it because I have a singer that I love listening to and accompanying, and this is how I manage to do more of it.

So, I guess the point is that we all create our own survival strategies in a world that makes its own inscrutable judgments about which forms of virtue will be rewarded, and what forms those rewards will take. And I do wish it were otherwise, but it doesn't seem constructive in my life to wallow in that wish too frequently.