You keep the credit, but no one gets paid.

2) You make Other People Money

You don’t keep the credit, other people get paid.

3) You Make Money.

You keep the credit, AND you get paid.

With the death of the Label Deal, step 2 has become more obvious.  The dream I struggle with is “Patronage,”  where I write something so cool that some guy comes up afterwards and offers me a full salary to keep creating.    That feels like “making money” so most artists keep thinking that way.  Haydn was the live-in composer for a family for like 40 years.  It sounds glamorous… but it was really more like being a staff composer for Disney.  You wrote what they told you to write, when they told you to write it, and they paid you what they wanted, and owned all the work.

It was really you making them money, but it felt like you making money.

Now the curtain has been pulled back.

I’m honored that two whole people have asked me for career advice this week, but I’m really only at step #: Make Other People Money.  When people ask me to join their project, my goal is to help them make bank on the project.   I’m not that old. If I can help them “print money” on their project,  They’ll  :1) move up a tax bracket or two 2) get invited to A List events and projects and 3) Owe me a favor, thus increasing the number of A List/Team creatives I know personally by 100%.

This isn’t to say I’m not compensated for my contributions,   I just want to make sure that they make more on me than they pay me.

So, if people aren’t opening their sentences with “How much would it cost for you…”  when they pitch you projects, you aren’t at #3 yet.    How can you provide them value that they can capitalize on?

(it’s fine to serve as an apprentice to an established pro.  Are you costing them time and resources, or are you enabling them to bring more work into their shop? Don’t get snotty.  If they pay you $10/hr, are you doing work at a level that lets them bill the client at $20? $40? $100? Or do they have to go in behind you and do it again? )

I get it. Dave Matthews is either a genius, or a sly pseudo-artist con-man.  That’s fine, believe what you want.  In working with Daniel, I’m rediscovering Dave on Spotify, and between that and Wikipedia I’m finding a new appreciation for what this group has accomplished.  I get that they really have only one song (and Tripping Billies is it) but this song is a force of nature.  The cross rhythms, the integration of the parts.. its just this side of chaos and UNBELIEVABLY electric..

Oh yea… and it was on their first EP.  No wonder they got signed.

DIY Artists take note… keep pressing your coal until you have a diamond.  You need a piece that defines a sound.. that stakes a claim… that demands respect and attention.   Excellence to the point of profanity.

Only in Nashville.

I’ll try to post some clips as they come available.

2) There isn’t a ladder to where I’m headed.  I’m building it.  What COO got up this morning and said..” Today I need to find a composer who can sell posters, design sets and publish theological essays while administrating arts projects…”  (if you do know one, have them email me!)

3) I need better communication mechanisms.  People are often confused by how I communicate.  Not what I communicate, but HOW.  I need to put bigger handles (and paint them orange) on my ideas.  Ideas like “this should be a phone call” and an increased emphasis (in my mind) of asking concrete questions. I also now understand why they invented conference calls. 

4) To change gigs, I need a new kingdom.  The one I come from doesn’t have the position I want. Rather than spend a lifetime trying to convince them they need a “me” and should pay for it; I need to hit the road and find the people who need my skills and ideas.  That’s starting to happen, and in a kingdom I’d never thought of: the visual arts. 

5) More shots on goal.  Like most amateur artists, I get excited by every new possible project and depressed when one doesn’t work out, convinced I scared them off by something I said on my blog.  The reality is more likely that they lost their funding, or their boss said no.  The solution isn’t necessarily for me to become a better shot.  I mean, there are goalies in the world, and sometimes they stop pucks. What’s really needed is more shots.  More potential projects= more completed projects= more paid projects.  I used to think that it was a 1:1 ratio. (as if I had 100% accuracy!) But it’s probably more like 3:2:1.

I often tell myself otherwise, and to be honest the stakes to choose differently are higher than I’d ever imagined them, but really, when it comes down to it, I’ve chosen this life in a million small ways.

I think that’s true at your house as well.

I wrote a piece of music for orchestra in 2007 and it won the college composition contest.  [ladies, and gentlemen, that's what those bios mean when they say "award-winning composer" ]  I then sent it to about 30 mail-in contests for young composers.  30.  It never got selected, so I stopped.

I’m told that Dr. Seuss’s first book They Say That it Happened on Mulberry Street was rejected by 3,000 publishers before he published it himself.  Wikipedia says 27.  Hmm. That muddles this post.

My point is that I think I gave up too soon.  Surely somebody else would find the work strong enough.  Art is subjective, after all.  And, there are more ways past the gatekeepers than the front door.

I think this is particularly true if you’re doing something new.  If it’s really fresh and inventive, something that requires a new set of expectations for the audience, I think it may be best to NOT use the front door.  I’m also told that the Harry Potter series was rejected a bunch of times because the convention of the book industry was that kids didn’t read long books like that. And I bet they were right.  Kids DIDN’T USED TO READ like that. I expect the book industry to know a lot more than me about who reads what kinds of books. BUT THINGS CHANGE.

If you’re working in a new genre, you need to understand that there may not be an infrastructure in place for your work.  There probably wasn’t a book agent for “epic books for 12 year olds” at the time. I bet there are a thousand now. There probably was some confusion as to where to place the book in the stacks. Now there’s a YA-Fantasy WALL.  (if your bookstore is still open).

If you’re the explorer, one of the privileges is that you get to make the maps.  The risk, of course, is that you may never return.  But the ones who do get stuff named after them.  Lewis & Clark, anyone?  The reason you  go is not fame and fortune, that would make you a opportunistic privateer. I hope the reason you go is because you refuse to be the kind of person who stares an opportunity for an expedition and refuses.    I hope you get to the ledge, realizing it will take a lot from you and you go anyway.

I think my new number is 100.  If I pitch a project to 100 potential backers and land zero.  It’s time to let it rest.

UHaul will go bankrupt. Possibly be bought by home depot (or another national retailer).  Their model is a 1980s hidden-fee wasteland. I’m sure their liability continues to drive costs up.   But if their $35 refueling service charge and 4.60/gal fuel price is any indication, they haven’t turned a profit off of just renting trucks in a long time.

Did you know that George Lucas was $463,000 of his own money into “the Star Wars” before he got studio backing?

1) I never realized he was so loaded before Star Wars, but American Graffiti  had done really well.

2) A profound shift takes place when you’re paying for the project…  Truthfully, Fox was only sortof interested in the project.  They said yes long in advance, but had just had their purses burned by a recent sci-fi failure and were leaning towards “no”.  George changed the conversation entirely.   From “hey I have this awesome idea.. would you like to pay me to create it?” to “I’m making  a movie.  Would you like your name on it?”    Fox was not enthralled by Star Wars, but George’s $400k forced them to consider letting it walk to another studio– which they didn’t want to do.  Badda Bing: George’s 7.5million dollar budget.

I’ll tell you, paying for Soundcrawl myself finally put me in the director’s chair.  I’m not a very good salesman, particularly when I’m pitching something innovative, like this year’s string project.  I didn’t want any real discussions about how ridiculous it was to attempt what we pulled off. Writing checks made it my project.  It also ensured that the string players rehearsed at home.

For the record, we never rehearsed the total event.  It was completely live.   (We spot checked the string parts, starting each tune so no one got lost). Badda Bing:  a great project.  Funny things about checks.  Everyone arrived on time and no one missed a note.  Not true of the music pieces I’ve done “on favors.”

Here it is again.

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Today, after a few years of humming and hawing, I think I’ve realized I’m a producer by trade and an artist by hobby.

Yes I’m trained as a composer & educator, but that tends to show up only in my projects as I “get” stuff quickly (composition) and can explain it easily (education).

Did you know I almost did an MA in Arts Administration? I was reminded of that when I got to hob-nob with some other “emerging” arts leaders in Nashville. Man, I love that world. Still do. Working hard at slave/no wages to bring projects to light.

I say that because I may have accidentally founded an arts non-profit with Soundcrawl.