Is your music a service or an art?

Do you view your music as a service or an art?

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    183
#123
uncleSausageNek said:
I'm curios about the amount of TBers that view their playing as more of a service they provide or more of an art.
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It's a great question.

Taking it out of music for a second. Was Michelangelo providing a service or art? I think there is no question he was both.

He was also an employer - said to have had dozens working - he didn't carry the buckets of paint up the scaffolding to the Sistine Chapel himself, and I doubt he built the scaffolding himself, someone else even mixed his paints. He was commissioned by Pope Julius to paint it - so he had a 'boss', and couldn't just paint lusty women up there. He was a businessman, after all.

The answer is definitely you can be both. Even the great artists understand that they want their work to sell, they need buyers. Of course, whether it is art or not depends on intangibles such as artistic self-expression, universal message, uniqueness, aesthetic qualities, etc. But it's always a business.

True, some genre's of music are more 'cover' oriented, but that doesn't necessarily always mean that there's not a unique interpretation that goes with it.

The thing is, in every profession there are folks who eventually have to ask themselves if they are "order-takers" or "leaders" in the business relationship. I actually feel musicians are doing folks a great service by telling them that what they are requesting is something that they just don't do.

In the same vein, you can either "do gigs" that people request, or you can "create unique performances." The latter can be both servicing and artistic, IMO.
 
#125
Tommyc said:
If it's not being sold to someone obviously it's not a service. The writer, Franz Kafka, author of The Metamorphosis instructed his survivors to destroy all his writings. Luckily they didn't obey. Had they done so and no one knew about him, could he be an artist if no one read him? if a tree falls.....? My take is if you express yourself through a fine art medium i.e., sculpture, painting, drawing, music or literature, you're an artist. Whether you're a good artist or dreadful one doesn't matter. Hitchcock vs. Ed Wood.
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Kafka's case is a little different, because unlike a lot of musicians in question, he deliberately decided not to write for a living. He chose to be an attorney in Prague. That way he could keep his art totally separate from his business.
He didn't have to worry about paying any bills with his writing. Many artists have to create to eat.

And he also didn't have an audience to consider, which unlike most artists in question, the message is usually for an audience of some kind. So while he was an artist, he never put himself in the position of considering an audience. He was in fact afraid he was a terrible writer, and actually embarrassed by his work. It was his mostly only his close friend and then-young protege', Max Brod who read his work, and who decided to publish it upon his K's death.

Glad that happened!
 
#126
At only two months playing my music is mos def Art cause nobody would pay me for it. Mostly it's therapy. I feel like I need to play the heavy thing sometimes. Luckily, I can almost play Bass Boogie, the A minor scale, and Crosswalk Blues so I amuse myself with little harm to others. WT
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#127
Sputter said:
Kafka's case is a little different, because unlike a lot of musicians in question, he deliberately decided not to write for a living. He chose to be an attorney in Prague. That way he could keep his art totally separate from his business.
He didn't have to worry about paying any bills with his writing. Many artists have to create to eat.

And he also didn't have an audience to consider, which unlike most artists in question, the message is usually for an audience of some kind. So while he was an artist, he never put himself in the position of considering an audience. He was in fact afraid he was a terrible writer, and actually embarrassed by his work. It was his mostly only his close friend and then-young protege', Max Brod who read his work, and who decided to publish it upon his K's death.

Glad that happened!
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The thing is, if it were only as simple as having to " create to eat " no artist would starve. Compared to Telemann, Bach was marginally successful in terms of income. Today no one would place Telemann's creativity above Bach. People have created and played music long before placing it on a stage for public consumption or royal consumption for that matter. In the middle ages, music after a meal performed and sung by family members, was their equivalent of television.
Music as a business is a relatively new thing. There have been artists who weren't embarrassed by their work such as Charles Ives, who made a fortune as an insurance agent while composing on the train, free from what he considered a musical establishment he deliberately wanted to have no part of. I think in the end, the artist who places a consideration of conveying a message to an audience or goes as far as considering what it is an audience will like is on some level, pandering to his audience. One in the end has to express oneself for oneself and if that expression finds an audience, that's great. If not, well, there's insurance and the law.
 
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#128
None of these choices match my motivation (as written).

"I do my job and get paid" is a business transaction, and definitely not why I'm in it, Though I try not to play for free (or cheap), because it ruins it for the musicians who have chosen to make an honest living.

"I constantly strive for creativity and depth" - this is true, but that's also not the purpose. That's just what happens along the way.

My driving motivation is to play with other musicians that I have chemistry with, and ultimately to see a room full of people dance and have a good time. To serve not in the business transaction way, but in as in as the act of serving; of giving, regardless of whether I'm being paid or not. That's my motivation.

So I guess I fall in to the carrots category.
 
#130
I consider it an art. Like many arts, one can be paid to perform this art. Performance of an art for pay is technically a service, but i still view the product as a form of art first and foremost. Even if a player hates the music being played and has zero emotional involvement, it is still an art as they are still expressing something. It is just something they don't personally believe in.
 
#136
In my head, service is when it involves money or is dictated (something you normally wouldn't play). Art otherwise.

It can be both. If someone cuts you a check for having played your own music, it only be both art and a service.
 
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