Reluctantly crouched at the starting line
...but in teaching I keep learning. So let's go.
Let me get this off my chest:
I am skeptical of all social media platforms, including this one. I’m also skeptical of podcasts, and books, and old things scratched into stone that prove aliens built the pyramids.
And yet. I enjoy our conversations. I appreciate you being here. I’m not skeptical of you at all. I’m the opposite.
If you’re here, you might be:
A fan of my music
Someone who liked my book, Music, Lyrics, and Life
A former/future songwriting student
Someone who’s tripped over my articles about music and process
A fan of obscure TV theme songs
…something else altogether
While creating my first post, Substack gave me this advice:
“Readers love clarity. Tell them: how often will you be posting? Can they expect certain posts on specific days? What will the free subscribers get? What does a paid subscription buy them? (You can list these benefits in bullets.)”
I don’t know. How’s that for clarity? BUT: By the same token, if I were to ask Substack, “How long will you function as a company?” they’d say, “I don’t know.” Why? Because clarity is an illusion. The way 10,000 hours of practice yields nothing if you practice the wrong thing. The way a delicious ice cream cone is no longer delicious if a seagull swoops down and carries it away.
In that spirit, let’s be good to each other, and keep the conversation going. Cheers.
Excited to see how you use this platform.
I remember when Amanda Palmer asked for funds via Kickstarter for a studio album and ended up raising $1.2 million dollars as part of the campaign. That project was a single effort, which then led to her dipping into Patreon (which this platform feels somewhat similar).
The difference between the two is that the Kickstarter campaign was for a single project, where stretch goals were created, but the crux of the project was to finance an album. Patreon, on the other hand, is an attempt to “give the creator a direct line of access to your fan community, through real-time group chats, comments, DMs, and even directly over email…” for a fee. While the intentions are good, this also creates a “false” sense of reciprocal expectations that fans will get unrestricted access to the artists by paying the said fee.
I fear this creates a sense of entitlement for the fans that pay and a sense of pressure on the artist to keep “pumping out” quality content to keep fans investing.
When artists used to release an album every 3 or 4 years and then rely on touring and merchandise to sustain their craft until the next album/tour cycle, it set the expectation for the fan that this was the access they would get to the artist, with an occasional chance meeting outside of a tour bus or in line at a random coffee shop. These new platforms remove those boundaries and heighten expectations.
Under the standard cycle described above, an artist could also prepare their budget for the next 3 to 4 years based on album, ticket and merchandise sales. Now, their income fluctuates based on “subscribers” which forces them to maintain subscriptions by creating more content and allowing more access to the creative process. And, while it’s exciting to get SOME peaks behind the curtain, those barriers also used to create excitement and anticipation for artists and fans when structured content was being released or a tour was announced.
However you intend to use this platform, I encourage you to maintain your privacy and remember that you don’t owe us, as fans, anything more than you’re comfortable sharing. I have no doubt that the content you produce will be of the highest quality and the level of engagement that is created through your prompts will be thoughtful and inspiring. But I want to make sure you reserve the right to create and share at YOUR discretion and not because you feel you owe us more.
Looking forward to this. Whatever it may be.