Success, that word, that idea that floats around the heads of so many people, including artists and musicians, that promises all kinds of benefits and joys. The formula for success, the price of success, commercial success, personal success,… Very good, but are we always referring to the same thing or are there different versions of what we can understand as success?
Let's see what we find behind this magic word, this crowd-shaker.
What do we consider success?
The first thing we should do, as almost always, is to clear up the terminological issue a little and agree on the meaning of success, to avoid personal definitions and make sure that we are talking about the same thing. The language dictionary says regarding the word success:
From lat. exĭtus 'exit'.
m. Happy result of a business, performance, etc.m. Good acceptance that someone or something has.mp us. End or termination of a business or matter. These three meanings have in common their etymological root, exitus, which would be exit, final. It is curious that with the passage of time, the use of the word success has been so strongly associated with something good, with recognition, benefit, fame, something that seems to have started as a simple escape or the end of something. . Since we do not have any expert in ancient languages at hand, we are going to leave this curiosity here and focus on today's topic. It must be recognized that, although the dictionary so directly relates the public or commercial with this concept, we can distinguish different types of success. But it is also often used in a private context to mark the stages of learning or personal work, and it is felt as an intimate success that in this way can be, in the musical field, mastering a new interpretive technique, understanding a concept. of music theory, composing a song with which we feel satisfied and similar situations. For the purpose of this article we are going to look at these two ways of perceiving success and some quite surprising contradictions and consequences.
commercial success
Let's start with public success, which is almost always understood as commercial success. That type of recognition is based on money, of course, and also on popularity and perhaps even criticism from the media or supposed specialized experts and, often, conditioned by their salary or hidden businesses.
Money, travel, fame For commercial success, the first necessary and indispensable thing is dissemination, that a song be heard by the largest number of people possible, therefore, the traditional media, radio, press and television during Decades were the funnel that had to be crossed to go from unknown to known. And the mass media were, logically, big businesses and their reason for being, rather than transmitters of, let's say, quality art, producers of profits. At the beginning of the 21st century, with the development of digital technology, this communicative power has been somewhat diluted and it is possible to achieve this dissemination through social networks in a more or less independent way. Another issue related to public success is that, especially performers, undergo a transformation, sometimes happy and other times traumatic. They go from being people to being characters. This is true whether you like it or not, have an extroverted or introverted attitude, like fashion or hate it, want to be normal or special or dream of going unnoticed. It doesn't matter. Fame, popularity, being known through interviews, forums, videos or any other way, results in a partial and distorted image of who we really are. It is inevitable, no matter how much sincerity you put into your media interventions. The audience, each person who meets you through those channels, is going to get a certain idea of you, and that you is going to be your character. Additionally, and related to these issues, is the issue of musical genres. If you are known for being a rocker, or making dance music, or a singer-songwriter or a trapper, it doesn't matter, that will be the artistic label that is given to you and, once this happens, it will be difficult for you to get out of those coordinates. and show very different works, no matter how much your creative spirit asks you to. Commercial mechanisms, the customs of a good part of the audiences and, I suppose, the comfort or powerful relationship that is often established between certain music and moments of our personal lives cause these types of situations. It's the dark side of commercial success, being pigeonholed into a style or type of songs. Being forced, in quotes, to always produce or create similar songs or, at least, perform the old classics of youth to the detriment of new compositions. As you can see, many factors, most of them external to the song itself. They intervene in the commercial success or failure of a specific music at a specific time.
personal success
On the other hand, as we have said, there is a personal, private, intimate sphere, where a songwriter is immersed when she writes her works. Although it is not a completely isolated place and the public or external infiltrates and is also part of it, to some extent, when we create a melody or write an outline of the lyrics of a song, we are supposed to be pouring something from within us, of our experience and vision of life. That is, furthermore, what is expected of us. Our personal stamp on those artistic pieces, our truth and, perhaps, what our public persona will look like if it ever exists.
Yeah!! Yeah !! Test passed!! On a personal level, success will basically depend on our expectations. If we make songs thinking about fame, then that will be what validates our works. If we write with a more intimate approach, what we manage to impress on them as something in which we recognize ourselves will be the measure of our judgment of them. If we think about composing complex things, the more complex and sophisticated the result is, the more satisfied we will be. etc… We could say that personal success is feeling fulfilled, even momentarily. according to the effort or the work or the sincerity poured into a song. But be careful, because, sometimes, expectations are wrong and we associate things that are not necessarily related to each other. For example, complexity and quality, or sophistication and recognition, or sincerity and quality, and a long etcetera. That is to say, what is difficult is neither good nor bad per se. Likewise, not simple either. Therefore, when writing our songs it is better not to incur these misunderstandings. Thus, we will save ourselves some disappointments.
Conclusions
Okay, so, considering all this, how should we approach writing our songs? The truth is that each song is an opportunity and different songs can have different objectives and can give us different types of satisfaction. It is not necessary to be a commercial fundamentalist nor an apostle of creative purity. We can be angels and demons, naïve and twisted, we can be impure in many ways, no one and nothing stops us. And, furthermore, who is or wants to be pure? And if you are worried about critics, the poison of interested opinions, I have to warn you that no path is going to free you from them. When we understand that pleasing everyone is impossible and that whatever we do, in whatever way and quality it may be, we are going to resonate with some people, be ignored or detested by others and be congratulated by a certain group, whether larger or smaller, when we are clear about this, we can now focus on what we are capable of doing for our songs. Probably, the best thing we can do when creating is to be true to ourselves, whoever we are, and show our personal sensitivity, our values, our artistic truth. Seeking commercial success by betraying oneself is a very dangerous path that can lead us to unhappiness or boredom. The history of music, furthermore, denies that claim at least in each generation. New creators are looking for new languages, different forms that break with the previous generation, at least. Personal success, public recognition, fame in some of its formats, commercial success… There are many influences and temptations during the creative process. Will our work be liked or not? Will money and fame be favorable to us? We must be careful with these issues and, as far as possible, leave them aside since the artistic value very often lies in what is not yet popular, what has not been done exactly in that specific way, which has an old aroma but looks brand new. With this in mind, understood and assumed, we can now return to our creative work and, since what is public or commercial depends on a thousand external factors that are difficult to control, we are going to put our effort and attention first in achieving private, personal successes, we are going to try be satisfied with our works and improve our craftsmanship little by little. The rest will happen or not, but our work, the mark we leave, will be worthy, to a large extent, and faithful to the person we are. So far, an introduction to the wonderful world of a song's success. #mailpoet_form_3 .mailpoet_form { } #mailpoet_form_3 .mailpoet_column_with_background { padding: 10px; } #mailpoet_form_3 .mailpoet_form_column:not(:first-child) { margin-left: 20px; } #mailpoet_form_3 .mailpoet_paragraph { line-height: 20px; margin-bottom: 20px; } #mailpoet_form_3 .mailpoet_segment_label, #mailpoet_form_3 .mailpoet_text_label, #mailpoet_form_3 .mailpoet_textarea_label, #mailpoet_form_3 .mailpoet_select_label, #mailpoet_form_3 .mailpoet_radio_label, #mailpoet_form_3 .mailpoet_checkbox_label, 3 .mailpoet_list_label, #mailpoet_form_3 .mailpoet_date_label { display: block; font-weight: normal; } #mailpoet_form_3 .mailpoet_text, #mailpoet_form_3 .mailpoet_textarea, #mailpoet_form_3 .mailpoet_select, #mailpoet_form_3 .mailpoet_date_month, #mailpoet_form_3 .mailpoet_date_day, #mailpoet_form_3 .mailpoet_date_year, #mailpoet_form_3 .mailpoet_date { display :block; } #mailpoet_form_3 .mailpoet_text, #mailpoet_form_3 .mailpoet_textarea { width: 200px; } #mailpoet_form_3 .mailpoet_checkbox { } #mailpoet_form_3 .mailpoet_submit { } #mailpoet_form_3 .mailpoet_divider { } #mailpoet_form_3 .mailpoet_message { } #mailpoet_form_3 .mailpoet_form_loading { width: 30px; text-align: center; line-height: normal; } #mailpoet_form_3 .mailpoet_form_loading > span { width: 5px; height: 5px; background-color: #5b5b5b; }#mailpoet_form_3{border: 1px solid #fcb900;border-radius: 40px;text-align: center;}#mailpoet_form_3 form.mailpoet_form {padding: 20px;}#mailpoet_form_3{width: 70%;}#mailpoet_form_3 .mailpoet_message {margin : 0; padding: 0 20px;}#mailpoet_form_3 .mailpoet_paragraph.last {margin-bottom: 0} @media (max-width: 500px) {#mailpoet_form_3 {background-image: none;}} @media (min-width: 500px) { #mailpoet_form_3 .last .mailpoet_paragraph:last-child {margin-bottom: 0}} @media (max-width: 500px) {#mailpoet_form_3 .mailpoet_form_column:last-child .mailpoet_paragraph:last-child {margin-bottom: 0}} Please leave this field emptyDo you write songs or would you like to?
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