Safely Nowhere from Genesis by Midnight's Ocean
Leveled -14iLUFs
Creating art is different than creating product. Inspiration doesn't come in a can.
Some of the most timeless pieces of art were "failures", born out of a frustrated, irregular, chaotic mess. Striving to meet the astronomically high bar set by legendary composers. Collecting dust on a shelf for years refusing to conform to popular formula before completion or discovery. Art is alive and thus never truly "finished".
The difference between someone who's purely an artist and someone who's purely a producer is misunderstood due to people's unwillingness to understand the enormous differences between musical product and musical art. The fundamentals of the 2 are diametrically apposed. Art is a direct expression of the human spirit, experience and emotion. As such, it panders only to the inner self of it's creator. It does not pander to an audience or fashion. Because of this, it is impossible for it to appeal to "the consumer market at large". Product on the other hand, panders to the masses by nature. This is why artists have to FIND their desired audience, while audiences have to find their desired PRODUCT. Product is sought after because by design it appeals to widespread common desires. Product is ruled by popular fashion, not artistic expression. Art has a life of it's own. It does not respect popular opinion or politics. It does not care about trends driven by profit margins and/or lowest common denominator consumerism.
Creating musical product requires corporate formula and a 9 to 5 worker’s mentality. Musical art requires inspiration and a thinking process not ruled by corporate formula. Inspiration's fundamental properties run almost completely contrary to every priority embraced when making product. One can of course be both an artist and producer but they are 2 completely different worlds which can be hard to balance. People who are 1 but not the other sometimes fall victim to cognitive dissonance, expecting titles to skill sets they do not possess. To justify their claims, they attempt to quantify what can not be quantified. Inspiration and the artistic process in general are a prime example. In general such materialists try to quantify everything and anything they fear might have aspects outside their possession and/or understanding. Aspects that aren't predicted/controlled by materialist science and the corporate world of consumer product. Phenomenon they fear can not be learned, purchased, traded, packaged, marketed, or copied. They fear it because they can't have it. They can't have it, because they refuse to understand it. They refuse to understand it, because it would mean admitting they don't yet have it.
Because art is created through inspiration, it is often an illusive and/or misunderstood talent. Inspiration does not run regularly like a computer clock. It has organic cycles that vary in ways many modern music producers do not understand. Sometimes a piece of art isn’t ready to be completed for years on end.
Today's social paradigm renders many people incapable of comprehending why they don’t have endless inspiration, while others do. Why some artists produce more and/or higher quality art than others. That some artists don’t really make any bad art. While others struggle to make any good art.
They don’t understand because they deny simple truths about inspiration it's self. Inspiration is not fair. It is not equal. It is not considerate towards your insecurities. It can not be purchased, injected, emulated or learned. It is a force of nature that does not share the universal "equality" mind set of most modern producers. Nature does NOT care what YOU think is “fair”. It rains, when it rains, where it rains, upon who it rains and there’s nothing anyone can do about it. While music production/engineering can be learned by anyone willing to invest the time, inspiration/artistic sense is something you are either born with to a degree, or not. Thus not everyone is actually an artist in that regard. Some people are naturally overflowing with artistic sense and inspiration, while others are not. This is the harsh reality one is confronted with when entering the world of being an artist, verses being an engineer. It is a wholly different world than music production engineering entirely. To deny it, is to deny one's art a much desired level of authenticity.
Long time composer/production engineer. Apparent pioneer of the "Nontoxic music movement". This site features a wide variety of original non-apologetic musical exploration. Made from the mind & heart. Art as an extension of the human spirit, not corporatism. Herein is sonic material for the adventurous & discerning multimedia project creator, as well as open-minded listener.