Know yourself and be honest about what you want. Nick Hornby, British novelist and author of High Fidelity, a must-have novel for the obsessive music junkie, recently recounted to Rolling Stone’s Jonathan Ringen (RS October 29, 2009 p 17) his conversation with Bruce Springsteen about stagecraft. “Bruce said one incredibly simple thing: ‘It just helps to remember that every part of the show is a show.’”
Hornby went on to point out that regarding would-be novelists, “Anyone who says they’re writing for themselves is full of shit. That’s something you hear writers say a lot. I always wonder why their drafts happen to be 90,000 words long, because that’s a really strange, random length for a book, but it happens to be the length of most books…the act of writing a novel already knows and demands a readership. To forget about your readers is a mistake.”
By changing a few words, like ‘writer’ to ‘musician’, ‘book’ to ‘album’, ‘90,000 words’ to ‘45 minutes’, and ‘readers’ to ‘listeners’, you have excellent advice for your music career. You do want your music to be heard. And you should. Being honest about your desire to reach people with your music can help you deal with the public in an authentic way. It invites a real relationship with your fans, and that communication will, in turn, help you determine how to best present your music.
Tags: Career, Odds & Sods