Must Have Strategies For A Musician: Part 2 - Prolificacy
Quantity
Few people in the western world have heard of Sripathi Balasubrahmanyam. He is an immensely successful prolific Indian singer who has recorded more than 40,000 songs in the space of 40 years. That is roughly 3 songs per day, every day for 40 years. Remember when we spoke of mastery? Imagine the rate at which he developed while writing and singing everyday. A number of other prolific artists we can draw inspiration from include Mozart who wrote over 600 works during his life time (which unfortunately was only 35 years), Shakespeare who wrote 37 plays and 154 sonnets, and Michelangelo who created 53 brilliant pieces of art that will never be forgotten.
But I am Not A Genius
The above characters were immensely gifted and created works that very few will ever be able to top. Mozart’s Symphony no. 41 for example was said to prove the existence of God! Talent and being gifted deserves a post of it’s own, thus for now let us concentrate on numbers. I stress prolificacy because like most things in life, success in the music industry can be, and often is a numbers game. And what is a numbers game? Persistence. If you shoot 100 basketballs at a hoop with the aim of scoring, you are likely score at least one. And the good thing about the music industry is that sometimes all you need is that one shot to get things rolling. So by producing as much content as you can and combining mastery with prolificacy, you increase not only your odds of success but also the magnitude of it.
What Can I Do?
Clay Collins wrote a brilliant post with a few pointers us creatives can try out to increase our prolificacy. Below is a summary of 3 key points drawn from his post which I feel are the most important in increasing output.
- Habitualize creating music. Philip Guston, a renown painter once said, “I go to my studio everyday, because one day I may go and the Angel will be there. What if I don’t go and the angel came?”. So keep on creating, and at times where you lack inspiration, go to the studio anyway.
- Fuel your creativity. To keep up the inspiration, attend live music shows, listen to fresh music, and draw inspiration from everywhere and anywhere. Are you going through a rough patch? Draw from that. Are you particularly happy? Draw from that. Are you mildly content with life? Write and sing about it!
- Embody the artistic spirit. Accept that you are an artist and fully assume such an identity. Until recently, I shied away from thinking of myself as an artist (strange I know, but there are quite a few of us that think this way). All this did was leave me unfocused about the “singularity of purpose that can’t be present unless you’ve come to own your own creativity”, as Clay Collins mentioned in his post.
So, the general idea is that the more you can churn out as an artist the more likely you are to succeed right? No. You can’t take this concept in isolation and expect success. The strategies are to be used in conjunction with each other. Mastery alone will get you no where. Creating 1000 songs without having attempted to master the art of song writing will also get you no where. Do both however, and you are likely to get somewhere. Tune in next week, as we take a look at the catalyst that is Networking.
photo credits : featured picture by jared
[...] Tune in next week for Part 2. [...]