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<\/p>\nGreetings Creatives, Music Lovers and Fellow Dwellers of this big rock we call The Earth. It has been quite a while since last I jumped on the interwebs and spewed forth some nuggets of experience. Life has been wondrously hectic in a sort of beautiful way since fate dealt a life change and I found myself in the captain\u2019s chair of the Starship Wayfarer or, is that NCC-2024? I digress. Anyhoo, its good to be back in the rambling seat safely situated behind my keyboard whilst listening to all of you fine folk on this fancy streaming radio thingy.<\/p>\n
Since arriving on this scene in early 2019, my life has been one big adventure after another. The best part is this is after having a tremendously successful music career prior to. I moved to Boca in 2017, retired from the industry and set my feet firmly in the sand never to make music professionally again. Yes, I know how clich\u00e9 that sounds moving to Boca but, I had no idea that I was about to meet the most talented and supportive people of my rapidly approaching forty years as a professional musician and that this would set me on a path of realizing the true benefit of encouragement in our twisted industry.<\/p>\n
Let us first address the elephant in the room. What in the actual Hell were any of us thinking about when we decided to keep going in the music industry in this day and age? We know we all ask ourselves this regularly. There are serious challenges out there and for those of us who know the \u201cjoy\u201d of AARP eligibility, bad hips and forgetting to take a denture out, all of that applies sadly to said author of this article, the challenges out there are extra frustrating. They are frustrating because we remember when it was not this tough. We thought we had it made and were all making money. Here is my question though. Do you remember having genuine encouragement under the old ways? Or was it easier because you \u201cfelt\u201d encouragement masked by your so-called success of the moment? Yes, I know. That was two questions.<\/p>\n
Here is where I am going with that. Some of you know and some of you don\u2019t but, I was a professional touring\/recording bassist in Nashville for twenty years. From crowds of 80,000 to 8 and over 100 artists to my name, I\u2019ve seen it all firsthand and most of it was not pretty. We know this industry isn\u2019t easy but, what gets done to artists every day sometimes teeters on being criminal. \u00a0From the level of absurdity in the name of \u201csupporting an artist\u201d by some of the professional organizations to the vast amounts of just total and complete disrespect, this industry can 100% suck at times which is one of the primary reasons I imposed my personal, however short-lived retirement in 2017.<\/p>\n
On top of the fact that there are some truly vile individuals on this planet, we have the nonstop joy of the societal demonetization of the overall worth of what we do. Granted, this is not everyone out there but, the issue now becomes the dealing with the realization that we have now had an entire generation of humans that do not value the artistry of music like it once did. It\u2019s not their fault though. They were raised on streaming services, free music downloads and virtually anything accessible online that you want to hear or see. So, what continues to compel us to do this? The answer. At the end of the day, we are still Creatives.<\/p>\n
Those of you who have read my ramblings have heard this before but, it bears repeating and I\u2019ll tailor it so that it fits today\u2019s lesson. The First Step to finding encouragement in this industry is to remember why we got into all of this to begin with. You must ask yourself the question \u201cWhy did I want to make music in the beginning?\u201d Once you do that then it is imperative that you make a concerted effort to genuinely REMEMBER. Break it down, analyze it. Do whatever process you think might help you remember but, the most important thing is to DO IT!<\/p>\n
Step Two: Lose yourself in REMEMBERING that feeling! Find that THING and get lost in the nostalgia of it all. What do I mean? Think of the music that inspired it and then actually go relisten or if it were a particular instrument that you once played and you still have it, break it out and REMEMBER! These aren\u2019t just a distraction from the evils of modern-day music, this is something bigger. These are the initial steps in rekindling that love affair that you\u2019ve not realized that you\u2019ve forgotten about that got you into this mess to begin with.<\/p>\n
Finally, at least for today and I cannot stress this one enough, go find likeminded individuals and share these experiences and stories. This is an absolute must and could be a challenge. Trust me, I get it. There are reasons I prefer the shadows. I am one of the most extroverted introverts out there but, I know this is something I have to do to ensure my own creative survival. I implore you to do the same for your own sake.<\/p>\n
I\u2019ll give you a beautiful example of this. Here at Wayfarer, we are not a traditional business model for a \u201crecord label\u201d. What we actually are is a music collective and we support one another to achieve our goals. That\u2019s all awesome but, what\u2019s even better is that this has become a family of people doing exactly what I\u2019ve been talking about. This crew is constantly online in our personal chats talking about anything under the sun, sharing music, telling stories, promoting each other and generally lifting each other up to be something very special. THAT is what I am talking about! Because of what we do on a daily basis with some actual positivity flowing, the group is in turn sharing a level of encouragement that I know I\u2019ve never seen in my career, and I\u2019d be willing to bet the other Wayfarers would agree.<\/p>\n
There\u2019s a slogan out there that says, \u201cSmiles are Infectious\u201d. You know what? They\u2019re right and so is spreading joy however you muster it. You can choose to be a bitter old musician bitching about how the industry used to be or you can dust yourself off and be a positive beacon for someone. My calling is to be the latter and what makes me the most excited is that I am surrounded by individuals who feel the same and that my fellow examples of humanity is the foundation of the Art of Encouragement.<\/p>\n
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Until next time\u2026<\/p>\n
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Blessed Grooves,<\/p>\n
SO\u2019S<\/p>\n
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#wearethewayfarers #wayfarermusicgroup #wayfarerstudio #wayfarerrecords #seanobryansmith #musiccollective #independentmusic #independentartists #musiceducation #musicblog #behindthemusic #musicbusiness #musicbusinesssurvival #encouragement<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Greetings Creatives, Music Lovers and Fellow Dwellers of this big rock we call The Earth. It has been quite a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":10898,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11055","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"yoast_head":"\n