Who Are You Creating Art For?

This was another quick blurb I spat out sometime back addressing a question a lot of us artists tend to bypass amidst all the hustle.

I guess a lot of my take on it emphasizes a personal opinion: artists should primarily create art for themselves: I think it's crucial to distinguish clearly between two aspects that we often tend to confuse with another.

1. The actual creative process.
2. Implementing strategies to share it with our audiences.

Understanding our audience and avoiding over-reliance on random advice in our environment (often from people who are often not really 'qualified' to comment, forget practicing artists themselves), can be a LOT of help.

(Edited for context)

Who are you creating your art for?

Who?

Who is your art for?

For those of you who've been following me for a while now, you might have come across earlier videos on 'why' you're an artist, how you should go about being one and what you should do to fulfill the entire process.

The 'Why-What-How' framework. One of my favourites.

But one point that gets neglected way too often in this whole conversation is the 'who'.

Who are you creating art for?

..approximately 90 % of the people who are defining success for you right now are not artists themselves... it's the kind of thing we tend to bypass so often...

Here's the thing: approximately 90 % of the people who are defining 'success' for you right now directly or indirectly, are not artists themselves. It's the kind of thing we tend to bypass so often and forget.

Usually, it'll be the noise of social media and all the unsolicited advice it comes with. The effects it has on the artist's mind don't get talked about enough.

It's a Sunday night here in (cold) Berlin. And this is what I'm thinking right now:

'I should not be posting this! According to 900 million articles I've read from multiple sources in the music industry, and Instagram posts, this is like the worst time to post.''

But then my follow-up question is: who am I creating this for?

Is this even art?

That's a whole different question altogether.

But chances are, if you ask yourself who your art is made for, you will realize that you don't necessarily know exactly how to reply to that question (who your audience is).

So is it your ''fans''?

(Who are they)?

Is it for fellow musicians? Are you a 'musicians musician', (something I'm accused of pretty often)?

Is it for friends? Family?

Industry specialists you want to connect to? To display how skillful you are at what you do?

Is it for your students maybe (for those of you who are music educators) you want to set an example for?

Who is your audience?

Let's figure that out! Just to recapitulate,

First we figure out

1. Why you're making art.
2. How you want to go about making art that fulfills you.
3. What you need to do complete the process.

And when we have that down, we wanna figure out who our audience is.

Who are you creating your art for?

..I'm creating art for myself.Everything else, is not part of the art-making process!

My answer is this: I'm creating art for myself.

Everything else, is not part of the art-making process!

Everything else is about figuring shit out. Including strategies on how to take my art out to my audience.

But here's the thing: that is a different process!

And we're living in an age where it is so easy to confuse the two.

Making art and coming up with strategies for taking that art out to our audiences are two completely different processes!

Making art and coming up with strategies for taking that art out to our audiences are two completely different processes. And not a lot of people are going to talk about this.

Because the people talking about what 'we ought to be doing' (the music-business 'experts') with our art?

They're usually not artists themselves.

So again, who are you creating your art for?

Let's take a minute to ponder over that. 

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