I’ve been what’s considered “successful” for about 15 years, having had the ridiculous privilege of making sizable amounts of money (remember sizes come in large and small) writing and producing all kinds of music for all kinds of applications. Often, I get to work with awe-inspiring players and eat a well-balanced lunch…life is pretty good, no whining allowed. I get it.
(Warning: I’m putting on my imaginary overalls and sitting in my imaginary coffee shop in my imaginary Midwest about to dispense folk wisdom while saying “yep” a lot)
“But when you farm the same field for too many years, the harvest dries up.  You have rotate the crops, son and seek greener pastures”.
(Removing overalls and putting on jeans and Steely Dan T-Shirt)
So we continue to explore the land for inspiration and fruition, but as with all artistic and commercial terrain, there are hills and valleys that can obscure the destination.  These days are very fluxy – things seem to flux a lot; they are flux-like and overly flux-filled.  One might say they are fluxilicious. In fact, I think I may have slipped into another dimension, because in this strange new world people seem to want their music for free and the concept of intellectual property has been deemed heresy by the council of production.

I guess the far right loonies were right. It’s Obama’s fault - we’re living in the days of socialized music.

Sometimes the veil slips for a brief moment and all is well. Thoughts march into an orderly formation and heed the call to arms. Battle plans are drawn, and the campaign begins its procession into inevitable glory. Doubt and disillusion are trampled and vanquished, and the heavens part with a burst of brilliantly orchestrated eight part brass fanfares.

But not too often.

Most of the time our mental barracks is litter-strewn with yesterday’s hung over ideas and amorphous notions desperate to go AWOL or praying for the firing squad.
Even though I think I’m pretty good at keeping the creative troops in line, there is always the threat of mutiny and breaking of ranks. Since I am now tired of beating this metaphor to death, I’ll try and get more specific:  As someone who makes their living through a creative pursuit, I have to keep sharp through work lulls, which are, as anyone who actually does this kind of work knows, becoming more frequent within this economy.  Though I am fortunate enough to have had a certain level of achievement in my career, I’m always looking to do more, so I’ve really been digging the whole social networking thing and trying to understand how it might wind up impacting my career, or provide a base of operations (sorry) for stimulating the artistic side of things. After a couple of months of going at this, Tweeting, Blogging, Facebooking etc, I suspect it comes down to just putting it out there and truly welcoming the unplanned encounter with the unexpected.  Not to get all “The Secret” on you, but if the idea is “ask and ye shall receive”, well, cool, I’m asking the cyber- universe to keep the interesting connections coming and let them manifest into some kind of mutually beneficial reality. Summit meetings at my place kids-all participants welcome.

Forward March.