8.15.20
Terrible as this all may be, there IS a silver-lining to all of this, and that is the gift of TIME. That’s what I tried to focus on. I figured this is a chance for me to revisit old ideas, do what i’ve always wanted to do. Before, I was making music for a specific purpose, music that I was being paid for, now, with the time I have, I can accommodate all the music that I REALLY wanted to do which are not necessarily needed by anyone other than my own satisfaction, but these are the ones that I believe will help me grow as an artist. But of course it’s not as simple as it sounds, there are many days that I couldn’t do anything, for reasons that I simply cannot explain. At which point I just let it be, if I don’t want to do anything, then don’t do anything. And I’m sure I probably share this experience with many others. At one point I tried to finish all episodes of various Netflix shows, but eventually stopped because I feel like I’m rotting my brain, and I’m not necessarily watching bad shows, some of them are quite informative, quite sophisticated, but it didn’t make a difference to me, I felt like I needed to get up and do something worthwhile.
First of all, unlike these talented gentlemen whom i have the honor to share this discussion with, I did not have a group or band that I regularly play with, in fact the last time I played live for a band was nearly a year ago. But my equivalent of that would be, as their frequency of live gigs has dramatically decreased (if not halted entirely), the frequency of live performances for which I could compose or arrange has drastically declined as well. So, money was always hard to come by in the first place, but so much more so at this time.
So I tried to boost my profile, made ads, hoping to take advantage of the growing need for copyright free music, but ultimately it made no impact for me whatsoever. Because like me, EVERYONE ELSE is in a budget cut right now.
With all the technology that we have, luckily for us, not much has changed as far as music production is concerned, speaking strictly of course, of non-classical or orchestral music. In fact one could, if one wants to, release a song into the online market, because most of the process, from writing, to recording, to marketing, can be done from the comfort of our homes. We could even shoot a music video, if we want, i’ve seen this happen.
And in light of me TRYING to focus on the positive side, social media has allowed us to musically collaborate with someone from across the globe, now I have had performance opportunities that I might not have had otherwise, but most of them are unpaid of course, so yeah. But it keeps us busy.
I’m not even sure if, by this time, the industry has it all figured out. And If they have, and there are any existing trends right now, I’m unaware of them, i may be missing out, but we see even the top tier artists do online performances, tributes, fundraising and all that. I’m just a tiny spec in the so called industry really, so I really have no opinion on this one.
My immediate answer is “i don’t know”, but one thing is for sure; tuloy ang musika, tuloy ang tugtugan. Because the world, undoubtedly, has changed, and if history taught us anything, it is that art changes along with it. Music, and art in general has always been there through the worst of times in human history. And we are in a bad time for sure, will the music making take a pause for now? No, I think it’s quite the opposite, we need even MORE music now. Leonard Bernstein once said: “This is our reply to violence: to make music more intensely, more beautifully, more devotedly than ever before.”
Note: This is based on an interview on Note-ify by Himig Sanghaya Chorale