Stay Single-Minded but Open-Minded

Don't make changes to your music based on someone's negative opinion. Make changes when they feel right to you. Painting: Road to Music by Ed Sandoval

One of the biggest problems that musicians face is holding on to their own musical identity and integrity. It’s often tempting to bail out on your own direction and capitulate to an agent, an audience, a label, or society in general.

Even with my experience in this business, I continue to be surprised by how a negative or even a neutral comment will often throw me out of balance. If someone says that my new CD “Freefall” is “nice,” it throws me. If someone doesn’t like my direction, my style, my songs or my sound, I feel emotionally like I should change what I do – what I am to please them.

The logical side of me knows that this is not true. But the logical side isn’t the only side that operates. In the arts, it’s probably not even the most important side.

I love Bill Evans’ comments on the November 6, 1978  Marian McPartland radio show. He said: “We must look at it as art. Otherwise, we’re going to get so confused because there are a million things you can do and so you just have to perfect your own art and hopefully, there’ll be room for it.”

Find the audience that likes what you like. You will never turn everyone in your direction. But you can find an audience!

My field is jazz, particularly the jazz guitar. But these comments are relevant to all sides of the musical world. For example, there’s the band that is confused about direction and worried about how much cover material they should do. Or maybe it should be all cover or maybe not - and on. The singer – songwriter who panics if everyone doesn’t love his or her material. Should I change the lyrics? Maybe they’re too deep or not deep enough. Maybe the chords aren’t complicated enough or maybe they’re too simple. Maybe my hooks aren’t memorable….

I think committed self-conviction is the only road map. Use your own instincts to make decisions. Stay single-minded. Keep open-minded. Always consider the possibility of change but not the necessity of change. Don’t use everyone’s negative opinion as a reason to change.

Change if you can justify and emotionally support change. If you don’t take that approach, you’ll be blown around by every opinion until you get to the point that you will not know who you are, what your music is for, and where you are going.

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