The other day in a different class we read an article about a world famous violinist, Joshua Bell, who spent a day playing in a metro station. It brought up the same question, if no one appreciates it is it still art?
When I was younger and imagined what it would be like to date a musician I thought it would be something like being famous. Because of course all musicians play to stadiums full of people and sell t-shirts and write love songs that are secretly (or not so secretly) about you. Instead I am dating a bluegrass musician. Even if he is as successful as he could possibly be almost no one will have heard of him. He will probably never be played on the radio and there will most likely be no t-shirts and certainly no love songs. Bluegrass is sort of music for musicians in most cases these days. In that respect it is appreciated by someone but not necessarily by a traditional audience. In fact most people (including me sometimes) would find what my boyfriend does pretty boring.
So say he never gets hugely famous and not only are there no crowds but the "good" musicians never hear of him either. Will what he does still have value? They say if you are an artist you create because you can't not create. He would say that what you do has value if it's good but who defines "good". Is it the other musicians, is it the producers, or is it the audience that makes it a viable career?
2 comments:
I think at least part of it is finding satisfaction in your work. I think most of all the audience is who you are trying to please, although you need those producers and other musicians to like and sponsoring you. There are certain "standards" of music and art, and although Joshua Bell is a fabulous musician, some people do not consider classical music important. The same can be said for rock music; where do you draw the line for what is considered art? In my opinion, if audiences are happy then that is the most important thing, besides being true to your own calling.
I understand what you're getting at in this post. This is one of my biggest dilemmas as a visual artist and a writer. Should I create works to please an audience and critics, or should I create works because I want to express myself and my personal message to the world? In a way, the two solutions are interrelated. Think about it. Either way, if you are involved in a creative field, SOMEONE is going to see or evaluate your work. Even your boyfriend, who plays bluegrass music, has a very small (but existent) audience. As long as even one person is interested in your work, I believe it can be categorized as art. One of art's functions is to pass on a set of values of a given time into the future and preserve it. Even though bluegrass is no longer popular today, it was popular at some point, which is why it still exists. The same is true about jazz, which exists in a state nowhere near it did in the 1950s and 60s. Nowadays the pioneering art form has been reduced to elevator music....
So I guess what I'm saying is that your boyfriend should continue with his music if he loves it and if there is an audience for it. Even if the only one listening is you, he still has an incentive to play. Creation implies a performance of some type, and performances are eventually evaluated.
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