It’s like that feeling you get when you play something you thought was amazing to someone, and hear it afresh because someone else is listenign to it, and realise it wasn’t what you thought it was.

For me, it’s certainly the case that when I think of who my audience is, it makes me realise that I want to write the music that’s inside my head for people who get that. I don’t want to play bass gymnastic games, or write for ‘ambient music fans’ or whatever. Considering my audience allows me to move beyond any constraints of genre, and into a place where I picture the people I want to connect with as an inspiration to be the best i can be.

I love your play-document-grow process. Really helpful, thanks.

A huge aspect of being interesting is creating something that ohers can enjoy, whether music, words, a conversation, a joke. If its not interesting, its boring and wont hold attention, unless its in a watching a car crash sort of way.

I’m not necessarily advocating a balance between ‘fun and interesting’ , as whatever we do should contain elements of each to the best of our abilities; be the funnest you can for some work and more seriously interesting in others. for some that might be the difference between live work and studio for example.

Its good to have variety, and also to experiment with other sides to your work (though dont force it..!), to create more depth, dimension and yes, interest!

One thing I can say about it is that for me, communication with people is always a strand running through.

So e.g. I don’t like to have things too obscurely cryptic or readily misunderstandable in my lyrics.

And I don’t generally ever find myself concluding “Oh well, nobody else understood what I was saying there, but it was still worthwhile to me“. And not because I think that’s an invalid conclusion – I think it’s perfectly valid for some musicians/artists, or in some contexts. But because “the aim of the game” for me is to communicate.

Not that everyone in the world has to entirely get every nuance of every song. But like I’ve always got one eye on “how is this going to land for the people in the audience? does one word sound a bit too much like another word so people are likely to mishear it? could this line be interpreted in a way that’s something I don’t mean to say?” etc.

Creative musicians need to play—document—grow, play—document—grow. The marketing can play a part, but should not drive the music in unnatural directions.

Some great musicians do not have fun with their music because they are so passionate about what they are doing, they can’t step back and enjoy. Some musicians take the “fun” part too seriously—that is to say they do not put enough effort into their own musical growth. Those are just two extremely different mindsets.

I think creatively successful musicians figure out which “type” they are, and make sure that they visit the other mindset regularly—disciplined players need to learn to loosen up and have fun, while “just-for-fun” players need to sometimes concentrate more seriously on the craft of making music.

I know what type I am, but I ain’t tellin’.

HH – I’m definitely advocate for the importance of fun, frivolity, levity, silliness etc… I certainly don’t see any correlation between importance and ‘seriousness’ – given that most of my favourite social commentary comes from comedians anyway.

I like your point about clowning. Good stuff

We don’t much care for social commentary in our music — OK, we sometimes sneak in a bit of that in the lyrics — but we’re more concerned (as I mentioned in a comment on the “interesting” thread) with fun.

We truly believe that raising a smile or a laugh or, better yet, getting folk up and dancing is important.

There seems to be a horrid lack of fun and whimsy in today’s world. The media drums their message of doom constantly. Every time you turn around it seems that more of our so-called “leaders” are simply playing us for suckers (nothing new, I know). Folks are working harder just to break even than in any time in my life (a bit over a half-century).

We think that a few moments of honest escapism is a good thing.

So maybe we’re not really artists, unless you consider being a clown an art.

We do. A true clown is a magical creature and we’d be quite happy to be accepted into those ranks.

I think I may have said it better in an old blog post on the importance of being a ‘toon.

Thanks for the opportunity to bloviate on one of my favorite subjects!