jennifer moore

…AKA, What’s Important about your Music… To You?

Following on from the discussion about â€˜what makes you interesting?â€™, Iâ€™ve been thinking about the other â€˜value metricsâ€™ for what we do as musicians, and the directions they flow in.

Interestingness is one bi-directional value:

What you think is interesting, or find interesting about what you do
What your audience find interesting about you AND about what you do.

The important element being that YOU being interesting isnâ€™t a prerequisite to making great music, it just provides additional context for the music. Itâ€™s why we all bought music magazines – we didnâ€™t buy them for dry descriptors of new music by people weâ€™d never heard. We bought them to read stories, thoughts and opinions from the people whose music we love already, and to discover in the taste of the journalists some new music that they get excited about. Continue reading “The Earnestness of Being Important”

[This post was originally posted as a comment on my “What Makes Your Music Interesting?“, but was far too wonderful, and involved, to leave as a comment. So please do read the other post first, and Jennifer’s earlier comments. Jennifer Moore is, as I said in the comments there, the first person I ever saw play a whole set of solo bass. A fabulous musician, and a regular commenter here, she always brings clarity and insight to whatever she comments on.]

::ponder ponder ponder::

I’ve been thinking more about all these comments, esp John G‘s use of the word “engaging”.

I’m thinking that “what’s good” vs “what’s interesting” (in the hooky/intriguing/initial-engagement sense of “interesting”) leaves something out.

“I was found by being interesting, not by being good” – Partly true, but you were partly just found by being there. That is both “there” at the event, and “there” on Flickr. Continue reading “Guest Post II – Jennifer Moore on 'Interestingness'”