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Does the VI community considered themselves commercial composers rather than artists?

I like to work with different hats. I have my commercial composing and sound design and doing that already for a long time. I started doing this after my study of classical composition and when I realised in order to "survive" financially I need to or take a completely different job or change the course of my music. I tried for 2 years another job and that became only a motivator to not settle for that road. Please know btw these roads are completely different for each and every one of us. What works for me can be a nightmare for someone else.

That said, I changed my work method and started composing and producing in different fields. From this I can live and sustain myself, but there is also still the "classical composer" in me who wants to write symphonies, opera's, all kinds of experimental stuff etc and I do that now in my free time. I don't have to worry about any financial stuff regarding that and I love the freedom with that.

VI control (where I hang out already for 11 years) has been a community where you can actually find both. There have been great talks about the industry, and yes that can be depressing, demotivating, nerf wracking etc, but it also shows on many levels how this industry works from beginners till the pro's like Hans, Charlie, John and many more posting here.
Since it is a community with a foundation in virtual instruments it's maybe logical that you find less about the classical art here, but still there is a lot of talk and input from people who create for the sake of loving to create. Whether it is from a very enthousiastic synth lover or programmer or composer, there are still so many gems posted here about our love for our craft.

I think we have a fairly unique community regarding this where you can find input on so many levels.
 
I enjoy creating music and I love playing instruments. I could'nt care less if people consider the things I come up with as art. I make music for money and it has given and is still giving me great pleasure. Actually I have learned things from working for clients that I would not even have dreamed of just on my own. Is it sometimes stressful? Sure. There's a price to pay. As with every good thing. And is this the only forum I wholeheartedly recommend for it's generally kind and openminded and absolutely knowledgable people? You betcha!
 
I made a dollar when I had to buy a bandcamp track from myself so it would play on my Sonos. Of course I also had to spend a dollar...

I am sorry to disappoint you, but if you have spend a dollar then you haven't made a dollar, because a percentage of that dollar goes to Bandcamp. ;)
 
I'd like to pose another question...

You won the lotto! Money is no object. What kind of music will you compose?

Will you make queues every couple days?
or spend a full week composing a sonata?
possibly several weeks writing a symphony?
maybe months creating an album?

Will you attempt a masterpiece?

Does uninhibited artistic expression simply for the sake of creating (attempting the creation of) masterful art have non-monetary value to you? What kind of music would you create if money didn't matter?
 
I'd like to pose another question...

You won the lotto! Money is no object. What kind of music will you compose?

Will you make queues every couple days?
or spend a full week composing a sonata?
possibly several weeks writing a symphony?
maybe months creating an album?

Will you attempt a masterpiece?

Does uninhibited artistic expression simply for the sake of creating (attempting the creation of) masterful art have non-monetary value to you? What kind of music would you create if money didn't matter?

Ohhhh.... I think I will write like Mahler, a symphonie der tausend, but then for 1000 synths (and alto flute, never ignore the alto flute!)

All kidding aside (though every joke contains always some sort of truth ;) )
I think I might actually continue working as well, as I really love that part as well, but what I would really want to do is to finish my opera about the Divine Comedy. I graduated (in a far forgotten past) with writing an opera about the first book Inferno and always had in mind to write also a second and third one based on the other 2 books Purgatorio and Paradiso. Unfortunately I lost big parts of the score from the first opera in a fire, so have to rewrite that one, but I would really love to spend a few years on that again!

And what would you do @Ledwick ?
 
The side of freedom... making what you want, expressing yourself, not caring what people think, not worrying about making money or other people's opinions? You know, the non-industry side of art...

There's an argument to be made that these ideas are relevant to commercial media composers, too, though. I'm not one, but I've worked in and around the arts for most of my life, and my experience is that the really "successful" artists -- the people who can marry some measure of creative freedom with some measure of remuneration and public exposure -- are the ones who stick to their own guiding light. Contrary to the old saw, the customer is not always right. In fact, the customer often doesn't know what he or she wants until you're able to show it to them. And sometimes, where financially feasible, it might make more sense just not to work for someone who doesn't share your vision. That's not a failure on anybody's part -- it's just a choice. But it's usually the right one; there's no sense trying to make yourself something you're not in order to make someone else happy -- even if they have money.

I suspect that a lot of the commercially successful composers, especially the ones working at a very high level, abide by that principle most of the time. When you see people complaining about having to please clients, what they really mean is either, "I had to work really hard to make some that helped the client and that I liked," or, sometimes, "In this particular circumstance, I was disappointed that I couldn't do both." Not, "I feel like a music slave and my creative life is ashes." Because anyone who was having that experience all the time, and could never make music that they felt personally proud of, would probably quit.

That said, there's plenty of room in the world for making music just for the sake of it, without deadlines or money worries, and there are plenty of people on this forum who do that, too. (I'm one.) But @JohnG is right -- that carries its own compromise: namely, that unless you're one of the relatively few full-time composers who makes money solely from concert music (or otherwise are self-supporting), you have to do something else for a living. Which means less time to practice and get good at your craft. And also, then you have to figure out how to get your music heard. (One nice thing about media composing is that the audience is built in.)

Bottom line -- everything involves some degree of compromise. And the more "free" you want to be, weirdly, the more compromises you may have to make. Orson Welles made frozen peas commercials to support his brilliant, weird independent filmmaking. But he kept to his vision and was able to make some work that he liked before he died. Hard to ask for more than that.
 
I'd like to pose another question...

You won the lotto! Money is no object. What kind of music will you compose?

Will you make queues every couple days?
or spend a full week composing a sonata?
possibly several weeks writing a symphony?
maybe months creating an album?

Will you attempt a masterpiece?

Does uninhibited artistic expression simply for the sake of creating (attempting the creation of) masterful art have non-monetary value to you? What kind of music would you create if money didn't matter?
If my DAW worked? I might try a symphony. But I am a singer, and I like to write things I can sing to. So, maybe an opera?
 
i'm 100% in the art world - but I make work for others too - but in the art world, not for concerts or commercial film etc
 
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I think I'm going to take a cue from the luxury Vodka market. $100 a track. Sure its garbage but Clooney loves it...
 
Awesome, thanks @Jaap The Divine Comedy is an amazing story. Your opera sounds interesting! I hope you'll find the time to work on it. Personally, I'd write symphonies, I wrote the first section of one recently, however since I've reached a "to money or not to money" crossroads, I haven't decided whether to continue it yet.

Thanks @dzilizzi Nice! Give it a try during a vacation sometime :thumbsup:
Thanks @Henning That's cool! Collaborating is a rewarding experience.
 
I had a good laugh reading this thread. Not because anyone of you said something ridiculous...no, just because the jokes were good! I even got that british joke...after some seconds :whistling:
Thank you for your ideas, answers and insights...and for staying cool. The original question of the OP is also very often in my head and in times where money for music is rare, at least for me, the answer takes a new turn every now and then...
 
I do both.

When I am hired I am there to give someone else what they want.

When I write for myself I am trying to capture something I feel inside me....most of the time it would only resonate or 'work' for me so it never sees the light of day, but creatively I am happy for having created it, even if I have nothing financially to show for it.

-DJ
 
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