Professionally Speaking: Is there any Future in the Future?

[AllenLowe]

I am about to take a 3-6 month hiatus due to some medical problems (not life-threatening, but painful); I had some ideas and thoughts last year about how  the usual professional narrative of the jazz musician - recording and touring - has lost its allure and started to come apart at the seams, particularly for players like me who have lots of musical ideas but no real fan base and few financial/professional prospects. I thought at the time that I would like to set up a jazz performance piece like an art exhibit - move it into a gallery, combine various kinds of expression - theater, dance, music - into a movable and changing feast of new music, old music, history and afro/white futurism. I never got anywhere with this, mostly because of the lame world I live in - Portland, Maine  - but now, with some time on my hands I would like to start thinking about it again. What makes sense now? Repeated micro concerts? Cage-ian silence? Interactive photo exhibits, a graphic/musical retrospective of my old gallery of jazz friends from Al Haig to Bob Neloms to Percy France? I am at both gain and loss right now; I know something has to change, but I don't have the final perspective on how, definitively, to change it. I think musicians are stuck in certain patterns, and so great players begin to make mediocre music, repeat themselves, lose perspective; and then repeat those steps. So, what next?

Edited December 8, 2015 by AllenLowe

[mjzee]

I think you need to focus on the Internet; it's the only way to potentially reach huge numbers of people without leaving your house.  Some combination of YouTube (for promotion, giving people a taste of your music) and your own website.  Your website can include pay-only interactive pieces/"happenings"...just keep the price low - remember that micropayment can add up big with large numbers of people.  As for your jazz exhibit/performance piece - consider colleges, esp. if you can include some "names" in your band.  Consider "The Cookers" as your model.  Anyway, just some thoughts; I wish you luck.

[Hot Ptah]

Private message sent.

[JSngry]

Anything works if it gets you what you want.

Not saying that to be cute, just that you have to really know what it is you want out of your music before you go about trying to get it. If you want it to be a business (not the music itself, but the releasing of it...or to think of it as environmental science, "releasing" of it into the wild), then that's one mechanism. If you want personal recognition, that's another. If you want to just "be there", that's yet another.

Point is - as long as you get what you really want, you'll be happy with it. And as long as you're not getting that, doesn't matter what you get.

Truthfully, I think you'd make a great YouTube presence. Don't know if that's any sort of a monetize-able model, past, present, or future, but you'd be great just sitting there talking about whatever shit comes into your head in the order that it comes. Just you being you about whatever. That's a platform for incorporating the visual, the verbal, and the musical, and in any proportion you feel at the moment. That, or a podcast doing the same thing. although...no visual there. In both cases, relatively small overhead, immense upside for visibility. And if you are looking to monetize your stuff, growing visibility sets up a potentially valid pivot point into that.

Wishing you well on the medical/pain stuff too. Don't know what it is, but at some age we all start getting pain of one sort or another, most of us do anyway. At some point it goes past just annoying into a real bother. Take care of yourself!

[AllenLowe]

thanks Jim, this all makes a lot of sense. Working with a new web person now, and do plan on incorporating more visuals, et al. I just have a sense that it might be a good idea to stop knocking my head against certain walls.

and thanks mjzee; yes, that's stuff I have to do; I do still really love performing live and recording, so hope to get back to that after a break.

As for the pain, physical therapy will hopefully even this out in a few months -

[Scott Dolan]

Best of luck to you, Allen. 

Sounds like there is a bad combination of both physical and mental/emotional pain to deal with there. Not being an artist, I have no idea what the latter is like. But the former is something we've all experienced, at least to a certain degree. 

Either way, pain completely sucks ass, no matter what form it takes. 

I hope this momentary glitch in your life only serves to make you even stronger, in mind AND in body. 

[JSngry]

19 minutes ago, AllenLowe said:

 I just have a sense that it might be a good idea to stop knocking my head against certain walls.

Definitely. Once I realized that those walls don't really exist in my world anymore except as objects to knock my head against, I stopped having nearly as many headaches. Funny how that works...

And for real, I would love to see you at least occasionally on YouTube in a presenter role. Just roll with it.

[mjazzg]

Allen, this is just a small point but maybe illustrative of the larger issue.

When you released the batch of albums recently I was intrigued. With international postage being so high I wanted to listen to something before committing the cash. I went to your, nicely presented, website but could find little opportunity to listen to your music there. I looked for a soundcloud link to to no avail. I didn't buy which is very probably my loss but I'd've thought if you do wish to disseminate your music to a wider audience you could make it easier for them to access it.

I wish you well in your reassessment and hope you find a fruitful path forward

[AllenLowe]

yeah, I am aware of this; we had to transfer the web site to a new server with very little notice, and then I got sick; though if you were on the old site there were a lot of samples for prior CDs;  at any rate, this will be fixed pretty soon.

 

Edited December 9, 2015 by AllenLowe

[mjzee]

Two more thoughts:

1) Reach out to Laurie Pepper.  Between BandCamp and her own website, she seems to have a lot of the merchandising mechanics down.  Maybe she'll give you some advice.

2) I keep thinking about the album Thelonious Monk Plays Duke Ellington.  As Keepnews told it, Monk's "far-out" reputation got in the way of mainstream listeners taking him seriously.  The Ellington album allowed an entry point for many into Monk's music.  Perhaps you'd consider doing a similar project.

[AllenLowe]

well, I am working on a Miley Cyrus album.....

but seriously, I actually would love to do a strings thing -

[JSngry]

The Miley Cyrus String Quartet Twerks The Music Of Allen Lowe...yes, there's your retirement money right there!

Have you ever written for stings before? I've tired a few times, but the part writing scared me off, different clefs, bowing instructions, all that...and string players WILL call that shit to your attention, none too graciously either. Out of my league, but a fun game, to be sure.

 

[AllenLowe]

oh, I have not a clue; well, I once wrote a violin part.

[JSngry]

The digital scoring tools take care of a lot of things, I'm told, Finale and those things. I still write by hand, though, it's what I know, and for what I write and who I write it for, it still works. If I had to do anything large ensemble-ish, though, I'd either learn it or farm it out. People are, uh, "charmed" when I give them handwritten parts...

[AllenLowe]

funny you mention that because I have given up Sibelius and gone back to hand notation; I work better in this, the music comes out better because I spend less time fighting the program.

[David Ayers]

I wonder who you are writing and playing for, if anyone? I heard Evan Parker saying words to the effect "we are doing something to satisfy our idea of what to do, and if other people are interested then that's good". 

[AllenLowe]

I tend to agree; in other words I always think music first, audience second; but....it is nice to have people listening -