Creative Wellness Letters - 🧐 how do you describe your 🎨 work?

Hi Reader, 

How do you describe your creative work?

It might be easy to describe in a general way - I can say “Brazilian piano music” for my first album, or the more wordy “piano arrangements and originals in Brazilian styles”, but for my latest album Bright Little Worlds, which contains many genres, it was much harder.

I’ve always been frustrated with the limits of genres, even before I started writing my own music - why do we have to limit ourselves to fitting in a little box?!

(And don’t get me started on my distaste for the term “world music” - all music made by Earthlings is music of this world, and this term is mostly a way of other-ing non-Western music…)

Why can’t we just let the listener (or receiver of the art, in whatever form) have their own experience and leave it at that? (The rebellious side of me says, “Yes, great!”)

Well, yeah, each person always has their own personal experience of taking in art, but when you need to market your work, it’s more helpful to have some well-crafted language around it.

Although I’ve learned a lot, marketing advice is not my area of expertise - if you want an amazing resource, Wandering Aimfully’s unboring business coaching is top notch - happy to talk more about it if you’re curious!

Just uploading your music to streaming platforms requires you to select genres for each track, and to make things extra fun, different platforms have a different set of genres, some very specific, others not specific enough! 

Figuring this out for 22 tracks was a rabbit hole that took up the better part of a day.

It’s most important to me to describe my music as accurately as possible, because I want people to be able to find what they’re looking for, and hopefully find and enjoy my music!

So I decided to participate in the inevitable dance between playing the algorithm game and staying true to myself, but had to figure out exactly how.

I thought, “This music really can’t be described in one sentence, but I’ll have to try my best.”

I’m super good at overthinking, so I promptly got overwhelmed, then avoided the task for a bit. Then I got motivated by just getting it done, and also by the deadlines of uploading it to CDBaby (my digital distributor, which sends out recordings to streaming and other online platforms, if you’re not familiar).

I think most of us have at least some difficulty describing our own work - we’re too close to it to be able to zoom out to an outside perspective.

When I got stuck, I asked for help. 

First I asked friends who know my music (musicians and otherwise) to share any descriptive words that came to mind, which was really helpful and encouraging.

I also asked for encouraging words to persevere through the feeling of vulnerability as I put myself out there, and got strategic, asking fellow musicians for tactical advice on where to look for appropriate press outlets.

Then, I tried to reconnect with my “why” for making, sharing, and promoting my music.

I make music that’s (ideally!) the truest expression of myself, not for commercial success, and this album is definitely not super marketable in a traditional sense, so I reminded myself that I am not required or obligated to follow all of the traditional marketing advice.

I also have hopeful but realistic expectations - the game of getting press, especially when DIYing it, involves a low success rate and often a low response rate. 

Once I accepted that I was going to try things “because why not”, and stay mostly unattached to the results, it was easier to just hit “send” on that long shot email.

Through this reflection, I also reminded myself that my ultimate goal with marketing my album is generally for more people to discover and enjoy it, so I basically just wanted some quotes for my website, and it’s a bonus if something else gains more attention.

Ultimately, regardless of your marketing goals, you have to be “relentlessly yourself...there’s no one alive that’s you-er than you.”

(I heard this quote while in the thick of my genre quandaries, on the Chris Thile episode of Ben Folds’ Lightning Bugs podcast, which I love!)

Making work where I get to be the most “me” possible is absolutely my definition of success, along with connection at a genuine human level - like those little conversations meeting people that came to a show.

So, if you also find yourself mired in these questions of how to describe and present your work, you can always come back to your truest self and remember how that feels.

If it’s unclear, try making a list. 

I like to make 2 columns, with the headings “I am” and “I am not”, which really helps give some clarity on what we know about ourselves.

I hope this letter has helped you take the next step to find whatever clarity you need right now!

🥂 Cheers to being the you-est you possible, in your creative work and in all things!

How do you describe your creative work? Any specific struggles or triumphs? I’d love to know!

🕸️ Staying on the good side of the internet 🕸️

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• No One Really Feels Their Age by Katie Hawkins-Gaar - On the concept of subjective age and how we humans "seem to have an awfully rough go of locating ourselves in time." I think that all of our past age selves are still inside us, but they show themselves at different times!
• Toddlers 'hired' in Japanese nursing home to tackle loneliness - Heartwarming alert!