Music as Community

For a while now, I've been quite aware of the whole "Musician-as-Entrepreneur" community. This community revolves around re-visualizing the artist as the small business-person. And it has done some pretty important things, notably spreading the ideas that you don't need a "music executive" to give you permission to make music, and that it's perfectly acceptable for artists to make money from their art.

Here are some examples of this movement:
David Hooper - music business
Bob Baker - music business advisor
Scott Andrew - diy musician

But after listening to these ideas for several years now, I'm starting to feel like something's missing. They're good ideas. I just need something more.

After all, I became a performing musician so I could influence others, and share my songs and ideas with them.

So I'm re-thinking what it means to be a musician. And I'm thinking of a new model for independent music.

Musicians as instigators.
Songs as powerful ideas.
Bands as causes.
Concerts as actualized change.

This is how I've thought for some time now. Only now, I see it more clearly.

My role as musician is to be an instigator or catalyst of change. My songs are the pieces of time and tone that encapsulate the powerful feelings and ideas of change. My band is a cause to be believed in. My concerts are moments when our vision becomes actualized.

And the concert and the listeners and the audience...that is the music becoming community.

What is Community? Part 2 : Community is Creation

What IS community? Is it shared location? Shared experiences? Shared beliefs? Is it even possible to have significant community without the benefit of physical presence?

I think so, but I think we need a new way of thinking about community.

I think that we have to understand community in terms of SHARED CREATION.

One of the things I do is to write songs. In the rare moment when I write one that is really, deeply good, I feel like I've touched something deep inside me. I feel like I've tapped into something God gave me, and I value that moment of creativity for its own sake, even if no one else ever hears that song.

But the same impulse that leads me to write the song compels me to share it with others. And so I go out and spread it, sharing it with those I feel will be receptive to it.

Most definitions of "community" stop there. Among churches, "community" means that everyone listens to the same sermons. Marketers think of "community" as people who like the same music, or watch the same reality TV shows. Online "community" is usually about being a fan of something, like Star Wars or Macintosh computers. These types of "community" are all about having a central flow of information or a central source of creativity.

That's a pretty pale definition of community. Although it is an attempt to build community on the basis of shared beliefs or interests, it's a poor replacement for the traditional concept. This is why many churches (and a lot of modern life) seem pretty shallow and unfulfilling; their idea of community is building up a certain size listening audience.

Having people hear my song is good, but when someone hears the song and is inspired to go out and create something themselves, that is something entirely different. That's how most musicians become musicians; and that's how it worked for me. Particular musicians created music that affected me deeply, and sparked my desire to do something as profound as they did. And they made me realize, to my amazement, that I was capable of doing so.

When the people who've heard the song turn around and create music, art, lifestyle changes, literature, or movements, then an amazing process has started.

That process continues when those people come back and inspire me with their creations. And when the people who've been inspired by the song begin to create and inspire each other, over and over and over...

That's when I think community has begun.

So community is not just shared interests or activities, or being in the same audience. Instead, real community happens when our creation and inspiration of each other becomes intertwined, and we're all involved in the creative process together.

A "community" needs to do more than listen to, or discuss, the same things. A community needs to be involved in actually creating things, drawing inspiration from each other, allowing shared ideas to cross-pollinate.

What is Community?

What IS community?

This is something that I'm going to be thinking about for awhile.

Community has traditionally referred to a geographically integrated group of people. This kind of community shares common experiences and habits. They shop at the same grocery store, send their kids to the same school, have some relatives in common, and share the same basic world-view and outlook on life.

This kind of community started fraying at the edges when Christianity was introduced. Christianity originated as a small persecuted group, not at home in either the Jewish or the Roman world, and so Christians explicitly believed that an individual might hold a radically different belief-system than their community. Further, Christians saw themselves as part of a community that transcended location.

So Christianity introduced the concept of community built on values rather than history. But this concept is a hard one, and if you are no longer a small, persecuted group, it is probably too vague to put into practice.

It wasn't until the 20th century that the traditional type of community really started to fall apart. Mobility and technology reshaped the world, so that people were no longer tied down to an ancestral village, state, or nation. Travel became a common right, rather than an exotic adventure.

In the 21st century, this has practically demolished the traditional idea of community. Next-door neighbors no longer have much in common, or share much conversation. Cities allow people to choose dramatically different traditions and styles of living. Community as something centralized by geography has almost disappeared.

Some people look to online community to take up the slack. For many of us plagued with wildly untraditional ideas, it has ended our sense of isolation, and helped us to find a sense of legitimacy.

Others look to local churches to take on the mantle of community. Many people develop important relationships through their affiliation with a particular church.

But what IS community?

Is it shared location? Shared experiences? Shared beliefs?

...more to come...