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Hi Ahmed, I want to read your piece, but your opening sentence needs some work: >Us denizens of the Internet have become familiar with concepts that were foreign more than a decade ago, one of the most that causes the most influence is going viral. This is largely unintelligible and, as a writer, I think something you should consider making more concrete. Otherwise, you run the risk of leaving your readership confuse…
This piece touches on the inherent tension between originality and selling out (or selling to the masses) that I've definitely seen in comic circles. So many aspiring indie artists/comic creators who think Patreon is their easy ticket to a passive and liveable income when the stark reality is much different. It's why my first piece of advice to any creative is to have a dayjob that maximizes their free time to create…
I used to work in the games industry, which was me trying to feed my family and pursue an art passion at the same time. It wasn’t great at either: pay is low and the art you get to make not so fulfilling. I switched a few years ago to splitting these apart: I (1) got a non art tech job that I love (which is key) and that pays great, and (2) I started doing pure artistic games on the side as a hobby, no need for money…
The first camp is those who believe that you should find a job in a field you love (maybe that's art). The idea is that even if you don't make much, you'll be happy and have the drive to do well.
The second camp is that you should find a field you don't necessarily love, but is more stable/higher paying and thus allows you to comfortably do the things you like in your spare time.
I've heard these two argued to death among students in high school and among parents today. I took the second route and am happy with my choice, though I agree it's not for everyone (really depends on the work you do and whether or not you have the time/energy/will to work on your creative passions).
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Also, the church(es) which employed many of them. On top of that, music was not a commodity back then. Live performances literally made a living for many of them as these performances were the only source of music. (And a church needs this music for every mass, for instance.) Now music is abundant, recordings are cheap / free, and the best performance is easily available in a recorded form. Live performances are stil…
Dall-E for music will be interesting, but I think it's different. In a sense I think we're already there. Not in the sense that AI makes music but that music is so abundant, and there already aren't a ton of jobs in music writing. It's not a trade in the same way that like graphic design is. I mean, maybe Hans Zimmer loses his job but socially it doesn't seem like that big of an impact. Musicians don't tend to make m…
I hope anyone who wants to pursue the arts doesn’t let pessimists like this discourage them from expressing themselves in the ways they love best. I can say from experience that becoming a self-employed artist is possible, but not easy or quick. My path was to find a full-time job that used different parts of my brain from my art. I used my limited free time to brainstorm, create, and publish whatever I could make ti…
I would call it realism, not pessimism.
> I can say from experience that becoming a self-employed artist is possible, but not easy or quick.
Congratulation on making it, But that's the survivorship bias the article mentions. For every one like you, there are a thousand who did not make it, and will never make it. Should they stop trying because of this? Nope. But should they be aware of this and not bet their whole life on their art? Definitely yes.
There are far too many people living in the decision that they just need to make an attempt or hustle for a short while, and they will swim in money and fame. And too many of them invest their life, money and future into this. I know some of them, and have seen where it ends. Realism is not pessimism, it just keeps you away from the darkest parts of life by pointing at darker parts.
I have more admiration for someone who's laying down cement in 100 degree weather to put a roof over their family's heads, or someone who's putting in the hours massaging mindnumbingly boring spreadsheets to be able to support themselves, or someone putting in overtime at a hospital. The expectation that people must support you and give you preferential treatment because you're expressing yourself never made sense to me. There are lots of other ways in which people make sacrifices, many more commendable.
Being able to express yourself and having an audience is a privilege, not something people need to be shamed into giving you. You always see signs exhorting you to "support your local artists", yet you never see encouragement to support your local roofers.
Seems a little entitled to me. Why should artists be able to spend their time doing exactly what they want while all the boring plebs have to pick vegetables/write CRUD apps? Sounds like someone is upset that more people dont find utility in their work
Because artists make the world an objectively better place in an uncommonly powerful way. Because it's an excellent investment, socially speaking. Because investment in the arts (I mean serious investment. Not like USA) has worked pretty well for some countries.
It is kind of like traditional architecture. Most buildings are just designed and built with a purpose in mind with not as much thought into creating a 'work of art'. But there are some really beautiful buildings that get all kinds of awards for how they look. Likewise, most software is just built to accomplish a task; but some is the work of much thought and design to make it do some amazing things.
Software is one of those fields where a true 'artist' can have a lot of enjoyment from creating it while still making some money because what they created is not just cool to look at, but provides some real utility.
Software 'artists' tend to have two different projects. One is their day job that must be built to someone else's specification. The other is a side project where they can express their creative side and build something really cool.
I have such a hobby project https://didgets.com that I have thoroughly enjoyed building.
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> Is champagne higher-quality than coca-cola? Of course it is Hm. I don't think I'd use the normal definition that way. I see it, but I wouldn't compare them. But maybe that's why I'm suggesting this weird definition. The thing that people point to with the word, even in your example, is a bundle of traits that either stops existing or becomes irrelevant when you remove the speaker's preference. I don't think there's…
"Quality" may be hard to pin down in super-objective terms, but that doesn't mean it has no value as a word or a concept. To paraphrase, "Quality is like art. I know it when I see it." Sure, you and I might have slightly different ideas of what quality is, but in various fields, we find established consensus on these matters. I happen to know a little about music. But surprise, surprise, while I listen to Bach, I als…
I think that's the minimal repro. The thing objectively will have those traits, but you can just enumerate them. Labeling them "quality" adds information about you, not the thing.
Don’t get me wrong, I love art, artists and want the good ones to thrive.
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Dall-E for music will be interesting, but I think it's different. In a sense I think we're already there. Not in the sense that AI makes music but that music is so abundant, and there already aren't a ton of jobs in music writing. It's not a trade in the same way that like graphic design is. I mean, maybe Hans Zimmer loses his job but socially it doesn't seem like that big of an impact. Musicians don't tend to make m…
A "Dall-E for music" will put much of the control into hands of listeners . That is, you will not search for the music that matches your mood, you will ask for it directly, and maybe adjust in near-real time. A DJ will arrive with a unique set, likely with every track custom-made for a given gig. Selling any records at all will become very-very hard, except for rare hits with outstanding human vocal performance. In m…
Obviously for anything sort of focus-y, house music downtempo etc. If we're not already there, we'll probably be there soon, though I am curious if a careful listener will eventually notice the uncanny valley problem there. But pop music I'd say has two problems. 1. There's a je ne sais quoi quality that's hard to replicate, and two I imagine the corpus is just not that big. I mean sure, there's a decently large corpus of pop music, but good pop music? how many hip hop billboard charts have there been a thousand, maybe a few thousand. How do you combine Beyonce, Janet Jackson, Mariah Carey and Whitney Houston into a banger that doesn't sound too much like Beyonce', Janet Jackson, Mariah Carey and Whitney Houston without the titular character marketing said music.