Sarah’s Blog
Hi, I’m Sarah. I absolved the preperatory course ‘Filmscoring and Production’ at Musicube Academy and now I am a second year student of Composition for Film and Theatre. In this blog I’m gonna share my personal experience as a student at ArtEZ in Arnhem.
Any questions: sarahs_blog@yahoo.com
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Do you want to be an entrepreneur? If somebody asked me that a month ago, I probably would have said ‘no, thank you’. Most of the musicians I know feel that way. They want their life to be about music and passion not about the business behind it. But the thing I learned in my new class entrepreneurship is that musicians are automatically entrepreneurs. Some behave like it, others don’t.
It’s not my favorite subject cause a lot of things we learn are quite abstract and hard to grasp. Sometimes it’s also quite hard to transfer the stuff you learned to your own situation. It seems so clear when you talk about a business that sells coffee machines or food. But when it comes to your music it’s a totally different picture.
For me a lot of the business parts are connotated with bad things. For instance, marketing. I’m thinking they just want to sell something to people that they don’t want and need but they are making them want and need that. Of course, there is this kind of marketing but you can also do it differnetly.
If we could choose to live without money and still be able to live a good life, I think almost every musician would do it and live for their music. Money seems to stand in the way and sometimes it’s difficult to take money for things like music. But why is that? Every plumber or baker has no problem taking money for their work so why should it be different for artists?
I think it has something to do with our society. We live in a world where people believe there are important jobs and not so important jobs. The importance of a job is mostly measured by the money you make with it. You get paid better for taking responsibility than for working hard and actually doing something. I’m not saying that this is wrong but it’s how our world is.
Musicians usually work hard but are seen as less important. So, people tend to not wanna pay for their work. It’s for their entertainment and a lot of people out there think it should be for free. They don’t see the work behind it but people who live their ‘hobby’.
I remember an interview of Bodo Wartke (German singer/songwriter and piano cabaret artist). He was struggling because way back he chose music instead of a medical training. He was wondering if he chose the wrong one because he could have saved so many lives. And his mother who is a doctor herself said:
‘You take care that the people don’t get sick in the first place’
This really got me cause she was so right. Back in school I wrote a research paper about how music affects our body. I found out that music actually strengthens our immune system. Music affects you physically (Heart rate, Hormones, Muscle tension, etc.) as well as psychologically (emotionally). Music can heal and is also used in medicine to reduce pain etc. But also listening to music daily has a positive impact on your body and soul.
So, in my opinion musicians do have an important job but it’s just not valued enough in our society.
All the best,
Sarah