My Relationship with Money as an Artist

Haanel states, in part 23/5, that you can make a money magnet of yourself. This is what has failed my whole life.

When I held jobs, they were mostly underpaid. When I became an independent entrepreneur, my overhead was so high that I had to take out a bank loan which strangled me during the initial launch of my company.

When I tried again, setting up a project sound studio in Brussels, I quickly noticed to my dismay that anything creative as opposed to technical services or sales of products, wasn’t valued very high.

I wrote musical scores to video productions, radio commercials, product presentations and library music. My clients were overall not willing to pay a honest fee for creative endeavours in the country I was operating, as opposed to France, the U.K. and Germany.

This was before the internet was fast enough to make border-crossing online sales a reality. Eventually I found art for art’s sake more satisfying, and started to produce my own music for independent release, as well as recording collaborations with other musicians and bands.

Here money barely covered operational cost, so the only satisfaction I got was creative recognition from the audience.

25 years later, in a different country and in an entirely different setting, now making use of fast internet connection and online sales platforms, this financial reward for artistic achievement is still poor, even though my longstanding membership with copyright control organisation SABAM as the collector of my worldwide royalties still pays out based on my yearly sales and use of my work.

Back to Haanel… generous thoughts were always at the base of my ideas: to please the listener, to provoke the transfer of emotion with music being the messenger.

I felt that I was the humble but honest force behind the process of sharing an emotionally charged listening experience.

We make money by making friends. Friends were first contacts, then for a certain part, they became fans, followers, listening audience. But money barely weaved itself into the fabric of our existence, as far as my colleagues and myself were concerned.

Even though we got good press, and sustained recognition, and while keeping an open mind for innovative approach and integration of visual elements through projects were sound and music were supportive to an audiovisual experience, our economy kept being based on poverty consciousness.

After being active for so many years, the law of success being a service never brought us struggling composers the abundance from which we could provide a sustainable living.

We as creators have always been well aware of the fact that the creative process provided more pleasure and bliss than the possession of status, having delivered the final product, with the exception of live performing, where the satisfaction lies in the interaction with the audience.

The democratisation and commercialisation whereby home recording and bedroom production tools have become available for everyone.

Record labels don’t invest anymore in the careers of upcoming talent, and with streaming platforms like Spotify and Apple Music where everybody can self-publish his or her music online, have contributed to the devaluation of music and the way it is being consumed.

While the musician who still feels the drive to produce and create and render a service to society, for the benefit of the listener-now-turned consumer, our society doesn’t share appropriate wealth with the creative minds behind the music industry.

The marketing focus is on the top-10 selling artists who reap 95% of the benefits for the entire sector, and this is equally true for the classical music segment.

We give more so we get more? But we are not able to give more, because we suffer and struggle.

We recognise the omnipotent power as the source for all supply, where the banker gives his money, the merchant his goods, the author his thought and reasoning, the workman his skill, and yes, the composer/producer shares his music.

We understand the discourse behind the cumulation of wealth for Morgan, Rockefeller and Carnegie, based on creating wealth for others. Being successful in the arts is not at all synonymous to creating more abundance and gain by concentrating on one’s success.

Is this maybe why the struggling artist is the exception to the rule, that sorrow and loss is often the feeding ground for their creative output yet also the harsh reality in their own personal lives? Do they have the choice of quitting, and after giving up go for a “straight” job where the focus on success creates more?

All ideas are phases of the activity of Consciousness, Mind or Thought. Self-promotion and marketing is often the artist’s weakest link in the chain.

My entire artistic career I have searched for dedicated professionals in this field to work with, but those deals were mostly short-lived.

Maybe this is where the creatives of our society stand apart from any other business undertaking, merely because the arts is only business for those who are peripherally involved: organisation, publishing, press, sound-systems, studio facilities, live events.

To seek infinite supply using the creative power of thought in a practical manner has brought us creations of eternal beauty, but often to a high price for the artist.

See my other awarenesses on this Master Key Experience journey by clicking here.