On Staying True to Yourself as a Creative

Creative pursuits these days often seem to be a tightrope act of being true to yourself and creating content that is marketable to a wide audience, especially if your financial well-being is tied to those pursuits. It's important, however, to never lose sight of who you are as a creative. Else, why are you doing this?

Coming to you from Sean Tucker, this great video essay explores a topic that resonates quite a bit with me. Being a composer in the 21st century means I write the "unpopular unpopular" music, as my teacher puts it; even those who frequently attend orchestra concerts often don't care for modern classical music. Oh well. Maybe one day, people will be headbanging to my inside-the-piano harmonics. I doubt it, though. I can tell you one thing, though: I would feel disingenuous to the point of the creative act feeling pointless were I to attempt to leverage my musical abilities to pander to an audience. As Tucker acknowledges, affirmation has a place in the life of the artist, but at the same time, it can't be the fundamental reason for creation; that has to be something independent of that which is external to the creator.