Many people do not appear to understand what music is.
There is little difference between a toddler banging pots and pans and singing “LA LA LA LA LA” than there is to a grandoise Wagner performance. What the former lacks in sophistication and composition it more than makes up for in sincerity.
The music industry is a necessary evil (less necessary than it used to be, however), but it is not music itself. A builder whistling on a building site is creating music; it isn’t capitalistic or subsequently signed over to a record label.
Everything you hear and every sound that is created is music (and even every sound you do not hear, but that is for another day). A forty year-old man who was born entirely deaf would weep with awe at the sounds we take for granted every day, should a cure for deafness suddenly be gifted him.
Some arguments I have heard against the creation of music:
a) I have no musical talent.
Tell that to a congregation singing hymns in a church. Tell it to an African tribe singing and dancing. Tell that to birds trilling. Tell it to the toddler banging pots and pans.
b) The music world is already overflowing and it would be arrogant to try to contribute when so many can do it better.
The music world is overflowing with uninspired, insincere music. Someone with no musical ability could not be more arrogant than the scores of bands who are only creating music in an effort to be rich rock stars. Creating music in an attempt to compete inside the music world is a mistake to begin with. Better to make music outside of the music world. If the music world comes to you, fair enough: you can use that world to suit your own agenda. If it does not, it is irrelevant.
c) I don’t want to be famous! I was popular at school, I don’t need to be loved by strangers.
Don’t see music how the music industry wants you see it. It is not about being a beloved international pop/rock star. The music industry wants people to believe music is a vehicle to aggrandise the masturbatory ego, to find self-worth by proxy (through the worship of fans) and ‘become someone’. It’s a soulless machine.
Music for music’s sake. Not to be a rock star. Not to be famous. Not to fellate the ego. Not to push your political agenda. Music to create. Music to find the artist you lost when you grew up and left behind the child who would create every single day when he played. Art is the adult’s version of a child’s playground. Art is not pretentious, it is the imagination with the straitjacket removed.
Creation is the ultimate existence. To imitate the world in which we live, which is creation-dominated, is the closest path to God. The world constantly creates and destroys in equal measure; like a sculpter moulding a sculpture and flattening it out to create anew, over and over. Rather than procreate and kill, which is a base bastardised and subconscious imitation, we should create and then disregard music/art/literature with equal passion in a conscious absorption of nature-as-inspiration. Create a masterpiece then disown it and start all over again.
When I decided to create music it was one of the best decisions of my life, and most likely I will never make a penny from it. That is what most would fail to understand in a capitalist society where no one is encouraged to think about anything that does not result in financial gain, in the same way that most fail to hear the amazing sounds all around them that they’ve grown used to hearing on a daily basis.