COMMISSION WORK / why should artists do it?

Now that the Easter holidays are over, it's time to get back to work. Even though I spent a great time with my family and friends over the Easter holidays (and probably gained a few pounds because all we did was sit, eat and drink), I found myself missing Steemit because there is a lot of new music I want to share with you guys. Today I want to write about my thoughts on commission work since I was recently hired to make a pop song for one Croatian artist (who will remain nameless because I don't know if I'll get the job yet and if I do, it must be kept secret until the song is potentially released). Anyway, I've talked to my fellow musicians a lot of times about commission work and why they mostly refuse to do it (and I'm not a fan of it myself) but I did a lot of thinking and found that it can actually be a very positive experience.

MAKE YOUR TERMS CLEAR AND DON'T WORK FOR EXPOSURE

Commission work is not like your any other everyday job where you go to work, do what you have to, go back home and then forget about it until 6AM the next day. It's a lot more tricky and every artist who agrees on such a job should know what to expect, what to watch out for and what to refuse at all cost. I mentioned in the introduction that a lot of my fellow musicians refuse to do such work. I never really understood why but at the same time I've always kind of stirred away from it as well. A few weeks ago I got an e-mail saying something like we like the work you usually do so we were wondering if you'd be interested in writing a pop song for one of our artists. At first, I wanted to say no (partly because I wasn't sure I could find the time, given all the other work I'm doing at the moment) but then I thought: WHY WOULDN'T I SEE IT AS A CHALLENGE? That brings me back to my fellow musicians. Most of them don't want to do such work because a) they don't know what their terms are and b) if they do, they are afraid to set them up. Since I'm always in need for cash (to buy new equipment, to repair old equipment and to pay the rent), I decided my first and most important term is NOT TO WORK FOR EXPOSURE. A lot of times people come to an artist and offer them exposure instead of money for their work and I feel this is really disrespectful. To be clear, money isn't everything and I'm the last person to be ''all about the money'' (art is still the most important thing for me) but the reason I find it disrespectful is because it totally ignores the knowledge, time and effort one puts into the actual project. If someone asks of me to write a certain type of song, I must first listen to similar artists, think about what I hear, pay attention to the production, find the time to actually write the music, record it, sing it, produce it and make it sound as they want it to sound. All of that takes large amounts of time, work and effort and I don't really see why I wouldn't get paid for it. People not working in arts always get paid for their work (time, knowledge, effort) and nobody even thinks about asking a hairdresser in a hair saloon or a construction worker to do something ''for exposure''. Being a musician is also a full time job and it's not different from any other line of work that is regularly paid for. Also, offering exposure nowadays doesn't make much sense because you can get exposure on socail media for free and if you're good, exposure will eventually happen. Now, if you work for a friend or you decide that the offered exposure is just what you need at the moment, sure, why not but most of the time you never really get the offered exposure and you end up working totally for free. So, I decided what my terms are and wrote a reply: I'll be happy to do it but I would like to be paid. Much to my surprise, they agreed and I gtold me my options. The options are simple: you either get XY amount of cash for a song and then get nothing from the potential royalties if the song hits the charts or you get a smaller XY amount of cash but you also get money from the royalties. Since the XY amount of money wasn't so different in both options and was only slightly smaller if I want something of the royalties, I opted for the latter. Now, I'm not expecting a hit song but if it does appear on the charts even for a week, I'll probably end up getting the same amount of money as I would in the first option or, possibly, more. The point is - if you know how to set up your own terms and refuse to work for free (or for exposure), you don't really have much to loose.

COMMISSION WORK WON'T KILL YOUR CREATIVITY OR ARTISTIC INTEGRITY

Another huge argument I commonly hear against commission work is that it kills the artist's creativity and artistic integrity. That's something I cannot agree with. I'm sure every artist strives to create original work and I can't think of anything I enjoy more than writing my own songs but if you truly love and enjoy art, I think you can find working on commission almost as satisfying as doing your own thing. Here's what I mean: to an artist, the process of creating a work of art should be as important and fulfilling as the work of art itself. If you think of the work you need to do as a way to challenge yourself, your knowledge and your capabilities and a way to expand your artistry and to venture outside of your comfort zone, you'll only end up getting more from it than you could loose. For this particular project, I was asked to write a sort of Michael Jackson-Prince-mainstream hip-hop kind of thing but for a Croatian audience and taste. I'm fmore than farmiliar with the catalog of Michale Jackson and Prince (I admire their work and I love it!) and I'm fairly farmiliar with what modern mainstream hip-hopish music is like but I've never really tried to write such a song. And there you have it - the challenge, the opportunity to learn and think outside of my own box. So, this time, my process of writing and creating started with revisiting the Jackson/Prince catalog, listening to how they constructed their songs, how the songs are produced, how they are arranged and what kind of general ''sound'' is present in both artists and then trying to replicate it before I go and write something myself. I went through several ''best of'' collections, jotted some notes down and then went on to listen to Croatian mainstream radio stations to hear what happens there and repeat the process. I decided to go for a kind of modern 80's sound and discovered that the biggest difference between those artists, the stuff I do and the Croatian mainstream music is in the vocal melodies. I'm not really sure WHY (at least not yet) but I think it has to do with the nature of the english language opposed to the nature of croatian language (I've written a post on that matter some time ago and my underdstanding of this phenomenon still goes in that general direction https://steemit.com/music/@grobens/on-music-and-language-why-i-write-and-sing-in-english). I decided that the basis of my song will be this hip-hopish mainstream croatian music with distinct croatian melody lines and that the rest will be 80's guitars and synth hooks. Here's an example of what I mean:

(this is currently a huge hit in Croatia. It's not hip-hop or r'n'b based but it does have this modern 80's sound and the vocal melodies I'm talking about).

There's still the question of artistic integrity. I'll make this one short: I believe the art (to a great extent) speaks for itself but it also speaks FOR THE ARTIST. People who are farmiliar with my work in Croatia know what kind of music I play and write and, based on that, they can easily make out what I'm all about, just based on the songs. So, I don't think this or any future commission work will hurt my supposed artistic integrity nor do I think it will in any way hurt my own future creativity. If you know what you like and if you do what you do because it reflects who you are, venturing in other genres on demand cannot hurt it. It can only make you richer.

I'm not at liberty to share the actual song (I checked) but I am at liberty to share a working version of the song with my voice on it (I checked). For those of you who follow my work and my blog - this is the first (and probably) the last time you'll hear me singing in my native tongue. Also, I suck at singing pop music and let alone croatian pop music so I warn you - I sing like hell. The pitch doesn't fit me and I'm not at all ''feeling'' the song as I do when I sing my own songs so have that in mind as you listen to me trying to sound like a pop star (whichn I'm not and will never be). As always, I hope you'll enjoy and feel free to tell me what you think!