Have been working on my social media platforms this week. Cleaning them up, making the messaging more obvious. Have learnt so much about clarity and leading people to your products. Once you can see it, it's a wonder why I didn't see it before ? I have always known instinctively that there is a machine in some way that drives traffic...erm, the internet! And have always felt that often, people who are less talented with their art tend to be better at driving traffic, than those that focus solely on the business element. People who are naturally brilliant, and lets face it, we all know those types - the ones who just connect their playing, singing or art with emotion, manage to tap into people easily, attracting them like bees to a honey pot.
I have always been fairly pragmatic about this and somehow understood it - I knew that being fired from The Swingles before I re joined and toured for five years had to happen. I could see that the audition process at the time wasn't clear. I could see that I was supremely confident in audition as I was in love with the music and didn't know anything about competition, how many other people would have died for the job. I just studied the pieces, enjoyed them thoroughly in the audition and was bubbly and got along with everyone.
I had an inherent sense of belief in myself that I had a musical talent. I had a good ear. I could mimc things and when told how to phrase or time something found it easy and to be honest quite thrilling. I couldn't get enough of it.
In time, and with setbacks, both financially and personally, those things diminished. It began to feel difficult and like life was a struggle. I moved into London and rented a room in a house. On the first night I'd moved in, the owners went away for the weekend. They were bright and breezy about it. I was unsure. I didn't know the area. I had come from a sleepy village in sussex. That night there was an argument in the street outside the house. I was in bed. It was late. There were two families shouting and screaming at each other. I couldn't make out what it was about but I felt unsafe and scared. I called my boyfriend of the time and he cheered me up, made me laugh and I felt connected to someone - they finally stopped and it went quiet.
From that moment on, I realised life wasn't quite as simple as I had thought. There were challenges. I had to keep safe. And that carefree teenager who had auditioned for The Swingles at 19 was growing up.
So, to my point about self promotion. As a musician I think we are deeply creative (obviously) we feel things deeply, we are like a sponge to our surroundings. And if those surroundings are negative it sticks to us like glue. We need a daily practise to keep free and clear from them. Not because we are deficient, but because it's necessary to keep our childlike spirit to live as a musican/creator. If we allow the world to reduce our optimism and worse, we start to believe the negative stuff is true for us, it becomes our story and to self promote feels icky. It feels like we are going against the flow. Most if not all people will look at this happy girl and say "Awww how cute is she..." We immediately relax because we know she doesn't know any better than to have fun in nature. Her world is simple. She is living in the now. It's a lifetime work to be present, care for others and live in the now. So many of us are wrapped up in our own world we don't see it. Don't see people. And so to self promote....? No way - too icky.
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