So in setting up this blog, I was providing a tagline where, basically, I wanted to say that this will be a collection of thoughts, memoirs, and articles about music from the perspective of… well, from me. But what do I call myself here? I settled on “Creative Artist,” which is reflected in the tagline above as of July 8, 2108, but I really don’t like it. 

I never know exactly what to call what I do. I imagine others have this problem, too. Consider some of these terms…

Artist

I always hated the term. In recent years, I have finally accepted that I am an artist, but I still don’t like the term.  It’s true that I create original works, and I do so to satisfy my own personal muse, with little to no attention paid to whether other people think it’s valid or not, or whether it fits in the mold of a certain style or if it’s marketable. I just do what I want, because I need to do it and it satisfies and satiates me. Sounds like an artist to me. 

But the title can pack such a pretentious punch. It can often represent an elitist, intellectualist point of view about how the world can be reflected in a piece of music, on a canvas, in a sculpture, or through any other vast number of mediums. At it’s worst extreme, it implies that other people might naturally be incapable of grasping the art because they’re not evolved enough to recognize the profundity. And, to a certain degree, all that stuff is fine. I do like “creative types” from all walks of life.

 But still, what I do comes from a place that is more down-to-earth than all that. I accept that I’m introspective, emotionally in touch, and a student of humanity and an observer of the world around me, and I guess that is what has made me a songwriter in addition to being a musician. But beyond all that, there is a huge part of me that does what I do because I love music. It can at times be as simple as that. So, being a guy who grew up listening to rock and pop music, I like to foster that love… and that sounds like an awfully simple concept to be housed under the umbrella of the term “artist” and all that might imply to others.

Musician

Sounds simple enough, right? I am, after all, a musician. But, again, the term has the potential to sound loftier to me than how I feel. Yes, I play an assortment of instruments and can hold my own in many situations and, with respect to my primary instrument, drums, I seem to play well enough that people want to have me around. But “musician” sounds like someone who spends 6 hours a day practicing their craft… or a guy who is an “on demand” player who can read down charts and demand pay as a studio cat for professional producers and engineers. Or a person whose ambition is to have more chops than anyone else.

That world is not where my sensibilities come from.

And yet, we can’t dismiss the fact that I do play music… a lot, and in lots of different situations. Like a musician does.

Rocker

OK, that sounds stupid, and I say it with some mockery. But it’s really just a cheesier alternative to a term that I used to sometimes identify with, which was “Rock Musician.” When I was young, I tried to get around the arrogance of artist or the implied virtuosity of musician by resting on the notion that I was a musician, but one who “specialized” in rock music. It wasn’t a concession as much as it was meant to imply that I didn’t seek to walk in the same circles as Juliard graduates or misunderstood avante grade eccentrics. 

But it really is a great disservice to the scope of stuff I do, much of which, frankly, doesn’t really “rock” much at all by a lot of people’s definition.

Craftsman

I used to favor referring to what I did as my “craft,” as opposed to my art. And I am still kind of cool with this, but in the context of, say, the tagline above, I can’t call myself a “Craftsman.” It sounds like I work with wood or I’m a blacksmith or something.

Entertainer

I play publicly. Therefore, I perform and entertain. But I am not naturally driven by a passion to entertain, and other talented folks I know most certainly are. There are people who belong on a stage no matter what the circumstances are. They may entertain with a guitar, but a true entertainer would be equally at home doing anything else, because they live to connect with audiences, and the medium they choose is just a means to an end for that goal. That’s not me. 

The truth is, I’m an amalgam of all these things above. You can call me any of them, and I’d be OK with you thinking of me like that. But I mostly feel self-absorbed when I am forced to refer to myself with such a title. Like the one in the tagline.

I guess this is why you always hear people say they “hate labels.”  Often they claim that it makes them feel pigeonholed, but ultimately I think it’s even simpler than that. Labels rarely tell an accurate picture, because we’re all a collection of traits that make up who we are. I’m pretty good at being me and doing what I do, and you’re pretty good at being you and doing what you do. But it’s tough to sum that up in a word.