… a blog post from Chairman’s Corner.

Hey hey hey everybody. Hope everyone’s hanging in there! In today’s super chaotic world that the majority of us are just trying to survive (and hopefully thrive) in, I feel that a little bit of musical therapy is needed now more than ever. I’m a big believer in the healing power that our favorite artists and tunes can often provide us with. We all have a need to unwind, and to escape from the daily pandemonium of our lives, much like the character of Carl in the movie Over The Edge (pictured above, getting away from it all, with his headphones on). I’ll take immersing myself in provocative art over doom-scrolling any day of the week.

The power that lives inside of a great song simply can’t be denied. Songs can sometimes make you forget about your complications for a while – and even if they remind you of your problems (or the world’s problems for that matter), sometimes they can inspire you to solve them. If you’re a music maker, then of course writing and performing your own tunes can be extremely conducive to your spiritual health. For me, this type of inspiration and therapeutic power is music’s greatest asset – which leads me to the topic of defining success…

We creative types all have our own various ways of defining success within the field of music. Some of us might measure it by the quantity of our fans, followers, streams, sales, and just our own overall popularity – while others may measure it by the types of venues that they find themselves playing in. However, many of us (myself included) measure musical success by simply answering this question: Do I dig the songs that I’m writing? IMHO, if the answer to this internal question is “YES”, then that is most definitely a HUGE success story right there. Just writing a song that you’re happy with can be incredibly healing, and once again (as mentioned above) this is the greatest quality that making music can provide (personally speaking). While many of us artists strive to be “successful” by focusing on ALL of the metrics mentioned above, I’d say that being satisfied with the material that you’re creating (and having fun with it) is by far the most crucial.

This isn’t to say that you shouldn’t do anything at all to bring your music to a wider audience by focusing on the music biz sides of things (if that’s what you truly want to do), but I really do feel that it’s critical to not lose sight of the things that are most important when doing so: having fun (especially in a rocknroll band scenario) and just feeling that powerful, healing force that comes with the beauty of musical creation and collaboration.

Cheers,

Jeffrey “Chairman” Couch

Music lover, creator & collector

chairman@spinneymedia.com

Chairman currently enjoys freaking out & creating panic with his spastic rock band Nasalrod, which is based in Portland, Oregon. He created this blog to share his serious love of music, the arts, and physical media.