Daily Random Thoughts

[baxil]

(via LoudTwitter)

• 20:31 Kady gave me a new iPod Shuffle, which won't work until I upgrade iTunes. Only 57,914 songs for the new version's library to reprocess. O_O; #

Comments

[baxil]

If you're going to be daunted by the scale of the competition, please don't forget the scale of the audience. Even if you restrict yourself to the English-speaking, Internet-connected segment of the world population, you're still looking at 1 billion or more people who could potentially be exposed to your music. If only 1% of them ever hear of you, only 1% of those people download your album, and only 1% of THOSE people mark your album as a favorite, you've still touched the lives of 1,000 people!

And that's only counting the people who stumble across you completely at random. The numbers will be hugely higher for people in your niche -- folks who hear you on new-age/instrumental radio stations (virtual or traditional), folks who hear one of your concerts, etc.

The question you're grapping with is a fundamental one, and I won't pretend I don't grapple with it too. But even if we can't change the whole world with our creativity, we can expose people to our message in small chunks, and if our art can have even a modest multiplying effect, we're making the world a better place far more efficiently than we ever could by giving up and finding other ways to contribute.