When I was younger, you know in my growing years, the time we all start learning how the world works, my mom had a montra (she would cringe if she knew I called it that)... "Sometimes you have to do what you don't want to do." Man, I hated hearing that. I can't tell you how many times I have heard it. Each time worse than the last. But, dammit, she was right.
Think about it, as free as we seem to be, we sure do a lot of things that we don't want to do. They are necessary to helping our lives run as smoothly as possible. Now, granted, I try to do as little of these things as possible. Sometimes it leads to trouble. Sometimes it leads to life long memories. Either way, these things, whatever they are for you, will always be there.
I don't really like crowd funding campaigns. I hate seeing stars trot out their ideas and hope you will pay for them to do be funded, meanwhile making millions per film. I use my own money to do what I want, and I don't have any. Why do I need to give a millionaire money to make his pet project.
Then, I watched this video...
Now, I don't agree with everything she says. And I think at some point you need to carry your own water (besides the fact that her husband is very successful author Neil Gaiman). And it's easy when you raised over 1 million dollars. But the part that got me was her idea of letting people pay for music instead of making them.
It's a fine line, but the crux of it is trust. One thing I do know is a lot people want to help, they just need to be asked. And asking is hard. As she points out, it make you feel like you are somehow deficient, ashamed. So, somewhere in there must be some middle ground.
Yesterday, the band that I am in launched a fund raiser. And, to be honest, right up until I pushed the button to make it live I had a pit in my stomach, thinking maybe we shouldn't do it. And in some ways I still feel that way. We set out to make a raise a small amount of money to just make it a little easier to do what we were already going to do. We set a soft goal of $500. We want to raise more, but we also wanted people to feel apart of it. Learning to trust.
It's been going for a day, and we have raised $250. And, with one exception, I didn't expect the people that gave to give. It's not that I didn't think they would, it's that when thinking who would, they didn't enter my mind. And, that makes me smile. And, it makes me a little ashamed. Who am I to even try to figure out who someone is or predict and outcome. No one, that's who.
So, now I will just step back, let people know, and trust. I bet I will be surprised what happens.
Here is a pic and below that the link for our crowd funding thing.
Kelsey Cook, Me and Dave Tanner - The Depth and the Whisper
For those of you reading, I will let you know how it all turns out.
Music is Life,
Albert
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