I assumed when I joined in the fray and started this blog, that it would be about music and related aspects of expressing oneself through the popular arts. However, the passing of Steve Jobs just yesterday needs a big mention as it has affected me greatly, both from an empowerment perspective - with his extraordinary vision and incredible focus on giving me the tools not just to make the music, arrange it, produce it and ultimately sell it to my audience - and his inspirational ideology.
I have often used Steve's model in the context of my work as a record producer: don't make products (or records) that you believe might 'fill a hole in the market' or that 'research indicates could sell well'... no, just design and make the product (or record) that you most want to buy! The music that you most want to hear.
That's it! Gloriously simple.
You don't have an idea that good at the moment? Then do nothing until you do. And take the consequences, because, guess what, the changes of fortune that that might induce in you will almost certainly be the trigger for new and meaningful communication with your market (or audience).
As far as I know from those who knew him well, Jobs never 'made do'.
He had the idea for the iPad long before the iPhone... that's many years! But it was that very vision that lead him to realize the timing in the world was out of sync with his desires at that moment. But not by much, the uber-frustration of so-called smart-phones (sic) needed tackling first. The drive for that decision came, like most things Jobsian, from his own frustration and disappointment with good ideas badly designed and/or implemented. Those lacklustre devices that hinted at really useful things but never delivered. With the exception of RIM's Blackberry - albeit a one-trick pony with little future.
If you are an artist, a creative music writer for example, then...
a) don't open your mouth until you have something to say (I grew up under that dictum) and...
b) when you are ready - say it loudly, clearly and with the sentiment of the idea's origin.
Unfortunately in this television-driven music world (Simon Cowell being this generation's Val Parnell)... music is not being seen or felt as a medium that can change the way we feel... 4 minutes later.
Although I believe it can and will again.
Steve Jobs literally changed my life. More than once too.
Most of all though, the thing I take away from his life and knowledge more than any other is exemplified by this list of things that he didn’t do...
••• He didn't invent the GUI, the mouse and the principle of a 'window' on a computer screen - but he made them all work in a way that real people could understand and immediately, instinctively use.
••• He didn't invent the all-in-one-box computer - but he made it look and feel like a thing to have in the same room as all the things you treasure (not tucked away in an office).
••• He didn't invent the mp3 player - but he made it work brilliantly and become supremely practical.
••• He didn't invent the Smartphone - but he devised a small new portable device that also made phone-calls.
••• He didn't invent the tablet computer - but he replaced it with the vision he'd had many years before because we all knew how it should be by then - we'd been primed by Jobs’ own devices already.
What Steve did do was... make the things that he most wanted to buy.
I urge every songwriter that may happen upon this ramble to take away the same notion...
just sit down in the silence of your listening... and write the song that you most want to hear!
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