I just read a short rant over on PercussionLab about the idea of oversharing your work:
We have grown accustomed to sharing our most fleeting thoughts with potentially billions of people, and that reach does little to dissuade us from posting. The same holds true for our creative output and that is not a good thing. Uploading more and more of your latest tunes will not get you “discovered” faster, nor booked for gigs, nor land that private jet. It only presents more opportunities for people to dislike your work and get sick of you. Creative work is inherently doomed because of its subjective and highly personal nature, leaving you with more chances to fail than succeed.
I think Phil has it all wrong here. If you have to wait for someone’s approval to post some of your experiments, then you’re not moving anywhere. You are standing totally still. I’m not saying that the online space is the only place for them to go, but it sure makes sense.
The music industry places too much importance on the idea of a release. It used to be necessary because that release was going to occupy physical real estate in a record store. The industry needed a system in order to make sure these units would eventually disappear off the shelves.
There’s a new system at work now though, and the rules have changed.