Ever work in a restaurant or known someone who does?
There’s this thing that goes on, a mentality, that when there is a spill on the floor most employees will just walk over it.
Maybe they are super busy, or maybe they just don’t care.
Either way there is one thing they are telling themselves.
“Someone else will clean it up.”
I once read about an incident where a woman was assaulted and killed in an alleyway within earshot of many different people.
No one called the cops. Why?
It wasn’t because city life had destroyed their humanity.
It was because they all thought someone else would call the cops.
Where responsibility goes…you will follow
Just as with a spill caused by a guest or another employee, the responsibility still lies with you in that precise moment to make a decision. Take responsibility anyway.
But most people ignore the responsibility. They don’t see the benefit.
Taking responsibility, even when it’s not your mess, makes you stronger and more capable of finding your own way through life.
We often tell ourselves, “Someone else will look out for me.”
“My label/manager will work things out.”
The truth…well it’s just that to be honest with you…I mean 100% honest… there are constant forces at work to make sure that you make as little money as possible from your music.
I’ll leave it to you to make an educated guess as to what those forces are.
Some are in the music business to only make money.
We musicians are in business to make music AND make money.
“There are constant forces at work to make sure that you make as little money as possible from your music.”
So what is there left for us? Do we have no power? No control?
We do, and we don’t.
But for the power that we do have, which is more than we give ourselves credit for, the only way to make use of it is to act.
Piracy isn’t devaluing music as much as apathy is.
Corporate lobbyist are powerful. But how many musicians does it take united to match that power?
1,000? 10,000? 1 million?
I guess we may never know…or will we?
#IRespectMusic
PS — If you value music above $0 please take a moment to support artists’ pay for radio play by signing the petition at — http://irespectmusic.org/
This article originally appeared on Medium.
About the author: Kyle Williams is the host of the independent artist show Seeds of Music where musicians can listen to weekly interviews with successful musicians and music industry pros to learn how to grow a bigger more solid fan base and make more money with music.
To learn more head over to www.seedsofmusic.net and sign up for our free weekly newsletter to get updates on all the latest interviews.