I will try and put this into today's technological vernacular.
What is the very first step a person usually takes in the democratizing of music?
The answer is: They learn to play an instrument.
Today that instrument can be a computer keyboard.
Music is a message and is often accompanied by words and pictures.
But the words and pictures often need music also.
So the first step in the democratizing of music is learn an instrument and/or learn them all.
If you can play one stringed instrument very well it leads to the ability to play them all well.
But learning instruments is only the first step in a VERY long line of vastly varied steps along the way.
The idea behind the democratizing of music is that the sole artist assume all possible parts of the music's journey from the artist's imagination to the ears of their listeners.
So first you learn your instrument(s).
Also consider, the human voice is most likely the greatest of all musical instruments.
Then there is the music itself.
Prolific content and the composition of the music, the maturity of it.
In order to create music on today's media here is where other steps come in.
Lots of them!
The artist has to learn computer well enough to service them in order to make music.
A democratized music artist has to know what kind of sound card is in their computer. This sound card is ultimately going to make the very sound files that a democratized artist offers to their listeners.
So this means a music artist needs to know how to play all of the instruments in the band. Not just one.
Either that or you need to hire someone. Once you hire one person then you hire many others and in the end you no longer own your music and you are back at square one of being used/owned by larger music concerns and this is not cogent to the idea of democratization.
To, review this so far.
The democratized artist has to learn instruments,
then,
Become the whole band.
Next they have to also be the sound/graphics and other engineers.
They have to thoroughly know hands on constantly how the equipment works and how the programs work and tediously enter in and edit every last syllable of the musical data.
They need to be poet, lyricist, singer and multi-instrumentalist, cultish.
They need to be every link in the chain directly to their fans with technology being a silent partner.
The democratized music artist needs to be manager, booking agent, music lawyer, record company, record label, mastering studio, publisher, social networker. And still try to be a regular person and lead a good and love filled life along side of that.
The philosophy behind all of this is that music is not really served well if it is never heard.
The final part of an artist's musical journey is to communicate their music to their listeners. Music is about sharing and if too many people are involved, sometimes the artist's message can get compromised.
Yet, sometimes it is in the compromise that better things are created. This is a debate/discussion.
What is better, having one lyricist for a song or two or a team of lyricists?
The problem with music creation, and many other things in life is if you leave something up to someone else they may not deliver.
So the old saying, If you want something done right you have to do it yourself.
That is probably the crux of this entire discussion.
In the end the artist has their music and owes no one anything for the creation of it. The more the artist owns their own product the more they have to bargain with when it comes to needing to buy advertisement and join other media partners for distribution.
It is about making art that you believe in and think will endure after you are gone from this life... It is an articulated gift to your own pride in humanity.
In the end it is about having fun and giving your audience a good, pleasant and memorable time!
That long after the music plays your voice and songs are still sweetly in their thoughts.
It is about focus and getting the music itself so it sounds right.
It is both artistic and technical, like many musically related matrices, theory, harmony, math, trig, waves, spectrum, landscapes, sagas...
I guess the best way to explain it is to put as much of yourself into it as possible.
You can do it all yourself... your music is you.
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