Writing "Musician's Music"

There is one general phenomenon that can be observed in much of the musician's and composer's community which is that musicians often create music for musicians rather than for a general audience.

This is a general philosophical dilemma with music and practically any art form: the decision to explore and study music because you love it so much very often leads to becoming more demanding in music and at least partially losing fascination in things that originally excited you and consequentially needing "higher dosages" of musical sophistication to experience the same excitement again.

The result usually also reflects in your own music. Even if you don't aim to be "academically pleasing" with the music you are writing the fact that you studied music, listened a lot to it etc. usually shifts your musical taste towards music that is - let's call it - "more advanced" than what a general audience would prefer which also reflects in your own writing. This doesn't necessarily only need to be a compositional thing but could also reflect in the technical/production side.

There is in fact a whole subgenre of music that I would call "musician's music", for instance with artists like Jacob Collier, Dirty Loops, Vulfpeck etc. Interestingly, a large portion of their fan base are musicians themselves while the general audience hardly ever know about them.

In an art form such as music for media where it is mandatory to address a broad audience with our work it is essential to be aware of this. This can however become a quite frustrating dilemma if you feel like you are constantly "dumbing down" your music to remain accessible.

I'm absolutely no exception in this. The music that I'm writing when I'm free to choose (as for instance the music that I'm putting up here) could definitely often be considered as being "Musician's Music" and I thoroughly do enjoy writing such music, especially when I feel like I need to get out some creativity. I also have to admit that I do struggle with writing music for a longer period of time where I feel like I need to keep it down in favor of an easier accessibility (or client demands).

In the pop world, there has been for quite a while a strategy when you release an album to make it as successful as possible: spread the musical complexity of the songs between "suitable for inexperienced listeners" and "suitable for demanding music lovers". Very often you might find one or two songs on albums even by esteemed artists where you think "Wow, that is pretty pedestrian" while later it might be observable that there is a large reaction of the general audience particularly liking these pieces. 

My personal approach when writing music for commercial projects is more or less the "multi layered approach" which has proven to be commercially successful with such composers like John Williams where the music appeals to lesser musically experienced audiences with catchy and simple melodies and structures while more demanding listeners find joy in advanced and detailed orchestrations, side lines, harmonic progressions etc.

And yet, one can't say that Williams has ever risen to the point where he could be considered being a "mainstream artist".

While I personally dislike the comparison between Williams and Zimmer, it is suitable in this case. And without turning this into a qualitative discussion and no matter where in the spectrum you stand in this discussion, one has to objectively admit that Zimmer's music is more accessible for a "general audience". He employs structures (e.g. repeating 4 chord patterns, percussion grooves) that are closer to the musical vocabulary of "main stream" music while the simple fact that Williams is writing music for traditional symphony orchestra is already creating a barrier that is harder to overcome.

Comparing strictly on a mathematical level Williams currently has about 330.000 streams per day on Spotify while Zimmer has about 490.000 which also supports this theory.

In the recent years I attended concerts by both composers and while Zimmer's tour clearly brought in a highly diverse but generally rather mainstreamy audience (and filled bigger venues), I basically saw about 90% musicians in Williams' concert.

There is no real solution to this whole dilemma but every composer should be aware of this phenomenon. Especially for us as media composers it is extremely important to regularly detach ourselves from the "music bubble" we live in.

In the end everybody has to find a way to deal with this on their own. I know a few composers whose older work I heard and it blew me completely away who presently have decided to write less sophisticated and more commercial music for the sake of appealing to a bigger audience. While this decision is definitely wise and probably the best choice from an economical standpoint, it is something that I would struggle with quite a bit and probably not find happiness in over the long run.

However one essential bottom line should be seen here: the general contempt from composers who write "more sophisticated" music for composers/producers who decided to go a more main stream route in their careers is absolutely not appropriate. The most essential thing to remain creative is to write music that you personally enjoy. Whether you find joy in constructing advanced harmonic paths or finding a super catchy 4 bar melody is up to personal preference and neither approach is artistically more or less valid than the other.

I would be interested to hear your personal take on this dilemma so feel free to comment below,