Guest Blogger Karen Ortiz: My self imposed responsibility as a musician

My Self Imposed Responsibility as a Musician

By Karen Ortiz

Karen Ortiz is a singer-songwriter-keyboardist born and raised in New York City. 

She is currently in the band DRONESHIP, an electro-synth rock band with Prakhar Verma, Rishabh Natarajan, and Meghan Tully. To listen, watch videos, or updates on their latest show, check out DRONESHIP 

There's responsibility in all professions that you do your job and do it well. If you're a doctor, your responsibility to a patient is to put your personal comfort aside, be it hunger or sleep or I'm sure even your own emotional well-being at times, and do whatever it takes to better the patient. A teacher could dislike a pupil, prefer they not be in their class. But that, ideally, gets pushed aside and the educator is responsible to do whatever they can to get that student to learn. These are professions I don't envy due to the hard task and possible risk taken when something goes wrong with person receiving their services. In the arts, it seems, it's a somewhat different story.

It feels like the creative community, in our American culture, is seen as a disposable commodity, unnecessary and not crucial to the development of a people. Add to that that there isn't a clear consensus on the ethical or even legal responsibility of what an artist provides to the people within and without of the community it belongs to, and you get what we have now; an industry littered with murky craftsmanship and a consumer sifting through a seemingly endless amount of content that doesn't scratch the itch, yet not demanding for better. I'm a planner type so here are MY self imposed guidelines on what I try to do.

Be honest.

It would be a different world if we walked around our entire lives feeling very deeply. Perhaps we'd be better off, in tune with the sensitivities of our fellow man. Or maybe we'd just be moody teenagers, highly irritable and desperately needy. But we don't. We spend much more time thinking about timelines, schedules, quotidian responsibilities, money, annoyances, and a bunch of other things much more than romantic love. Why then are there so many goddamn love songs? It seems that when we crave a break from them, we're appeased by songs of romantic heartbreak! It's funny, both in the "haha" way and the "huh?... weird..." way. It's gotten to the point that hugely popular songs get memorized by the masses without a second thought as to what they're even about because there content is most often the same. (See Outkast's "Hey Ya," Sublime's "Santeria", and Blues Traveler's "Hook".) It astounds me. Perhaps if the content, lyrically and musically weren't so predictable, there'd be less of that litter to sift through. 

Additionally, the listener has a responsibility to demand better. Not every love song is garbage, but the incessant rhyming of words like love and above, truly just a fluke of the English language, and then the implication that romantic love should always be this celestial out of body experience is truly daunting and unsustainable. Love can also just be not eating the last of the ice cream because your partner had a bad day at work and that would cheer them up a tiny bit. So don't cop out. Write about the boring stuff if that's how you feel.

Now, I understand how, like during the Great Depression people enjoyed watching films of other times and even decadence, escapism is needed. But there must be some relief, even comically, when someone creates something that expresses how very tired they feel or how annoying their boss is. It's so refreshing to hear honesty. It's also refreshing to hear unpredictable chord progressions. The 1, 4, 5 chord progression is getting old. Just be honest and when you do hear a song in C major about love, we'll all enjoy it more.

Work together.

There are so many musicians that see the rest of their peers as their competitors. I am guilty of this myself. I see someone I studied with get some sort of recognition and I've been conditioned to immediately panic that the pie just got smaller. Let me explain why this isn't simply jealousy. Artists work undesirable gigs constantly under the threat that 

1) they don't know when the next job will come 

2) if they don't accept the conditions of a possible patron, there will always be a more desperate artist willing to get even lower balled 

3) the promise of those ever elusive "exposure bucks" will pay off in time. 

If we worked together, however, and had standards for our work, understanding that lugging several thousand dollars of equipment for a gig that pays a beer per musician or whatever the audience puts in a bucket is a bit one sided, then we could better advocate for ourselves. 

Additionally, there are a lot of divas in the music world. A lot of people want to chase the spotlight. It sometimes seems like the too many Chiefs, not enough Indians scenario and you're left with people craving attention so badly they will work for free, just for a taste of that applause. Ego takes the center stage and behind is left artistry, craftsmanship, musicianship and teamwork. Work together. You can lift each other up if you focus on helping more than just yourself. It's tough out there. It's easier when you have support.

Vote with your dollars.

I heard this phrase a long time ago and it's one of the best pieces of advice in this capitalist world where the little guy often feels mis/under/not represented at all. If you're independent and unsigned, go check out the other artists that are doing the same, hitting the pavement, and support them as you would like to be too. Are you one of those people that forwarded the meme "Music was better when they let ugly people make it?" Then acknowledge good music independent of sex appeal. Have you learned of a venue/representative that treats talent in a way you disagree with? Investigate the ways that you support them financially and you can choose not to. 

(Sigh) When I follow these steps, I feel just a little more in control of myself on the roller coaster of the music industry as a little leaguer. I know this is reaching for a utopian version of the industry that doesn't quite exist yet, but this entire thing is a dream. Who has full out fantasies about things with sad, real restrictions? And who knows, as a complete unknown, I could change my tune at the "lucky" prospect of some semblance of success down the road. The real world requires rent to be paid and responsibilities to be met. But while I am little and unknown, I can still afford to dream of the un-compromised version. So leave me be in my dream bubble where I am paid for my work, treated as an equal, and have bargaining power. It's nice over here.