A constant thing I think about is all the music that the world never gets to hear. Whether it’s when a band decides to retire, a new artist can’t get a solid platform to stand on, or the music industry changes what songs sound like just for the potential profit of it. It makes me sad to think about all the things we miss for what seems like silly reasons. Thankfully in this current time of technology artists don’t have to sign to a big record label to put their music out. Obviously without the promotional power and financial help a label would give an artist it becomes much harder to get exposure. I can’t tell you how many times you see someone playing music on the street, in a youtube video, or on an instagram post and wonder why they don’t have a huge career. I wish someone’s talent was all they needed to be known, but everyone needs something else to really grow a career. The artists who play small shows are sometimes the best, but that route takes a lot of time and doesn’t always provide the money for an artist to live and not worry about paying bills. Platforms like Spotify and SoundCloud are awesome at accelerating the amount of exposure that an artist can get, but I’m not sure if or how an artist can make money with those resources. The struggle of working a job to pay bills, and then trying to make music, play shows, and travel to spread their creations seems like an impossible task. We all have heard stories of people who just “went for it” which is always cool to hear, but we don’t hear about the people who didn’t make it and are now in a bad position with their life. I want to live in a world where people can have time to dream, create, and explore without having to sacrifice every other part of their life. By no means do I think everything will be perfect and easy. At some point every person has to make the choice “I am fully committing to this, or I am giving up on doing this full time”. There are plenty of people who love working their job, and still love playing open mic nights and small shows. I just don’t want to miss out on all the undiscovered music out there. How can we hear everyone? How can we uplift unknown artists? How can we give everyone a shot at making the choice of following their passion? The more space we can create for people to try different things without worrying about if it will be a huge hit, the more beautiful creations we will get to hear. Maybe it’s just a selfish thought to want all this, but at my core I don’t want to miss out on some awesome music because of silly reasons.