#100
by Sheldon Rocha Leal
This is my 100th article on
and I thought I would celebrate the milestone by writing an article in which I reflect on my experiences since starting my writing journey five years ago. In 2015 after a meeting with one of my tech savvy former students, , I was told that I needed to improve my online presence, as a music ambassador, and that Medium would be a good platform on which to showcase my knowledge. I, therefore, decided to take her advice and see where the journey took me. It has been an amazing process and I have learnt many things, along the way, and been exposed to many experiences I would not have been exposed to, had I not started writing.
Since 2015 I have written about many topics. Some of the subject matter I have explored is inspirational, some educational and some on various topics that interest me, but my topic of choice is music and the people who make music great. As someone who was a bit of an underdog as a kid, my favorite people to write about are underdogs, music icons who no one expected would become successes. As a music educator, academic and scholar, I also feel that it’s important that I spread the message that music is a viable career option, which will not always manifest in the way one would expect. Additionally I am very proud of my past students and feel that it’s important to promote their successes, as it’s a way to motivate newer generations to pursue their vocation.
The music industry has changed exponentially in the last 20 years, in the process opening up various career opportunities within the business and not all of them involve playing or making music. This has made a music career a viable prospect for greater numbers of people who embody a wide range of skills. I feel that it is my duty to enlighten people to those possibilities and I have written various articles about creativity, creative management, the creative industries and creative output.
I started my Medium journey at the beginning of my PhD studies and I found that it was an awesome outlet for me. Writing a 250,000 word thesis can be stifling and I found Medium a cathartic platform on which I could express myself and explore various themes that were not directly related to my PhD. That being said, however, everything I researched for my Medium articles seemed to give me greater insight into the topics I was exploring in my PhD and in the long run that two things became interdependent.
So much has happened since I started writing. Some of my favorite artists have passed on and I have written about them, reflecting on their lives, careers and their influence on my own career. I was devastated when I heard that Prince had unexpectedly passed away in 2016, along with George Michael’s untimely demise in the same year. Actually 2016 was a terrible year for Rock stars with no less than 14 iconic stars passing away, including Natalie Cole, Sir George Martin, René Angélil, Leon Russell, Maurice White, David Bowie and Frank Sinatra jnr. I called it the rock world’s Annus Horribilis. Aretha Franklin’s passing in 2018 was also a difficult one for me, although the music world had been expecting her passing for many years, it was sad to see an icon of her caliber withering away in the way she did.
What I most love writing about is people I know or who I’ve met who inconspicuously and very effectively make invaluable contributions to the music industry. These people aren’t necessarily famous, but they earn very good incomes doing music for a living and helping many people along the way. I am also proud of my former students who have gone on to achieve great feats not only inside the music industry, but in countless other sectors.
My philosophy as an educator is that not only do I want to create the future superstars of the music business, I also want to create the infrastructure that will support these stars. To me an audience is an integral part of the music making process, as without an audience, there is no need for the music. By affording as many as possible an opportunity to be musically educated and literate, I am effectively populating beer halls, stadia and theaters of all sorts. My former students make me very proud and I see their success as an extension of my own success. We as educators should be churning out functional individuals who are able to contribute to our society once they leave our classrooms. Just producing good students should not be our only goal, we need to keep the big picture in mind.
Part of my mission is to enlighten people to the various career paths within music. I have, therefore, written various articles about the music industry, its structures and how to generate an income from one’s intellectual property. As someone who studied law, in a previous life, this has become an area in which I have become very passionate. I think it’s important that musicians and music makers become more involved in steering their careers and this can be done by having an understanding of one’s rights and streams of income.
It is not a valid defense to argue that money matters are concepts that are outside of the realm of a musician’s understanding. We as musicians need to become responsible and stop deferring tasks we don’t like doing to other people. Not worrying about money is fine if one is doing music as a hobby, but if one is doing music as a career, money is very important and we must stop being scared of speaking about money. We have a quantifiable skill that articulates into monetary compensation, we must stop sacrificing our skills at the altar of ART.
As a result of my passion for the music business I have written about some of my music business heroes, people like Clive Calder, Berry Gordy, Clive Davis, Eddie Kramer, Trevor Jones, Sylvia Robinson, David Bowie, Dolly Parton and Madonna. The latter individuals have carved the business paths for the music executives who have followed them and the artists have assisted in enlightening up-and-coming talent to the fact that being business savvy is not unartistic. Some of the above individuals have shown that one does not necessarily need to be a shinning star to be a success in the music industry. This, for me, is an important message.
Most people who embark on a music career often think that in order to be successful in the business one needs to be a star, but not everyone wants to or needs to be a star to be successful. Additionally one is not a failure if one chooses to pursue a different avenue to success in the music business, that does not involve being on a stage or in a recording studio. We all have different strengths that can contribute to the success of the music business and once we let go of our mental chains, many career paths suddenly become available.
In 5 years I have written 99 articles with a total duration of 14 hours (that’s how Medium measures the length of their articles, as opposed to word count). My most popular article, which has been viewed nearly 10,000 times, is about the albums with the biggest first week sales in the world. I’ve had over 41,000 views and 17,000 reads. All this writing and research has afforded me a lot of time to introspect and rediscover things about myself which I had forgotten. It has given me greater context and perspective over what motivates me to do the things I have done and do, and why I do what I do.
I have found the whole process personally rewarding and professionally I have been afforded many opportunities I would have not been afforded had I not endeavored to pursue my love for writing. I have been interviewed on radio, social media, television, referenced in articles, websites, journals, academic papers and approached by academics and professionals from the music industry requesting my opinion on topics I have written about. I guess Palesa was right, but in the long run, I have gotten a lot more out of my Medium journey than what I had originally expected and for me that is a reward in itself. I am glad that I pursued this experience and I look forward to what my next 100 articles will bring…
