Marketing versus Composing

One of the basic problems that a composer has these days is the necessity to market themselves to get more work while continuing to compose. Marketing and composing are two diametrically opposed activities. Composing requires total immersion in what you are doing and leaving the world behind. To really reach a place where your creativity fully emerges you need to be submerged in what you are doing. And it is hard to get out of that space to do other things, when you are really into it. Even when I take a break, sometimes my attention is still in the work and I can be poor company if I go on a social outing and I leave my work in the middle of a phrase or a section or when I was addressing a poblem. So it takes a lot of concentration to bring out what you are creating within. Marketing is the opposite. You have to be thinking about what is happening outside, about contacting people, about posting things interesting to others while using social media, the phone, email campaigns. And I, for one, don’t have the ability to switch modalities in an instant. Actually, sometimes it takes me a full day or two to get into a new piece. So in composing you are looking within and in marketing you are looking withot. And you have to do both things. It is easier to do this when you are writing small works (like 3-4 minutes) but a big piece is a beast that commands respect and if you want to create something with some personality you have to commit your time to do it. And that is one of the biggest problem that I face on a day to day basis.