Two days ago my kickstarter campaign ended successfully. Over $6000 were pledged to fund a new recording of my original music. I didn't blog about the process as it was happening, but there were many thoughts and feelings along the way. I'm still processing much of this, and exactly what it means to me. It seemed to happen in steps, much like the graph of progress from my kickstarter dashboard.
Early on there was a tremendous rush. Making the video, writing the copy, receiving those first few pledges...it all felt like Christmas morning. It felt narcissistic in a way. Every artist has a touch of Narcissus otherwise we wouldn't do what we do, but this at times felt like it was too much about me, me, me. My oldest brother, as he has done time and time again, came through with some wise and sage advice. He said, "No, you're wrong. This isn't about you. This is about the music. You are but a conduit." I held that with me through to the end.
During the middle period, where days went by with no pledges, I struggled with how to promote it. Facebook is amazing, but there is such a thing as too much of a presence there. I joined twitter (and still don't really get it.) I was posting videos to the kickstarter site. When there were about two weeks left I started considering the very real possibility that it could fail. What exactly would that mean for me? It felt like when I ran for 8th grade vice president and didn't succeed. I chose not to see it as a referendum on my career, though. I thought maybe I didn't think big enough. Maybe I should have raised $10,000 for an album and app exploring the music, ala Bjork.
Then something interesting happened. We hit 75%. There was hope. Although there were only 3 days left and we had $1500 to go, it once again appeared to be possible. I also played the concert of the new music at this time, which also recharged me.
The rush of pledges at the end was exhilarating. The fact that I'll be making a new record, and that it's paid for is a feeling I'm not sure I yet understand. But I do understand this: it doesn't belong to me. It belongs to the community of people who pledged on kickstarter - from people I've known since I was a toddler to people I've met in the last 2 months. To me it's not a referendum on anything that has to do with me. It's a referendum on music, on art and on the business of music and art. It's an entirely new paradigm that affirms that people are willing to support music through non-traditional venues.
Kickstarter.com, and other crowdfunding sites like Pledgemusic and Rockethub, are genius. This is how we do it.
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