I've been very loosely following the NFT boom that has been happening for some time now. I took it with a grain of salt, thinking to myself that it's only good for speculation purposes, or maybe a way to lock some capital in (just as in classic art works).
But some recent discussions that I had led me to revise my opinion on non fungible tokens and here are some of my thoughts. But let's start from the beginning...
Cover art for Muzyka naiwna album by Lugshar
I bet none of you know that it have happened a few times for me that I decided to share some of my ambient music with the world. I did that under the Lugshar moniker. The project started all the way back in the winter of 2009/2010, but it was not until the 2020 when I finally released something I consider to be a proper debut album—and that is Muzyka naiwna long play.
While recording the music and preparing for the release, I kind of revisited my view on creating music and any art in general. I was especially rethinking the creator-receiver paradigm and how I feel in this context. You see, my music recording was a very private thing for me up until that point. I did not share the music with basically anyone, gathering it all up in the drawer. Once I decided to release it, I wasn't really sure why. I had to answer myself: why am I doing it? What am I after?
Trying to answer those questions I also observed other people a bit like me—creators just starting their journey, releasing first or second album in the niche. I tried to understand them as well as I tried to understand myself: what drives them, what are they aiming at and what would they consider to be a success?
I quickly noticed that most of these people focus way too much on numbers. How many listeners did I have this month and from how many countries, and how many times did a single person listen to this and that on average? How many CDs did sell? It's funny, because most of these people would consider 10 or 20 sold CDs are quite a good outcome. And understand me well, I'm not saying that 10 or 20 sold CDs is bad, especially in these times. I think for a underground musician it's quite okay, and it's also a little bit of additional money in the pocket. But is that really the best way to measure success?
Oh, and there's also a second number fixation that I spotted, and that was reviews ended with a rate, usually in the scale between 1 and 10, or on some rating on services like Rate Your Music (which uses 0.5-5 scale). Does it really matter how many people rated the album and what is the average rating? And why that one random Russian guy gave you 2.0 instead of 3.0 like everyone else?
I understand there is something to the numbers. If you have many listeners and some buzz building up around you, you can hope to play some live shows, which are the main source of income for underground artists. Seems like the only way to go is to go for the quantity: more and more listeners. But some music is just not destined to be widely popular...
You see, Muzyka naiwna was a condensation of almost 8 years of not only my music creation, but of 8 years of my life as well—all of the changes, earthquakes, enchantments and despairs and confusions. Yet, I am not a musician and making music was never a way for me to make a living. It's more of a way for me to communicate with the outside world without the necessity to use language. So, right from the start it was not my aim to become popular and earn on my music. On the contrary, I hoped that by releasing my music I could reach out to people who might share with me a kind of sensitivity, a particular way of perceiving the reality and living through it. I felt that after these long 8 years I was ready to broadcast a message that could be understood by some.
"Impresja daleka" from Muzyka naiwna by Lugshar
* * *
Yet despite all of this idealistic talk above, there's no denying that it requires a lot of effort to create anything. It not only costs the time to do it, but also requires skills and usually some financial effort. And I guess that's the reason I don't expect my music to make me an income. I have a job which provides me with financial security, and the music can just be an honest expression of myself. The downside is... I don't really have that much time and energy to put into creating it.
It's seems fair to be somehow rewarded for creating art if there are people appreciating it. I just don't like the idea that you have to be popular in order to earn something, because some things just are not destined to be widely popular—otherwise they loose their nature. That's why you sometimes have artists which are called out for selling themselves and moving towards music which is less interesting and valuable, but will surely hit the top 10 lists and make them a lof of money.
What also bothers me is that as an artist grows in popularity, it seems impossible to keep the line between the creator and their receivers connected and deep enough. This relating is very important, especially when it comes to the contemporary art (and music), which is tightly related and ultimately points to the person of the author—in this way or another. This is in juxtaposition to a religious art, which ultimately points to God, but that's a topic for another article. Anyway, since art points to its author, its very important to keep the creator-receiver line short and tight, otherwise art can quickly just become a product, and not a relation.
* * *
So, the problem is then: how can an artist create and offer their art to people in such a way, that it's possible to keep a relation with them and still be able to earn something on it? A way to have a fairly small, but dedicated group of people really interested in what one creates and willing to support them? I don't use the word fans intentionally, as I'm speaking of a different paradigm.
Up until this point the best approximation to this would probably be to set up a some kind of a Patreon or OnlyFans (God forbid!) account and let people support you directly.
Now, with the growing popularity of non fungible tokens I think there might be a way, or shall I say: the way. I can already see some first attempts at commercializing this growing NFT trend. Barely a few weeks ago Viberate announced their "FIRST EVER LIVE EVENT NFT", where they cooperated with the Blockparty NFT market to drop their first NFT for live performance and a digital performance as well.
UMEK, the current no. 1 Techno producer on Beatport, is a true pioneer of the genre, with a career spanning more than three decades. In this historic drop, he sets out to disrupt the live event industry, minting the first ever live gig NFT and the first ever livestream NFT, as well as minting three unique remixes of his legendary track Lanicor.
I really don't like the language, all this disruptiveness and so on. But the event shows there's a lot of potential in NFT to change the way music business works and allow niche creators to focus in the quality and not the quantity, while also earning a bit of cash to support their work.
This is especially important, because literally in this very moment 
The big question is: how can NFT be used to strengthen the creator-receiver relationship and how can these tokens be used by artists to provide some unique value to their art, so that people are willing to buy newly mined artworks and even trade them later? Especially the latter is interesting, as for example NFTshowroom has 10% transaction fee on secondary market transactions, but then transfers half of this fee to the original author.
Answers for these questions are yet to be found. If I had an idea on how to use NFT in order to accomplish all At least I don't know them yet. Here I am putting my questions out into the world.
