Robert Fripp’s Diary
It struck me last night: the extent & amount of hands-on detail & pure stuff-stuff of the professional life that I process – me, myself, personally. This is not a novel insight, but it hit – how much this comes with a price tab. This is, also, not a novel insight, nor a new piece of information; but a reminder of how much we all accept what is less-than-acceptable once a course is set, determined & underway; and how difficult it is to unset, re-direct & change the direction of momentum. And even though relative professional autonomy & quasi self-management (within a context of business partner & advisors) has a price tab, so does management.

Professional management is more beneficial for the youg artist starting out. The professional manager has the music biz connections and is able to get the artist connected. Another benefit is that the artist can exclusively concentrate on his or her creative work. As the artist establishes him/herself the connections become somewhat less important and are, in some cases, outweight by the side-effects that can occure, including getting pushed into a direction that is not within the vision that the artist has, getting entangled in a business and contractual web that inhibits freedom of vision and movement and last, but not least, getting ripped off.