We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Nick Norton a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.
Nick, appreciate you joining us today. Have you been able to earn a full-time living from your creative work? If so, can you walk us through your journey and how you made it happen? Was it like that from day one? If not, what were some of the major steps and milestones and do you think you could have sped up the process somehow knowing what you know now?
Short answer: yes.
Longer answer: how we define “making a full time living” in a fascist/capitalist state is deeply problematic. I’m alive full time, and I work hard to dedicate as little time as possible to exploiting my own labor to support destroying the planet and murdering children. This is a moral imperative.
The major step for me was really to shift my view of what matters in life. We are raised in the US to believe that having a high income is the goal. That is wrong headed. Having a happy and fulfilling life is the goal (which for me involves enjoying the company of my loved ones, trying to improve the lives of others, and also doing fun things I think are cool). Using money for that is just one means among many.
Of course, given that one does need to eat, I’ve determined that to spend as much of my short time on this earth as possible on things I am fulfilled by and enjoy, I’d need to be extremely efficient when I do work, and make sure that that work is of a high enough quality to be worth paying a good rate for. Getting more hands on technical experience at an earlier age would have sped this along.
I can’t think of too many specific turning points in this regard, but the two I’m most proud of are earning my PhD and earning admission to my union, the Motion Picture Editors Guild (IATSE Local 700), where I serve on the Emerging Technology Committee.
Nick, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?
Totally! I make things out of sound.
If the thing I’m making is a piece of music, then I’m acting as a composer or musician. If it’s an album or a concert, then I’m acting as a producer, sound engineer, or playback op. If it’s a movie, then I’m acting as a sound editor or rerecording mixer. If it’s a social gathering, then I’m often acting as a DJ. If it’s an experience, then maybe I’m just guiding listeners to focus (or de-focus) their attention in a specific way.
More specifically, my record Music For Sunsets came out last year and did pretty well, so I’m working on the follow up now, and also getting into Atmos mixing.
Alright – so here’s a fun one. What do you think about NFTs?
Not sure what that has to do with anything, but sure. My view on NFTs is pretty straightforward. Because folks participating in capital did everything they possibly could to devalue art making in the name of financial exploitation (see: destroying music income, only funding projects via tax write offs, etc.), they had to invent a new way to make money off of “creative” endeavors. Manufacturing scarcity is one way to do that.
I’m generally not a vindictive person, and I’m not even against crypto/blockchain tech—in fact I think having a little bit of crypto is a good idea for when the dollar crashes—but NFTs are a scam on the face of it, no better or worse than subprime mortgages were, and anyone who has lost money on an NFT has deserved to. It’s a natural consequence of thinking spending your income for a picture on a computer somewhere—not even on your own computer—is a good idea.
This is not to say that all NFT art is bad, but the basic concept of owning of it is.
Have any books or other resources had a big impact on you?
Yes! I’m a huge reader. The book Bullshit Jobs by David Graeber is central to my approach to my work, and I recommend it all the time. My friends who have taken the recommendation have, in at least two cases, quit their jobs after the first hundred pages. There’s an essay in Strike magazine by the same name, which was the impetus for the book, here: https://strikemag.org/bullshit-jobs/
Cal Newport’s book Deep Work has also been very useful for eliminating distractions and getting down to what matters in your work.
As for music and creativity specific stuff, I highly recommend Walter Benjamin’s essay The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction. I also I share these two articles regularly, particularly with folks who are starting out in their careers:
https://klangmag.co/lifers-dayjobbers-and-the-independently-wealthy-a-letter-to-a-former-student/
Finally, I’m only halfway through it, but Suzi Gablik’s book “Has Modernism Failed?” is a wonderful critique of the arts industrial complex, and a very positive read on making things for yourself instead of for money.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://nicknorton.music
- Instagram: notnicknorton
- Other: https://submarine-sound.com
