This presentation is for second year undergraduate performance musicians. It builds on ideas of artist identity located around the various narrative accounts that artists produce when discussing their work. The goal is for students to use these materials and 'play' with them when writing their own songs and performance works. The main text referenced in this work is Jones 2012 The Music Industries: From Conception to Consumption, London: Palgrave Macmillan UK.

1. A r t i s t N a r r a t i v e s
To t a l Te x t : S i g n i f y i n g M a t e r i a l s
Performance and Musicianship
Hussein Boon

2. Jones (2012, pp.63)
What is industrial about popular music is that musicians
create far more than music, they conjure a total text out of
all the signifying materials they can generate – from the
way they look and behave to the stories they tell about why
they look, behave and make the music they do – but all of
these signifying elements need to be carefully integrated
with each other and with the further materials produced to
market symbolic goods. The work of music companies is to
sequence and contextualise those materials in ways that
encourage a preferred reading of them.

3. Total Text
• Goal is to put a bit more substance into what we are doing
• To consider and place ourselves within a complex of music makers and
creatives
• To use this understanding to assist us in the conceiving, making and
discussion of our work
• This information/understanding can be used as part of press pack and so
on

4. Scenario Positions
• Following slides outline some narrative/discursive positions
• These starting positions can helps us to ‘think’ about ourselves
• In many ways we try to turn ourselves into ‘objects’ (non-negative)

5. Independence/freedom
• Autonomy – concerns independence and freedom in thinking, action and
so on
• This concept can be applied in a number of areas.
• Consider Erykah Badu’s NPR – Tiny Desk Concert opening sequence and
what it ‘tells’ us about the artist:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4cfmEgpOOZk

6. Organic/synthetic
Both can be used to develop the artist narrative in advantageous ways:
• Organic – argument tends towards ‘original’, ‘artistic’, ‘naturalistic’,
‘proper artists’, ‘authentic’, ‘real’
• Synthetic – consider ideas around synthetic that can be used to
advantage. Artists such as Sophie and Bowie have both used the
synthetic to their advantage. What is required is a wholly consistent
approach. This can also be the adoption of science fiction like elements
such as being a Cyborg, Trans-humanist and so on.

7. Agency
• Agency is an active component in directing outputs, songs, albums,
videos and so on
• By hiding ‘agency’ allows a ‘myth’, ‘special’ argument to be put forward
• This includes ‘born to do it’, ‘been singing all my life’,
• Agency is an aspect of artist development

8. Closing Thoughts
…, music companies all want to realise the ‘promise’ of new acts and the
quality of existing ones, but they need to make these unique
configurations of symbolic producers fit their own prescribed routines
and match their own business imperatives and goals. (Jones, 2012: 35)
Ask yourself these questions.
1. What is the promise that you represent? How do you/we deliver on this?
2. How can your unique configuration ‘fit’ these prescribed routines
(expectations) of any domain such as press, radio, blogs, TV/Video, etc?
3. What are these business imperatives and goals? Not just yours but
channels, stakeholders etc.

9. Bibliography
Jones, M. (2012). The Music Industries: From Conception to
Consumption 1st ed. 2012. London: Palgrave Macmillan UK.