Why my free projects?
I haven't been asked much about why I actually started my projects like Tagirijus Music or Tagirijus Books. Nevertheless, here's a post that attempts to answer that!
Preface
While there are already various points regarding my motivations on the about page of Tagirijus Music, I would like to elaborate on some of them more specifically and add further points here.
In the post The value of music, I divide the concept of value into the economic value and the personal value (e.g. value perceptions). These two definitions of the concept of value are crucial for me in terms of motivations for the mentioned projects. Accordingly, I further divide these areas into financial (for economic value) and ideological (for personal value / value perceptions). Finally, there is also a brief section on pragmatic reasons.
Financials
With Tagirijus Music, I have ultimately created a music archive that can serve as a compensation model for my music and generate a passive income. Not all tracks are available for free use, and not all freely available tracks can be used in a commercial context. For these tracks, there is the option to purchase a commercial licence. Related posts on this topic are: The thing with the rights of use and Listening to music should be free. In addition, I have also created accounts on supporter platforms such as Patreon, Ko-Fi, and Liberapay. This allows interested individuals to actively support me financially and provide me with another source of passive income. How well this ultimately works is not important for now, as I simply want to disclose my motivations. However, that would be worth another post, but at a different time.
Another aspect that I associate with a financial intention: increasing my own reach. Just as various companies invest money/resources in advertising, an archive like Tagirijus Music has the potential, in principle, to spread the reach of my services or art - at least that's my assumption. The same applies to Tagirijus Books, as I also act as a teacher at times. In my mind, it goes hand in hand as a crude analogy: promotional gifts are usually available for free and, at the same time, advertise the respective company. Of course, I don't want to evaluate my music in any way or compare it directly to promotional gifts - only the principle. However, the more important aspect of reach lies in the realm of personal value; more on that in the Ideological section.
Then there is another thought: maybe I can help a project with little or no budget, such as Tagirijus Music, to bring their own idea to life and achieve success. In the best case, this project becomes increasingly successful and evolves into a business venture that gradually receives a budget, potentially enabling them to commission customized music in the future. I estimate that there could be a greater likelihood of this project coming back to me. After all, the music that was used initially seemed to fit the project well. However, I don't want to create a false impression. Ultimately, my intention is not to speculate on making big profits. I know firsthand what it's like to have projects you want to pursue but lack the resources. The ideological aspect is therefore much more developed here - I just wanted to openly and honestly address the financial aspect as well.
Ideological
The following aspect is much more prominent in me - perhaps that is not conducive to success as an independent artist? Another post idea! (;
First of all, these projects were born out of a motivation to keep myself motivated. These platforms are publicly accessible and provide a deep insight into my art and my working processes. With this freely readable blog, by the way, into my thought processes as well - "Tagiriju's Blog" is also a project of this kind. This means that I subtly encourage myself to constantly generate new content. Ultimately, this also allows me to see how the content and archives grow, and in retrospect, it always gives me a very satisfying feeling and motivates me to keep going. However, only to a certain extent - the financial aspect is unfortunately closely tied in a kind of contrast. Because if I reach a point where I can no longer afford my expenses and start facing economic problems to "exist," it becomes practically impossible to sustain such projects. In other words, the financial aspect is certainly a motivation, but somehow in synergy with the intrinsic motivation.
With the last point, a bit of this point also comes along: I still produce music for practice purposes. Before these tracks potentially fade into oblivion on my hard drive (for example, because they don't fit any licensing platform I'm signed to), they always have a place on Tagirijus Music. So why deny the world access to them? There will always be some project where a track fits.
Above, I've already mentioned expanding one's reach and tied it to financial intentions. However, beyond that, I find the motivation of having one's own art heard by a potentially growing audience much more rewarding for me. Perhaps that is also one of the key reasons why people become musicians: because they want to be heard! At least for me, that's an important point.
I appreciate open culture and I always find people who contribute to the world through open source projects to be extremely open-minded and likable. Moreover, I have often used various open source projects myself, including in my current work. Since I have to be financially cautious (especially during these crisis days), I cannot afford to support such open source projects financially without careful consideration and therefore I consider it a suitable alternative for me to give back to this community in some way. Furthermore, this can also be connected to the aspect of reach: if I have a larger audience and I link and share an open source project, it benefits that project as well.
Ultimately, there is also the point of education. My belief is that education should be unconditionally accessible to every individual. That is also a strong reason why Tagirijus Books exists. In the future, I plan to publish information on this platform that relates to being a freelancer as well. I just keep imagining how fantastic it would have been for me back then to have such a knowledge portal earlier to assist me in starting my journey towards being a freelancer.
Pragmatic
With Tagirijus Music, there is an archive that customers (or even myself) can conveniently browse to find music from me. This can be, for example, music that serves as a placeholder or temp track, allowing customers to make sure that I can produce this kind of music - after all, it's already created by me.
By the way, Tagirijus Books emerged from the idea that I have a collection of knowledge and exercises for myself when I teach again. In other words, it serves as a platform to organize my knowledge and make it easier and more accessible for myself.
Conclusion
Personally, I always find it a bit challenging to have ideological motives that are also accompanied by financial ones. I simply have a somewhat complicated relationship with money. I can handle and predict it extremely well - it's more about the attitude I have towards money. Therefore, it almost feels paradoxical to me when I disclose ideological and good intentions while also explaining financial intentions. However, they can never be mutually exclusive because our current system works that way. The ideological intentions are always somehow conditioned by financial intentions. With financial means, I can pay my rent and bills, thus creating a foundation that provides me with time and security for ideological pursuits.