Being a musician and being a content creator feel like two different things, despite the fact that they do often overlap in 2024. In an interview with Mike Nelson, guitar phenom Matteo Mancuso touched on both the positives and negatives of the modern Internet and how balancing being a musician and a content creator can be difficult.
“The positive thing is that you no longer have to be in a big city in order to get well known. I did everything I did from a small town near Palermo, and I never saw Los Angeles, I have never been in big cities — you know, like living in big cities,” said Mancuso as transcribed by Killer Guitar Rigs. “So you no longer have to move in order to be well known. Back in the days, you needed to be in LA, or maybe you needed to be in New York — if you were interested about jazz — or London, but you the positive thing is that you can do a lot of work from home.”
On the negatives, Mancuso noted that trying to be both is a pretty big pain in the ass that isn’t exactly easy to nail.
“But the negative thing is that you need to be also an entertainer. You need to be a musician and a content creator, also. So that’s a negative thing because they are two separate things. In order to be a musician, you need to play live, you need to release music, and all of that. The content creator, on the other hand, is another thing. So you need to do a lot of videos, and the quality of the videos needs to be on point. They are two separate works, and you need to do both, actually, to succeed.”
“And that’s when it gets tough — because it’s not for everyone. I don’t consider myself a content creator, I’m just a musician, and I want to be a musician. I want that my main work is to play live and release records, not making videos — making videos is that second thing. Sometimes people mix up these two things, and it’s okay. But we need to separate content creators from real musicians, let’s say. If you can do both, it’s a great thing because you will have numbers on Instagram, YouTube, and all of that.”
Still, Mancuso remains positive about everything because again – the door to stardom (or at least getting known at all) is open to a lot more people. Or at least those that please the mysterious algorithmic gods, but that’s a whole separate conversation.
“And it’s a positive thing because you can do it from home. Now the work has changed a little bit, so also the income of a musician needs to be [separate]. You need to have separate incomes, you can’t rely anymore on live music, you need to have instructional material on the internet, and then you have also private lessons and all of that.”
“So everybody now is trying to do everything. Everybody is a teacher. Everybody is a content creator. Everybody’s a musician, also. So that’s why sometimes it gets a little bit tough. In order to be a musician, now you need to diversify your income, basically. And thanks to the internet, we can do that now, but it’s not like in the old days when, in order to be a musician, you just needed to play live. It’s not like that anymore.”
