Artisanship vs. Artistry

If you want to maintain any sense of sanity as a working composer, it's important that you have the right perspective on your craft. Becoming too emotionally involved with your work can be disastrous for your career and your mental health.In my opinion, film composers are much more like artisans than artists. I expect that comment may get some people riled up, but bear with me.A film composer has a lot more in common with a graphic designer than an abstract painter. We are hired to write music for a very specific purpose, and very often for a commercial purpose. Rather than dreaming up some epic expression of our artistic souls, we are expected to deliver a piece of music that functions in specific ways and follows specific guidelines.There is no shame in this. Just because you are a craftsman doesn't mean that your work is not art. Even Mozart didn't just wake up in the morning and think "I'm going to write a symphony today". He was commissioned to write specific pieces, a procession or requiem for example.If you can look at your work from the perspective of craft, you will be much better suited to handling criticism and feedback. Whenever a director gives you a note or tells you they didn't like a cue, you won't be offended or feel like your immortal artist has been insulted. You are more like an architect, and the director is merely asking you to add a few more feet to the bedroom and to change the material of the outer walls. No big deal.There are some people in the film music community who seem to have an insanely inflated sense of importance. I mean no disrespect to the immense effort and masterful work that our community produces, but I think people generally need to lighten up. You may believe that you are the second coming of Beethoven, but you're writing music for battling robots. Get over yourself and do your job.