When I began a solo career I was ready to broaden my horizons as a musician, as an adult, and as an artist. I thought that I was ready for it too, and to be quite honest, in many respects I was: I had a good idea of what kind of products I needed to have available, I knew what standard of quality they needed to uphold, I knew how to budget finances for them, how to set deadlines at each stage of the projects, how I could go about promoting them, and I even knew what directions I could go once my ideas were launched. I was ready for the hard work, dedication, and discipline that it would take to get where I am today. What I wasn’t ready for was the criticism.

As soon as my album, When Will Then Be Now, had gone live and the music videos started racking up plays on the interweb, I couldn’t possibly describe the feeling I had. For starters I felt freedom, like setting a bird free and watching it fly away. I felt proud that this project I had spent so much time and energy on was finished (and sounding precisely how I had I envisioned it). I felt excitement, as I was going into uncharted territory and anything could happen.

So I waited and observed.

Social media, text messages, and phone calls revealed to me that my work was both enjoyed and appreciated by many; the numbers of plays increased almost as fast as the number of free album downloads. I was excited to see so much good coming from such humble beginnings, and I was overwhelmed with joy.

Then I read this comment on YouTube:

“Bad choice of song/genre to spend this much time on. Can’t put any vocals on this and very hard to listen to for more than a minute.”

At first I laughed, because I thought it to be a joke. I quickly searched my brain for which of my friends might make a joke like this whilst I chucked to myself. Then it hit me.

This was real.

This guy really hated my music. But in all seriousness, I knew going into this that not everyone would enjoy this kind of music. That wasn’t a surprise to me. What bothered me was that this dude felt he needed to voice his opinion about what my music was, that he had the right to label it and write it in stone for anyone to see.

And others followed, posting insulting comments on web forums that I had promoted on. And after a while that’s all I could see. I’d weave through 200 comments of praise, just to find the handful of people who didn’t like it. They always had the most to say, and I became fixated on the number of s@&! talkers out there. I didn’t mind if anyone didn’t like my music, or if it wasn’t for them. More power to ya! I get it. But why do you have to tear me down and be so offensive? My mama always taught me that if you don’t have anything nice to say, don’t say anything at all.

But I guess haters gotta hate and there’s nothing you can do about it. As soon as you make something available to the world, every person feels they have a right to tell you and everyone else what it really is, what your intentions were, and all of your shortcomings. Throughout my career as a sideman I had never been faced with this adversary before, nor did I really even know what it meant. It probably wouldn’t have meant anything to me, anyway, because my job was done well and my paycheck was in hand.

I had been prepared for a lot of thing from different teachers and mentors, but no one had prepared me for dealing with this. My solution?

Quite simple. I stopped searching it out and it stopped bothering me. The people who enjoy my work are the ones I want to talk to, and the ones who hate can do that too. You can’t win em all, so just move on. I did.

But it got me thinking: how many times have I done this myself? How many times have I heard a song on the radio and said, “Oh, they just quantized and auto tuned the bageezus out of this,” or seen a movie and said, “Man, they screwed up that ending.” Of course I’m allowed my own opinion, but somebody put a lot of time into those productions. I’m no better than that guy on YouTube; why do I feel that I have the right to tear it down with my words? Maybe this is something we all struggle with and don’t even realize the harm we’re causing someone else with our own words…

So be ready to deal with criticism, because it’s out there. Sometimes it’s unwarranted and sometimes it’s spiteful, and quite often it’s hurtful. But you’ll figure out a way to deal with it. I hope it’s not a surprise to you like it was to me.