Why make music. By Kevin Patrick Fitzgerald, Originally published on Medium November 2025, Reissued by Mnoty Press, 2026.

I make music for healing. I make it for spiritual, universal, humanistic healing. Maybe it would be more effective if I had a bigger audience, but then, maybe it wouldn't.

I believe we are all prophets. We all have something spiritually real to contribute. Some do it through art, some do it through technology, some do it through meditation, therapy, medicine… Each of us has a spiritual calling, which might not be our principle financial vocation.

I live in a small village. There are farmers, drivers, scrappers… and some sing karaoke. And some of those who sing karaoke are really good at matching the pitch of the original singers, and some are not. Either way, some of them really put their hearts into it.

That's what I'm talking about. Doing that which inspires us, not to gain approval, but because that spirit within us yearns for sincere expression.

My version of passionate off-key karaoke is my experimental music. I don't expect it to be a crowd pleaser. I don't expect it to make money.

This is not to say anything against people who choose to make music as a career. I think that's great, especially if they can get it to work. That gives them more time to work on their music, and more time to spend with loved ones. This is good for all of us, and we should give professional musicians more money.

I heard Dave Mustaine recently in an interview, after being asked if he has advice for songwriters, and he said to watch Purple Rain, and referenced when a friend told Prince, 'nobody understands your music but you'. And Mustaine said he didn't want to be that guy, and that he wanted to give people a melody they can bring with them as they go through life.

I think that's great, and yes I've written a few songs a while back, and that's a really solid way to look at it. I have many of Mustaine's lines going through my head often, and they do help me live a better life.

That doesn't mean it's the only legitimate way of going about making music, though. The way he does it is good, and the way I do it is good, and I don't know how you should do it.

And maybe this is my point. There are more than one good way to make music. I listen to Sun Ra and laugh. Others listen to in and cringe. And that's alright, too. That's part of the beauty of humanity, we're so similar mechanically, yet so very diverse in our artistic movements.

So, yeh, it's fine if people think I do it wrong. And it's fine if people think you or they do it wrong. I believe in a spiritual presence that guides us internally, and I believe in an evil presence that tries to tell us that our spirit guide is false.

We thereby have opportunities to recognize the evil within us that makes us want to respond with hostility and impose our musical values on others, and to rise above it.

Peace.