“There’s a version of musical success almost nobody on the internet talks about anymore, and it’s the most common one in human history. You make music with your friends. You record your songs. You play the local bar on Friday night and the church on Sunday and the festival in the park in July. You teach a kid down the street how to hold a guitar. You write something that gets sung at a wedding. You die having made beauty for the people who shared your life. That is success. That has always been success. Most musicians who have ever lived have lived exactly that life, and most of them were not unhappy about it.”
–Joshua Heath Scott, owner of JHS Pedals, on substack, 4/26/2026