Do you have to be social to be a musician

I think you have to follow your own path.
Do what you enjoy in the way you enjoy doing it.

I think it is to the contrary - musicians seem very private - all artists do - they can even seem 'nerdy' about it like computer geeks! LOL love them both - and really introverted personalities seem to be the best musicians -- @ being 'deep', they are serious about their craft.

i worked with lots of musicians back in the daze when i danced. if i had even 1/4 of a shot glass worth of musical talent, i would see it like you do - it's so ONLINE - i totally agree doing it where you do it and then sharing with gigabillions online is the first WAY -

"dance like nobody's looking"

... then you can get physical - show up and be with your fans (friends) and just play your music for them...

If you want to do original work you are far better off when you detach yourself from any and all social groups that youre connected to. Feeling securely attached slows your creativity down!

Your signature file seems to lead to a list (written by you) of several steps an artist should take to book, promote and perform at "social" events in order to be profitable. (In other words, being out there). Thus I am somewhat surprised by your post which seems to suggest that you yourself would rather not do those things, and instead stay indoors and make music in your lab, and expect similar success. In my opinion, this is somewhat contradictory. Care to explain?

I made my living as a musician for some years awhile back. I love the audience, I love playing, but for the most part, music is a solitary art. We spend years and countless hours learning to play, and practicing. If we did not enjoy that solitary playing, we never would have been able to reach any point of proficiency.

Today, I don't play publicly, but I can play a group of CDs by almost any artist, play along with those CDs on one of several instruments, and completely lose track of time. What feels like 15 minutes, turns out to be 3 hours! It happens every time.

:-Don

I think the artists you work with are saying this because, unless you get a record deal or have a promoter, you will probably have to be that person. A video alone may not suffice, especially with our current culture with access to so much digital information. It's hard for a video or two or three to be enough to get above all of the other noise out there. People in general are very fickle in nature and that requires extra work to get your message/music in front of people and get it to stick. By making appearances, it allows you to connect to a fan base that you otherwise may not have, and it allows you to get discovered by others who then become fans. There are the exceptions, but people in general like to get close to the musicians they follow. This idea is not solely for the music business since every product or service has to be "out there" at some level to survive.

As a musician who traveled quite a bit for shows, I hated the self-promotion aspect of it too. My experience was that you must be a self-promoter or be able to hire that piece out. Inevitably, when you hire that piece out, what do they ask you to do? They ask you to make appearances anywhere and everywhere you can!

I agree with ThomM, and my opinion is to stick with what you want to do and see how it goes. If you are not getting the music in front of as many people as you like, then you will have to make a decision if it is worth it to be "out there" to create the buzz you are looking for.

To be a pop idol, you need to be "out there".

To be a musician, you need practice.

There are two parts to "building a buzz".

1: Having something worth talking about.
2: Spreading it.

You should focus most of your time and energy on 1. I used to play in a band in my teenage days, and we did pretty well for ourselves by focusing all our energy on 2- talking to as many people as we could, building relationships with our supporters.

We had a lot of fans, but none of them were the crazy over-the-top tell-all-their-friends type, because our music wasn't that great. They came to support us more as friends- we just happened to have a lot of them, because we went out to talk to people.

If I could do it all over again, I'd focus on making great music instead. I knew great musicians who barely had to bother talking to people about their music- shy, abashed, awkward. But their fans were crazy.

So... don't worry too much about being social. Make the best music you can possibly make.

It is your choice if you want to be sociable to others or not although being too friendly has its own advantages and disadvantages. I say it is an advantage because you will have a close connection to your fans while the bad side of it is that you will lose your privacy.