Re: the CDs --> Liberate Music!

[Andre LaFosse <altruist@earthlink.net>]

> I would even encourage artists to give their music away for FREE!   [Of
> course, at this point in my life, I am still the consumer, and not the
> artist, so I may be biased here.]  

Hmmm.  

I realize most of the people on this list aren't actively making their
living through playing music, and that even fewer are making their
living playing their own music.  I've got no problem with people who
want to trade or give away their music out of sheer goodwill or the
desire to have their music heard.

However, here are some arguments for an artist actually charging a price
for what they do.  (Hopefully this won't utterly reek of a struggling
musician complaining about his lot in life.)

Making music takes time.  Trying to make music in certain ways can take
a *lot* of time.  Just getting yourself to the point where you have the
technical facility to realize that music (be it practicing a guitar or
programming samples in a computer) can take a *very very* long time.
Coming home from working eight hours in a "day job" and then trying to
muster up the energy and concentration to do a few hours of serious
practicing (not just vacant noodling in front of the TV) is a hugely
draining proposition.  

So trying to turn one's music into one's profession is often born
largely out of the need to set aside the necessary space in one's life
to pursue their music the way they want to.  

Many people who are serious about music have spent countless hours
throughout their entire lives trying to hone their craft.  It's not just
a case of idly sitting around thinking about how great it would be to
get paid money to strum a few chords -- it's a very serious investment
of discipline on many different levels.  A lot of musicians still
struggle to maintain that sort of dedication even while doing non-music
related jobs in order to make ends meet.  To suggest to someone in this
position that they might better serve their creative muse by giving away
music they have recorded in the name of liberating the creative spirit,
and then subsidize the expenditure by selling *t-shirts* of themselves,
is a dubious proposition to say the least.  

The idea of "alternative merchaindising" (t-shirts, posters, etc) works
well for a name act which has a fixed identity, an existing fan base,
and/or "product value".  People buy shirts from these acts because they
want to identify themselves as fans in public, and be recognized as fans
by other people who are presumed to have a knowledge of the artist in
question.  In short, you can get a lot of milage out of wearing a
Marilyn Manson T-shirt at a rock concert.  You'll get about 1/1000th of
a mile to the gallon wearing a "Joe Schmoe, Internet Loopist At Large"
shirt when you check your e-mail.  

You're absolutely right that online marketing and distribution is going
to completely change the way music is bought and sold, and you're right
that it allows the artist to eliminate the middleman.  For those very
reasons, the idea that the artist should therefore start giving their
music away through this sort of medium is a pretty unsympathetic point
of view.

Just about any band or artist web site nowadays has a page of sound
bites online where people can download samples of the act's music. 
Posting excerpts is the ideal way to go, since it gives a listener a
taste of what the band has to offer; at the same time, if someone wants
the entire piece, they need to buy the recording.  The artist's music is
exposed to just as many people as it would be if it were given away
online, but the artist isn't forfeiting their right to try and get a
tangible return on a lifetime's worth of work -- to say nothing of a
very real investment of finances in order to get the music recorded in
the first place.

If someone is actually taking the time and expense to record and
mass-produce (or even burn individual CD-Rs) of their music, the least
you can realistically expect is that they'll want to cover the cost of
doing so.  I realize that there are people (including some of you here)
who will and do go further, and give away these items in the name of
sharing your music.  I sincerely applaud your approach, but I also fully
empathize with those who want (let alone *need*) to see a return on
their investment.

My experience has been that the average person who buys records (or for
that matter, many people who follow music seriously and are themselves
musically active) don't really have the first clue as to what the
realities of trying to make a living in the arts is really like, either
in terms of the situational realities of the marketplace or in terms of
the psychological realities that an artist in that situation is prone to
dealing with on a day-to-day or minute-by-minute basis.

So, for all those who have no doubt spent every bit as much time and
dedication pursuing their music as has been detailed above, and are
still perfectly happy to have music as a hobby, a side interest, or a
lark, more power to you.  

But I'd like every person reading this to do one thing: Think about your
favorite musicians and artists.  Think about how their music has
affected your lives.  Think about the investment of time and resources
that it must have taken for them to be able to bring these things into
being.  

And then think about whether or not this music could realistically have
come into being if they hadn't pursued music professionally.

--Andre LaFosse
http://home.earthlink.net/~altruist