On this point, I read an inspiring (if rambling) article recently (I
think it was probably a college kid's essay that got published on the
web: http://www.firstmonday.org/issues/issue6_8/pfahl/)
that pointed out exactly what you said about kids getting all their
music for free anyway, cited the current fan-boy culture, and proposed
that independent musicians could make a living by giving away all
their music and using it to build a loyal cultish fan base that would
support them in other creative ways (t-shirts, stickers, etc. as well
as online donations, pay-to-join live chat sessions, etc.). The
beginning of the article is pretty slow, but it's interesting because
he talks about how most groups that do get signed by a label still only
scrape out a meager living, and the label is free to dump the artist at
any time if they lose interest. It's much more secure to take matters
into your own hands since your own well-being is always in your best
interest.
A good non-musical example of the concept proposed would be the
Homestar Runner website (http://www.homestarrunner.com).
People visit the site to laugh at their stupid Flash cartoons, which
they give away for free. They don't even sell ads on the site. All
the work is done by two brothers who make a living off of merch sales
through the HR store.
It's a completely different model than what I've seen modeled, but I
think with some dedication and creativity, it could certainly be
applied successfully to a musical career.
--Josh
Arne R. Skage jr wrote:
Its beside the point to start ranking "chops"/sales figures, One
elitism isnt any prettier than the next. As one pointed out the
industry is weakening due to the internet and the consumers shopping
habbits. This is bad for the ones raking inn the big money, but it also
makes life harder for the struggeling / up and comming musician.
Everyone has their own "studio", everyone is on myspace , This is
good for the small comunities (like the looping comunity) but its
getting harder to get heard as the "noisfloor" has risen dramaticly..,
Of cours there are example of bands having sucsess via myspace etc.
but generaly I think the "paying" public is the only winner , the
loosers are the musicians, wherever they are in the foodchain (usually
at the bottom). The atitude of the kids here today is "why pay for
music when you can get it for free?", The result is that the
strugeling musicians give away their recorded music and do gigs for
free ( or even pay to play) in hope that one day.... they will
become....STING
2007/2/15, Tom Ritchford <tom@swirly.com>:
On
2/15/07, Arne R. Skage jr <arneskage@gmail.com>
wrote:
> Welcome to the cruel world of competion, its a jungle out there so
go get
> them tiger...
That argument worked a lot better a few decades ago when there was a
flat playing field and actual musicians could do pretty well.
Tell me -- aside from dinosaur acts, what current top 10 musician/pop
star is famous for their musicianship?
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> 2007/2/14, Tom Ritchford <
tom@swirly.com>:
> > "Oh Sting, Where is thy Death?" :-D
> >
> > Do remember that there are only a finite number of
entertainment and
> > particularly music dollars. And even for people with
unlimited funds,
> > they only have so many nights to go out.
> >
> > For each dinosaur band that takes in $300 million on tour,
that's $300
> > million that isn't going to other musicians like us.
> >
> > --
> > /t
> >
> > http://ax.to ......... extreme NY
arts and music calendar
> > http://ax.to/tr ....... my
secret little little...
> > http://ax.to/radio ... my
little radio station (on intermittently)
> >
> >
>
>
>
> --
> Arne R. Skage jr.
>
> 91157204
> arne@skage.com
> www.skage.com
--
/t
http://ax.to ......... extreme NY arts
and music calendar
http://ax.to/tr ....... my secret
little little...
http://ax.to/radio ... my little
radio station (on intermittently)
--
Arne R. Skage jr.
91157204
arne@skage.com
www.skage.com
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