Re: Why SHOULDN'T musicians be paid?

["Warren Sirota" <wsirota@wsdesigns.com>]

I'm sorry Rick, while I respect you immensely, I gotta come down with
Travis on this (who I think you've been a bit rude to), but maybe
phrased differently: people of limited means, as most people are, tend
to spend most of their money on things they perceive that they *have*
to spend money on - food, shelter, medical care, etc. Musicians are a
category of discretionary spending, so we tend to make less. I think
Travis is using "useful" to mean an "unavoidable expenditure".

Whether you respect what you do or not or are bitter or not about
this reality doesn't change it, and one shouldn't have to wear blinders
in order to be PC about this. Of course music has value. Of course
musicians should be well-compensated. Of course Bush should have been
drawn and quartered 6 years ago. This is not a perfect world.

On Wed, Apr 16, 2008 at 4:56 AM, Rick Walker <looppool@cruzio.com> wrote:

Travis wrote:
"What I do as a musician is very useful--to me.  Fifteen years of public performance has led me to the conclusion that it's not terribly useful to most people, certainly not when it comes to them paying me money for what I do.

When plumbing goes wrong, people get sick and die.  Clean water flowing in and dirty water flowing out without a problem is a necessity for living.  If I get hit by a bus on my way to a gig, they play the in-store CD player that night.  When my sewer line breaks because a tree root has broken a pipe under the front yard, I need a lot of specialized information, tools, time and smelly effort to set things right again--or I pay someone else a thousand dollars to do it better and quicker than I can.  When people don't have any music, they turn on the radio and the problem's solved.  Music is incredibly easy to find, plumbing less so.  Thus the average plumber makes much more than the average musician."

Wow,  Travis,   your cyncism and lack of respect or existential self esteem for what you do is astonishing to me and hard to believe.

I'm proud to be a musician,  whether I'm paid well or not.   I'll do it until I die because I love it and value it myself.
I can't imagine living without music, frankly.

Maybe I"m reading you wrong,  but do I detect a large share of bitterness about your inability to make money from your music?

In my world,  I value artistry and creativity higher than almost anything, so I don't have any judgement of whether you can make money with your music or not.
Some of my favorite artists are NOT full time professional musicians.

 To assume, of course, is to make an ASS out of U and ME
so I could be way off base here, but I'm just curious about your response to the strong things I"ve just said.

Perplexed but still respectfully yours,

Rick