What's the future of the music industry?

oh sorry matt, xp of course!

Um. As much as I hate being seen to be in agreement with Geir, this idea isn't completely batshit.

It really depends on the musician. Being that "musician" has taken on a double meaning both "composer" and "performer" in a way that they were not always synonymous.

There are many people who we think of as "musicians" who are far more comfortable with the composing aspect than the performing. This does not mean *all* musicians should solely be composers, but it's equally batshit as a Geirism to think that there are no musicians who are not more comfortable with a composer role than a performer.

The idea that "gigs are where the artist gets paid" is only true when the band can command a decent fee. Back whenever, groups used to do tours that would not recoup the cost, purely on the basis that the increased record sales would make up for it. Of course, the more the idea that gigs = money, the more ways to take the money off the artist will get created by the managers, promoters, rig-hires, t-shirt sellers, etc...

Karen otm -- and i think even more nowadays, considering the costs of recording and producing technology are so cheap and easy - like you can sit in your bedroom and make an album all by yourself - there are more younger musicians that don't think about playing live as the primary goal.

xxxp But what is this thinning-the-herd? What a nasty piece of bullshit. I'd hate to see you at a pass-the-hat sort of gig. "Nothing from me, thanks, it's for your own good, I'm thinning the herd." Are you serious? If you aren't, I apologize, but like I don't even know where to start. A third to half of the new bands that play, say, ACL, that is, the ones who can buy gear, record and press records, they are the vanity projects of the independently wealthy. Many bands I love fall into this category, but it doesn't exactly represent a diverse cultural landscape. "Thinning the herd" means you'll be getting more of JD & The Straight Shot.

have you never seen a great gig that's miles better than the record?

very often vice versa!

(kate otm.)

There are many people who we think of as "musicians" who are far more comfortable with the composing aspect than the performing. This does not mean *all* musicians should solely be composers, but it's equally batshit as a Geirism to think that there are no musicians who are not more comfortable with a composer role than a performer.

That's obviously true as well, but Geir was putting the primacy of studio music ahead of all else, which is a very Geir thing to do, and of course is wrong.

Also there are more musicians in the world who aren't composers than vice-versa. Way more.

But what is this thinning-the-herd? What a nasty piece of bullshit. I'd hate to see you at a pass-the-hat sort of gig. "Nothing from me, thanks, it's for your own good, I'm thinning the herd." Are you serious? If you aren't, I apologize, but like I don't even know where to start.

1. you have no idea who i am or what my background is
2. i'm mostly joking

But the thing is, the whole thrust of this thread and all this music industry handwringing is that it's the composing musicians who are getting the bitter end of the shaft in the current climate.

Performing musicians who don't compose, their ways of making a living really have not been affected by the digital revolution. We are, in this thread, already having a conversation about the ones who compose, because they're the ones hurt by the shakeup.

@ Sarah I don't seek to be antagonistic in asking this, at all at all, but why does my post have any bearing on your background? (And I figured you were mostly joking)

I'll tell you after the weekend ;-)

i checked the myspace now i'm not at work. definitely voting greedy fuckers. would've liked to've seen u guys this weekend, but there's no way i'll be getting a hall pass tomorrow so next time hopefully :(

Owen - because the part of me that isn't joking was frustrated by seeing way too many musicians and bands wanting paying gigs and touring through -- too many for the physical reality of the city i live in, of the number of potential paying audience members -- and a lot of them were fairly mediocre.

But the thing is, the whole thrust of this thread and all this music industry handwringing is that it's the composing musicians who are getting the bitter end of the shaft in the current climate.

Performing musicians who don't compose, their ways of making a living really have not been affected by the digital revolution. We are, in this thread, already having a conversation about the ones who compose, because they're the ones hurt by the shakeup.

Not entirely - surely studio musicians who don't compose are also being hit, given lower recording budgets and all that? But yeah, not the central thrust of the argument. Geir's assertion, that playing live is of secondary importance to bands who also record and release music, is nonsense in many cases.

have you never seen a great gig that's miles better than the record?

I want my music to sound absolutely perfect, with no rough edes, no wrong notes, no mistakes of any kind, everything purely perfect, perfect and utter perfect. The smoother the better.

From that criteria. No, I haven't. Studio is always better than live.

Yeah it's already been pointed out that record companies are interested in acts with low overheads, so that means, like, no horn section, for instance.

xpost

As for musicians who don't compose, they aren't real musicians. The songwriter is the one and only genius, and first and foremost it is important to find ways for the songwriter to get paid. Now that works somewhat in terms of live performance too, because all serious arrangers of live concerts will make sure to report to ASCAP or whatever what is being played, and the composers get their fair share. It is more about the superior versions (which IMO are always the studio ones, without exceptions) deserving more pay than the inferior ones.

@ Karen, the major mitigating factor in keeping good music scenes in Toronto and Montreal, as opposed to many cities in the States, is of course our highly controversial public health care program.

Grants exist, but mostly to stimulate a "culture industry"; that is, most of the money goes to stimulating the careers of established bands/labels. Sell 10K in Canada, get tour support. It actually works in a weirdly Reaganomics fashion.

The Polyphonic Spree is officially a thing of the past.

Love the idea of Geir going up to a world-class soprano or a virtuoso violinist and telling them they aren't real musicians.

As for musicians who don't compose, they aren't real musicians. The songwriter is the one and only genius,

OK, nonesense time,.

Two words: Irving Berlin.

I want my music to sound absolutely perfect, with no rough edes, no wrong notes, no mistakes of any kind, everything purely perfect, perfect and utter perfect. The smoother the better.

Volume Reference Tone - the greatest piece of music in human history.

yeah even 10cc put out a double live album.

It sounds crap though. 10cc sounded really horrible live, not surprising, given the nature of their music, which was of course impossible to reproduce live.

My favourite single of all time is "Bohemian Rhapsody". Now, Queen did perform that song live, but the best bits (the opera/choir bits obviously) were all on tape.

@ Sarah in fact, you are right on the money. My booking agent even uses words like "Rocktober" to describe that period of time where every band in the world goes on tour all at the same time.

Matt DC - It's been a decade since I was a proper session player and nearly 5 years since I was around jobbing musicians but - my memory is that being a session player, the biggest source of income was not actually studio jobs, but those things you tend not to think of - playing backup in touring bands, wedding/covers bands, musicals (for someone in the musicians union, this can be great work), Butlins/cruise ships and weird things like that. (I once knew someone who would go and play drums on cruise ships for 6 months of the year to support coming back to NYC and playing in his indie rock band the other half.)

True, the whole thing of one-dude laptop acts has cut down on the number of people who have to rent-a-rhythm-section for a touring band, but studio work was never the number one income source really.

It would be interesting to see how smaller to medium size recording studios have fared, because this is somewhere I imagine the budget taking the biggest hit, since people can record so easily in their own homes. 4-track to small studio was a massive step up, but laptop to small studio is a step down in sound quality.

Love the idea of Geir going up to a world-class soprano or a virtuoso violinist and telling them they aren't real musicians.

Mozart, Beethoven, Handel and Bach are all fondly remembered today, whereas most of the virtuoso musicians that originally performed them are not at all remembered. It took until Paganini for a virtuoso instrumentalist to become a true historical legend, and that may have helped by the fact that he also did some composition himself.

One important point, of course, is that with today's technology, you don't need to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars to record a great sounding album. Thus, the need for imcome for studio musicians is a bit less, but I still reckon it's important that the leading studio acts out there to be able to make a living from their music, just like 10cc, Supertramp and Prefab Sprout, Scritti Politti did (this in spite of the latter two never quite putting the hitlists on fire)

the major mitigating factor in keeping good music scenes in Toronto and Montreal, as opposed to many cities in the States, is of course our highly controversial public health care program.

Why doesn't this translate in the UK, then?

You don't have to sell 10k to get a music grant, do you? Or at least, this surely wasn't the case 10 years ago. Heck, I've toured on a Canadian music grant and there was no way that band sold 10k!

"Studio musicians" in this case meaning musicians who concentrate on composing and arranging great music in the studio - not session men.

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-WCkadc9qOx8/TaJDtUuAH3I/AAAAAAAAGEk/2B5mig98eCM/s1600/void.jpg

The impression here in Norway is that musicians who sell 50.000 copies of their albums will have a rather OK income from that. They don't get wealthy, but they get as much pay as the average craftsman does. Only the most popular albums sell 50.000 here, but in the US or Canadian market, even rather underground acts should be able to shift 50.000 copies.

It's like saying Lewis Hamilton isn't a racing driver because he didn't design the ford cortina.

@ Karen. There are several granting institutions and they all work differently. The one that I've found is the most lucrative, is called Radio Starmaker, and yes, if you are a pop act, you have to sell 10K in Canada to qualify. (If you're a folk act, or "electronica" act, I believe the bracket is much lower.)

going back to what you were saying, Owen, about friend rock -- like the mediocrity was only so relevant (it being subjective, esp. when the musician/band in question was gonna be an opener or support act) -- the thing that was most frustrating was the bands/musicians that didn't have local connections. It felt like they were operating on the assumption that because they were musicians that people would inherently want to see them play. Like several dozen people are gonna say to themselves, "Oh wow! I totally want to pay $6 to see some guys i don't know, that none of my friends know or have even heard of, play guitars while i drink a few beers!"

noodle otm

It's like saying Lewis Hamilton isn't a racing driver because he didn't design the ford cortina.

For me, this is about a quality difference between actually creating art and just performing other people's art. Songwriters are artists, whereas instrumentalists/vocalists/whatever are just professionals.

As for the Irving Berlin example, Irving Berlin was like Leonardo Da Vinci painting the Mona Lisa painting, while Bing Crosby was the guy printing copies of Da Vinci's original work. The latter is obviously a craftsman, with education in printing and whatever, but Irvin Berlin is the one and only artist, in terms of the guy who actually creates the art.

http://i66.photobucket.com/albums/h279/juicyfrt/geirbot.jpg

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-4pzR6lrHa8Y/TdkECRVioNI/AAAAAAAAAPQ/0DKR045rMZc/s1600/Olivier.jpg

(This, of course, provides that the artist writing the songs actually wants to create art, and not just construct something that will sell - which is why Gershwin was superior to Berlin and Paul McCartney and Brian Wilson are superior to Steinberg and Kelly.)

yeah, but he couldn't play the piano for toffee...

Basically, if a top soprano isn't a musician, and Irving isn't either, than who is? Only people who can play and compose?

That's a good point, Sarah. There's a hilarious artist space in Toronto that is often mistaken for an after-hours and you consistently see confused people looking for cheap booze trying to parse whatever performance art thing is going on. But what you call "local connections" is often just as simple as having some friends who'll come and see you play, you know?

speaking of which, there's this guy that comments on every article in the regional newspaper that's about my city, and is obsessed with the unfairness of parking enforcement. Geir reminds me of that guy.

Are we getting Geir'd right now?

Basically, if a top soprano isn't a musician, and Irving isn't either, than who is? Only people who can play and compose?

It is OK for me to say that, OK, a soprano is a musician. But only the composer can possibly be an artistic genius.

"only working class people can be racist"

But what you call "local connections" is often just as simple as having some friends who'll come and see you play, you know?

yeah, exactly -- or know a couple other local bands that have friends that will come see them play.

BLimey, Geir changed his mind there.

i shd stick at the jpeg but i just had a thought. all artists are influenced by others, many composers going so far as to incorporate folk tunes and other musics directly into their own work. so when Messaien orchestrates bird song, is he stealing off a bird who is the authentic artist there? or are Zeppelin mere Willy Dixon plagiarists? is there ultimately like only one artist right back at the beginning of human culture and everybody else is a crappy professional photocopying their cast-offs?

and now back to staring into the abyss, folks

Well, I was going to say:

If VVanGogh paints sunflowers, who is the artistic genius, him, or the guy that grew the sunflowers? (or, indeed, God?)