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RE: IF you havent allready u need to try Spotify
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z6
Posts: 225
Joined: Mar. 1 2011
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 RE: IF you havent allready u need to... (in reply to Florian)
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Ricardo, I bought your 'Madera Sonora' album on itunes.
I consider it a masterpiece. I'm afraid I'm not hip to much of what's out there (i do not use streamed services).
But I have to take issue with what you say about how the 'exposure' these systems offer (with virtually no payment) does not lead to much. I think when someone produces a piece of work as original as you have then that work will survive and flourish, and this 'advertising' will reach marks as yet unseen.
Willie Nelson said '...write a good song and it'll take care of you'. I expect it may be a long time before a connection is made between your music and a source of income that matches the creative input that your album represents.
I believe the music transcends the form (flamenco jazz fusion, right?   )
Sorry, couldn't help that.
Certainly the impact cannot possibly be as immediate as PDLs, but then his career had been in full force for many years before he 'truly broke'.
Your album is beautifully played but it is the compostions that I find stunning. I read you constantly here telling people to observe the forms, yet what I hear sounds like mature compositions, like string quartets or sonatas (or even string movements in sonata form). (That's what it brings to mind anyway. The lightness, the lyricism, that strange quality that makes music sound both familiar and original at the same time, as if it were somehow inevitable.)
I think you're right to be pissed at the paltry sums offered for snatching your music. But the music is there. It won't go away, and the longer it exists the more chance that people will be able to 'exploit' it in a way more acceptable and advantagous to you.
So, please keep those fusion stylings (that is a joke, by the way, although people will call it what they will) coming and a greater audience will surely appear. For me, you are taking the music somewhere quite new and refreshing... maybe in a quiet, unassuming way, but I detect real power in the conception. The audience will emerge and these systems will help reach the wider audience.
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Date Jun. 19 2012 22:11:39
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Mark2
Posts: 1871
Joined: Jul. 12 2004
From: San Francisco
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RE: IF you havent allready u need to... (in reply to Florian)
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Whoo boy. This is a subject I have thought about a lot. I'm 54, and started playing music when I was 16. At 21, I went on the road with my first professional band. I played on several records back when they were released on vinyl. I produced a cd back in 2001 -it cost about 20k. I sold copies at gigs for 20.00
I had a distributer who placed the cd in all kinds of stores. He paid me 6.50 a cd. I made back the 20k in about a year. By 2005, we were lucky to get 10.00 a cd at a gig, and people would tell you to your face they were gonna copy it for their friends. The distributer stopped ordering a few years ago.
Today, I get checks once a month or so for 20.00 for downloads, etc.
Things have gotten so bad for musicians. Essentially, recorded music was the hope for a musician in the past. The hope of financial success. If you created a product and promoted it, you had a chance to get income for life, and then some, for it. You had a chance for publishing income, performance royalties, increased fees for gigs, all from the popularity of a recording or a song. It made sense for an artist to continue to write and record music. One break and your entire catalog could become a paying asset. It was always a long shot, but you had a shot.
Good recordings are expensive to make-they always have been, and while some individuals can create good recordings at home now, it takes a lot of experience, knowledge, skill, and talent to do so. How many people can do that and also write and perform music well enough to compete? Not many.
During parts of of the 80's I played six nights a week and made more than many guys working day gigs my age. I was no more than an average musician, same as the rest of the guys in the groups I played in. A tour in those days meant hotel rooms, plane tickets, and sometimes per diem fees, even for top 40 bands.
That is not possible anymore, gigs pay less today when adjusted for inflation than they did 30 years ago. The people who say musicians should give away their recordings and live from live gigs are idiots who have never been in the business. The RECORDING was the thing-the gig was to promote the recording.
Now people steal the recording, and it has been almost completely devalued. It's because of the greedy record companies some say. ****. It's because they can. If people could walk onto car lots and take BMW's, they would.
Today, unless you are at the top of the game, or an incredibly hard working and diverse money making machine, you will have a very hard time making anywhere near what an average working man in a trade makes. The recording musician is fast on his way to becoming a buggy whip manufacturer, someone with a product that is no longer in demand. Apple makes billions selling the ipod, but the content is worthless. It's like PEZ-the dispenser is cool-no one cares about the candy.
There are truly great players or writers who will make the decision to forgo a music career IMO because of the state of the business. Others will simply struggle in poverty.
I see no cure, but life goes on. I play music with a few guys also in their fifties who have never really done anything other than play music for a living. They are incredibly skilled, but they will likely never make what an average plumber makes. Then again, they don't have to crawl around in Sh%t.
I made a different choice-I wanted to be a pro musician, but I wasn't willing to sacrfice my family's well being for it. As the years passed, my day gig became lucrative, and my playing skills diminished compared to the full timers I gigged with. Those who think part timers can fill the void of the professional player are wrong IMO.
All I can say to the pros out there is you all are gutsy MFer's. Live by the sword, die by it. I'm glad I had the chance to do it, and I'm glad I'm not doing it now.
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Date Jun. 19 2012 22:14:46
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Ricardo
Posts: 14806
Joined: Dec. 14 2004
From: Washington DC
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RE: IF you havent allready u need to... (in reply to Munin)
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quote:
ORIGINAL: Munin
quote:
ORIGINAL: Ricardo
quote:
that I can still buy at a later stage if I really like them.
Understood, but what exactly makes you want to buy it if you can listen to it anytime you want anyway???
Well...I want to support the artist? Does that seem that absurd to you these days?
Kudo: I can't use it anymore because I have a new phone and it doesn't register that I already purchased it before...tried contacting Maissam / the support several times to no avail...get no response.
Yeah, it is getting to the point where if THAT is the only way an artist gets paid it is absurd. It's like a hand out, not because there is a preference for the "thing" purchased...just you like it enough so feel compelled to give money like a tip.
For DR compas I put it on IPAD even though I had IPHONE....you have to go through same steps AS THOUGH YOU WERE gonna buy it again, but you must have same apple account and password....after that you are told you already bought it...buy it again and you are NOT charged. It took me a couple of tries but it worked finally.
To deniz....increase CD prices coincided with the ease of copying and free distribution...the only way to recoup the production costs was increase price as folks made copies and shared. Copy protections were fleeting attempts to slow the pace. Now a days more independent artists put up music for download...that IS giving direct to artists, yet now we have damned spotify streaming etc. Only royalties are made, but compared to hard copy sales it doesn't fill the gap left by killing the record company model.
z6...thanks for the praise and interest in my music. Form is important, but of course I like to connect things in a more linear way when I arrange compose or even improvise. I hope it will continue to be worth it to produce and pay for producion of future recordings.
Mark...very true...good points about working pros and recordings and inflation...my dad didn't play as much as me 30 years ago but could charge similar fees. Pretty lame. But it's not QUITE as dark as the picture painted in my experience, it's ok to live by the sword and actually LIVE lol!
Last point, I have been ranting about INTERNET stuff...again I point out having CDs is very cool and lucrative long term in the REAL WORLD...that being when I perform which I both enjoy doing and get more money AND EXPOSURE from. Point is real spending people go outside of the house and live a little, vs the internet exposure I get by exposing myself worldly to a group that actually mostly try to find least expensive ways to get stuff. I always made a point in the past that as a student, PAYING hard earned savings on flamenco stuff, cds books dvd etc, allowed me plenty of time to appreciate the stuff, savor it and really focus....vs the poor students now a days want to learn EVERYTHING and have everything free and easy as an app on the the same thing they phone home and check email on....how can you savor it and focus with SO MUCH spoon fed stuff????
Ricardo
_____________________________
CD's and transcriptions available here:
www.ricardomarlow.com
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Date Jun. 20 2012 1:55:28
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chester
Posts: 891
Joined: Oct. 29 2010
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RE: IF you havent allready u need to... (in reply to Ricardo)
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quote:
ORIGINAL: Ricardo
Last point, I have been ranting about INTERNET stuff...again I point out having CDs is very cool and lucrative long term in the REAL WORLD...that being when I perform which I both enjoy doing and get more money AND EXPOSURE from. Point is real spending people go outside of the house and live a little, vs the internet exposure I get by exposing myself worldly to a group that actually mostly try to find least expensive ways to get stuff. I always made a point in the past that as a student, PAYING hard earned savings on flamenco stuff, cds books dvd etc, allowed me plenty of time to appreciate the stuff, savor it and really focus....vs the poor students now a days want to learn EVERYTHING and have everything free and easy as an app on the the same thing they phone home and check email on....how can you savor it and focus with SO MUCH spoon fed stuff????
Ricardo
Man, one second you're talking about how being a musician is a great responsibility, then you're whining that the poor kid in Estonia isn't going to book you for a gig. I thought it's a privilege that other people are listening to your music, and that being successful isn't only about money?
Of course, you also need to put food on the table (your kids don't come to all those parties with the free food).
Your points about quick and easy are true. I'm sure many of us used to sit down and listen to an entire album, nowadays people listen to music 'on the go', or just one tune from here and another from there on youtube.
Like I said, things change. What about before TV was invented? Or recorded music? People would probably be more active and be able to have fun, not just seek entertainment.
The point where you contradict yourself the most is that you actually owe a whole lot to this fast and easy culture. You give Skype lessons, you sell your CDs online, you get gigs based on your youtube clips, etc. Then you turn around and say 'guys - this internet thing is a waste of time, I only use it for entertainment, the world was better without it'.
Life is a series of choices. One can still sit down with a book or a recording and savor every moment. Nothing is really preventing that.
Also about the article you posted. Definitely has good points, but it's irrelevant to this discussion. We're not discussing if it's ok to pirate music. Spotify is legal and I happily pay the monthly subscription price. You can't blame the users for the unfair arrangement when it's really the record companies that determine how much you get per listen.
I wish the arrangement would of been more on the side of the artist, but that's the reality we live in where some douchebag with no skills gets paid more because he has connections, but the responsibility to change that is on you the artist, not us the listeners.
Next time read carefully before you check any boxes.
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Date Jun. 20 2012 21:33:47
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Ricardo
Posts: 14806
Joined: Dec. 14 2004
From: Washington DC
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RE: IF you havent allready u need to... (in reply to chester)
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quote:
Man, one second you're talking about how being a musician is a great responsibility, then you're whining that the poor kid in Estonia isn't going to book you for a gig. I thought it's a privilege that other people are listening to your music, and that being successful isn't only about money?
Makes no sense man. Point of estonia guy was that you think I was getting exposure... I asked what for? I mean why did he need to stream my **** cheap...he can see me play on youtube if that's all its about? My recording, (as Mark made a clear description of the purpose of a recording project) was the one part of my art, other than a full concert performance/gig, that I WANTED to sell...thanks to spotify the guy was able to circumvent that. The responsibility part of mclaughlin's statement goes much further than simply to imply SHARING art at any cost. And the privledge part of it goes much further than making dinero. It's comical to think you want to twist the meaning of his statement to imply i have a "responsibiliy" to sell my self cheap or free or PAY to be heard, and feel "priviledged" at the same time to bend over and take it.
quote:
The point where you contradict yourself the most is that you actually owe a whole lot to this fast and easy culture. You give Skype lessons, you sell your CDs online, you get gigs based on your youtube clips, etc. Then you turn around and say 'guys - this internet thing is a waste of time, I only use it for entertainment, the world was better without it'.
I never stated the internet as a whole was a waste of time...just that people are using it to spoon feed themselves. A big difference. As far as skype, not a comparison to spotify. I charge MORE for skype than I do for someone coming to my house for an hour. Comparable however, but much more involded than sitting at home and seeing someone face to face. Skype turns out to be great for a student not in my local however and I think a great alternative. Selling CD's online is great dealing with CD Baby, as I have stated, but no comparison to hard copy sales. Not a total waste, but forgot to mention I sell off more hard copies via my web site as far as online sales go, but I have to take my butt to the post office and mail em myself. But the proper money and costs are all in order....spotify? give me a break man.
Youtube is a different story. I think its a great tool for sharing stuff not commercially available or promotion etc....in many cases of bootleg stuff which is NOT commercially available but I think SHOULD be, the copyright thing has been taken TOO far with people scared to do it all legally, pulling vids and red flagging **** that was never meant to be part of the world of commercial sales anyway...that's going overboard. Streaming **** is only one degree above the whole piracy free sharing thing of COMMERCIALLY available stuff...or one penny I should say... a loop hole where the artist still gets screwed by now the big guy keeps making money.
The link I shared was long, but WAS relevant regarding the short section on spotify discussed where the UK ceo was revealed to be higher on the food chain than all but 10 actual artists he makes money off of.
Ok this is getting tireing ....
_____________________________
CD's and transcriptions available here:
www.ricardomarlow.com
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Date Jun. 21 2012 19:21:50
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Guest
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RE: IF you havent allready u need to... (in reply to Florian)
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to think we live in a world where a single item of music on itunes costs $1.69 and an iphone app that reproduces the sound of a fart costs $2.50.....
me thinks more people are buying flatulence than music.... 
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Date Jun. 22 2012 1:46:09
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i didn't mean to stir this kind of thing up...just wanted to tell where i heard some cool flamenco...i didn't know how they treat the artists or if they ripp them off or not 