Mark2 -> RE: IF you havent allready u need to try Spotify (Jun. 19 2012 22:14:46)
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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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