One of the biggest problems facing new artists is local live music is dying. I'm talking about music at bars and clubs. It's not completely dead, but it's not what it once was. Now people are happy, or maybe even happier, to have a DJ. Unfortunately the best way to improve your musical skills is to play with other musicians in a live setting - and there's less opportunity for that. There's simply fewer musicians able to even get started.
You've gotten started, you're playing with a group of people, been playing some gigs - now what? You want to record! Get your music out there! I'm not going to go into all the details of recording but let me just say it's neither easy, nor cheap. It's gotten even more expensive these days because while the quality of the music itself may be suffering, the quality of the production is skyrocketing. This is similar to the gripe in movies where people complain the special effects are awesome but the actual story kinda sucks. But people don't want movies having crumby special effects - they want both: great special effects and a great story line. So it is with music. People want great production and great music. Well, you're going to pay to get that great production!
Maybe that's a bit of the modern music biz you don't know much about. The producers get paid up front. So do the distributors. Who pays for it? The musicians. The musicians now have their recording in hand, they've distributed their music to Amazon Music, Apple Music, Google Play, Spotify, Pandora, and a host of other lesser-known platforms. What happens? They get pirated. Most of the time they don't even break even. For most musicians, recording and distributing your music is a net financial loss. If you're lucky it may increase traffic to your live gigs.
Honestly, when you throw in the cost of gear and the years spent practicing and playing to get good enough to be presentable to the public - it's no wonder fewer and fewer people are going into music. That's our loss.
Does illegally downloading songs in and of itself cause this collapse? Probably not. But I wouldn't be surprised if it's the last straw breaking the camel's back.
One of the biggest problems facing new artists is local live music is dying. I'm talking about music at bars and clubs. It's not completely dead, but it's not what it once was. Now people are happy, or maybe even happier, to have a DJ. Unfortunately the best way to improve your musical skills is to play with other musicians in a live setting - and there's less opportunity for that. There's simply fewer musicians able to even get started.
You've gotten started, you're playing with a group of people, been playing some gigs - now what? You want to record! Get your music out there! I'm not going to go into all the details of recording but let me just say it's neither easy, nor cheap. It's gotten even more expensive these days because while the quality of the music itself may be suffering, the quality of the production is skyrocketing. This is similar to the gripe in movies where people complain the special effects are awesome but the actual story kinda sucks. But people don't want movies having crumby special effects - they want both: great special effects and a great story line. So it is with music. People want great production and great music. Well, you're going to pay to get that great production!
Maybe that's a bit of the modern music biz you don't know much about. The producers get paid up front. So do the distributors. Who pays for it? The musicians. The musicians now have their recording in hand, they've distributed their music to Amazon Music, Apple Music, Google Play, Spotify, Pandora, and a host of other lesser-known platforms. What happens? They get pirated. Most of the time they don't even break even. For most musicians, recording and distributing your music is a net financial loss. If you're lucky it may increase traffic to your live gigs.
Honestly, when you throw in the cost of gear and the years spent practicing and playing to get good enough to be presentable to the public - it's no wonder fewer and fewer people are going into music. That's our loss.
Does illegally downloading songs in and of itself cause this collapse? Probably not. But I wouldn't be surprised if it's the last straw breaking the camel's back.