[Clueless]

There are a number of really great, really well-said insights in this thread, and I thought it would be helpful to collect/summarize them into a single post. If you have a really short attention span, the summary is: music as a consumable product is not sustainable; to survive and thrive, we must nurture a musical culture (and particularly a sustainable musical culture).

Originally Posted by jaybird.audio

I agree with both statements [that we are living in a golden age and that compared to 50 years ago, the range and quality of live music offerings are a shadow of their former selves]. As a band member of a group that tours 6 months out of the year I can assure you that it is getting nearly impossible to sustain. We dont by any means sell a lot of records. About 5000 this year, a pretty low number. Internet sales are nice. But, you have to tour to get the name out. Unless you have great promotion which is very expensive. Or a label to foot the bill. (until they want to be compensated) We did record the record in a "professional" (for lack of a better word) studio. With a producer who was very helpful. Which I think made a big difference. Back on point. Touring is getting harder and harder. Gas keeps going up, (maybe not right now but it will again) and no one really appreciates live music much anymore. The only way anything is going to change is on a "grassroots" level. He said it, and I will say it again. Cant run things the way they used to be ran. Times have changed. For the better or for the worse? I guess we will see. I hope any of that made sense. Sorry to ramble.

-Jay

and

Originally Posted by jaybird.audio

Not to sound like an a$$ hole. But 5000 fans does not make a career or a living when you have 6 band members, minus the cost to make and press the record, The price of a tour vehicle, the price of gas, the price of promotion (if you can afford it), the price of lodging (when needed), ext. I am afraid that the list goes on from here. If you are a solo guy I am sure its a bit easier. (a little) This is just my scenario. FWIW

-Jay

Certainly the model of busting your ass for 5000 sales times $15/CD is a loser, and it's six times a loser if there are five other bandmates to pay. On the other hand, if you are the #1 most exciting thing in the lives of your 15 of your fans, you can do very well. Imagine what you could do with 5,000 superfans! Thus, you are right that we cannot run things the way we're running them right now, but they can be run sustainably when both sides of the bargain, the musicians and the audience are sustaining each other. It is this symbiosis that the music industry inadvertently destroyed, and which we must piece back together.

Originally Posted by Bob Olhsson

I think the lack of great live music is killing the quality of both artists and albums. Playing live is how you learn what works and what doesn't work for you.

Sure there's always been plenty of crap but artists who were starting out performed covers their own way and only introduced their own material when it could stand up to the covers as demonstrated by not losing their audience.

Returning to a singles market raises the bar for songwriting. Young artists who jump on performing covers (not sound-alike versions) of great material have a good opportunity to reconnect fans.

True, provided that the industry does not become so draconian in enforcing who can play what under what circumstances that we take away all the oxygen from new artists. Jazz exists as an art form in part because jazz artists were able to liberally borrow from one another while creating the form. So much of today's music is locked up so tightly that every "new" thing is a road to nowhere.

Originally Posted by Jim Williams

1. Too much music, not enough time.

2. Music does not have the entertainment and cultural influence it once had. There are many other entertainment alternatives, like the activity you all are engaged in now instead of recording and playing music. That about says it all right there.

Sports, family, hobbies, travel, DVD's, gaming, all take folks away from pure music listening. If anything, no one does anymore what we did 40 years ago. You know, bring home that new album, turn down the lights, fire up the lava lamp, stick those Koss headphones on, sink into that bean bag chair, lite up a joint and dig in.

Nowdays, music is just background filler as we are engaged in other activities.
Now, how is this considered a golden age?

Jim Williams
Audio Upgrades

Absolutely right! (Except the bit about lighting up a joint--I don't do that.)

I believe that one reason why music has lost its cultural relevance is because the over-commercialization of music has caused us to increasingly reject music. I'm not just talking about crappy production values, or the complete loss of reference of what a live performance should actually sound like, but the fact that when the music industry begins to treat all its customers like criminals, we remember the line from e e cummings "there is some shit I will not eat" and we choose to leave the abusive relationship.

Commerce may define what resources are available to the culture, but when commerce attempts to define and control culture, culture dies. We are seeing that decay today, and many are saying "if we just had more money" which is not the problem. We need to attend to the cultural issue, which is in crisis.

Originally Posted by Bob Olhsson

Music always needed to compete, it never had a free ride but a lot of people coasted for several decades on what Albert Grossman and Bill Graham put together during the '60s.

Music isn't competing effectively. The demise of great live local pop music is the elephant in the room. The same thing killed the big bands when affordable live shows went away during the late '40s. I'm not sure people "get" music until they experience it live.

I would go one step further and say that people don't really "get" music until they try to play it. Victor Wooten does a wonderful job of encouraging people to make that leap, by living the life, running a camp, and writing it down in a book called The Music Lesson.

This next post is a bit tricky to unpack, but well worth it. I'll attempt to pull it apart a little.

Originally Posted by Backhousepro

My first day at Juilliard (1981), a theory professor said - "Music is dead in the 20th century. All the great music has been written — no one today is writing on a level of genius. And we're just waiting for the tombstone to be put up that says 'R.I.P. Rock & Roll." Kind of daunting to a young student who wanted to set the world on fire. But then he went on to say, "Rock doesn't have to die, but in order to live, we need bring more of the technique of music into it - such as development. After all, what can you say in a 2-minute format that hasn't already been said?" (As the keyboard player of the band Simple Minds said back in the '80s: "Rock and roll exists today solely by gnawing on its own entrails.")

Thirty years later, Alex Ross is named a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for The Rest Is Noise, a detailed examination of this and other features of 20th century music. Well worth the read!

As an aside, I challenge any and all to read The Soloist (or see the movie) and then not be excited about the amazing artistry that comes from places like Juilliard. Last year I saw James Ehnes rock the house in Toronto playing the Tchaikovsky Violin Concerto in D major (op. 35) and I seriously wondered why anybody would even think of paying $35M to travel to space (for a second time no less) when all the beauty in the universe could be experienced in an orchestra seat for less than $100.

For a while in the '70s, some musicians did bring more musical knowledge into R&R, but then the people spoke in the form of Bananarama ("We didn't know anything about music, but we went to a concert and said, 'I'd like to have that job' so we decided to be a band." - pretty much a direct quote) and then there was punk. Finally, our disposable art form give rise to the least common denominator of pop music: a drum beat and a voice - and rap was born.

And there, in a nutshell is the dichotomy between commercialism and culture. By contrast, when I'm not expanding my knowledge of classical music or refining my tastes in Jazz, I'm learning about noise music, which I have since learned is not about trying to make something as unlistenable as possible, but to bring the focus to what groups like Bananarama explicitly (and ironically) lacked: authenticity.

Ultimately I agree with Mssrs. Ohlsson and Williams. The impact of music has diminished. But since music has become DIY, the focus has been on learning the machines and somehow equating better machines to better music. Sorry, music does not come machines (unless the machine is your instrument). To have great music, you need great muscians. Great musicians do not spring forth from the studio. The technique of recording puts a strain on musicianship, and requires a different skill set. Recording studios are not built for musicians, they're built for engineers. And today's technology gives rise to cut & paste artists. The reason to record is becuase you have achieved something worth preserving for posterity - something that truly speaks to people, whether it's Ray Charles or Rimsky-Korsakov. Once you have achieved that, then you go to the studio. However, if all you have to say is, "Here's my love song. I'll take my Malibu beach house and Turbo Bentley, thank you very much." then we really don't need to hear your music. Become a hedge fund manager instead, and those things will be within much easier reach.

And here's where the sustainability of culture comes in. Having sung as a professional for a number of years, having studied classical guitar for 8 years, jazz for nearly 20, and now learning piano with my 9 year old daughter, I can say that the importance of music has been greatly augmented, not diminished.

Back in the days when the record labels were in their heyday and we were treated to great or at least unique artists, the big mistake almost every aspiring band would make was to make a demo before they had enough songs or expertise to carry a live show. It was all, "Here's my three songs, give me a deal and a big advance and then I'll write the rest." Of course, that's why your demo wound up in a laundry bin with thousands of others. The same rule that held true then still holds true today: Draw Is King. Fill the clubs consistently and someone will find you.

To my way of thinking, digital technology and its editing capabilities became necessary when record companies stopped seeking musical talent to bring to the mainstream, but rather models who could sing a little. So, the rise of the machine signified the fall of the musician. But like my theory teacher said - It doesn't have to be this way - just put more music in your music - that is to say, learn more about music - get your performance chops up, and work on it until you have something new to say. We've heard enough scraggly kids with power chords and finger painting with loops. I really don't need to hear another boy whining about his girlfriend over the E chord in straight 4/4 time. (Sing that bit about the Turbo Bentley again, it just gets me everytime.)

Quincy Jones predicted this about 15 years ago, when cheap digital recording became available. He said that the problem he saw was that everybody would become their own favorite composer, crowding out the people with real talent. And why is Quincy a legendary producer? Could it be that before he found his way into the studio, he had amassed some serious jazz chops, studied composition with Nadia Boulanger (as did Aaron Copeland and Philip Glass), worked as an arranger for Ray Charles and Frank Sinatra, and on and on, etc, etc.?

With all thy getting, get thee understanding. Too many people see music only as a consumer choice, something to make it just that much easier to kill time. 98% of Americans are not yet in prison (shame about the other 2%), and yet so much of our consumer behavior is about finding ways to kill time. With a little understanding, we can grow our own cultural richness and experiences and give our children the most wonderful opportunity to inherit the results...if they put forward the effort we did to learn and practice. But if they just wait for us to die and inherit our meaningless CD collection, it's just that much more trash in the landfill...what a waste!

Oh yeah, one last thing regarding the locating of "good" music (is really good or just your taste?). Please don't say "You have to know where to look" as if somehow this knowledge is transmitted via amniotic fluid to only the very cool at heart. It's like saying that in order to succeed, you have to be in the right place at the right time — something that can only be known by looking back on life - never forward. In essence, these statements offer us insanity as though it has real value. If you know where to look, please tell the rest of us - you'll have our undying gratitude.

-B-

Thomas Edison was quoted as saying "Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work." Most people don't know where to find good music because it, too, takes a lot of work and a lot of practice. The movie Wall*E treats the subject of what happens to the human race after 700 years of laziness and ignorance. That's a possible future, but not an inevitable one.

End of Part 1 (due to arbitrary GS post length limit )