Are We Entering a Golden Age of Personal Music?

[Anderton]

I think we're entering the golden age of personal music. The barrier to entry is low, and the quality of instruments is high.

 

The record industry in the 70s and 80s was a blip. We've had the ability to freeze-dry sound for later listening only during the past 130 years or so. Before then, music was always ephemeral and transitory. If you missed seeing Beethoven's 3rd...tough. To borrow a phrase from BMD, music had a sell-by date - which was the second the last note was played.

 

People played music for enjoyment. Think back to the 20th century, before record players existed. A lot of homes had pianos, and learning an instrument was a given. If you wanted to hear music, you learned how to play. This may sound silly, but I learned guitar back when I was 8 because I wanted to be able to hear "Greensleeves" any time, in the style I wanted to hear it.

 

When music became something you could consume in non-real-time, that was a really cool thing. You didn't need to learn an instrument any more, and when the Walkman came out, you could take the music anywhere you wanted. BUT...

 

Listening to music is not the same as making music. Making music is about personal discovery and creative enjoyment, which listening to music can't provide at the same level.

 

So now we have "musicians" dissing "those kids in their bedrooms with Ableton Live." Those kids are discovering how cool it is to make music, and they're getting hooked. They're going to be supporting the music industry in the decades ahead. I've met a lot of these people from doing seminars, and they are on their way to becoming lifers. They love the idea of making music.

 

When the old guard says "that's ridiculous, they'll never make any money," that's missing the point and framing music as a business. You don't make money fishing, or bowling, or going to the movies...you do those things because they're fulfilling. So it is with music. I think it's awesome someone can put their music on YouTube, and get 50 or 100 subscribers. Sure, it's not millions. Who cares? Those are 50 or 100 people who do care, and you never know what will happen...sometimes things take off.

 

And what's going to happen to the pros? It was never easy to make a really good living in music, and that won't change. But instead of the top 10% being bands like Led Zeppelin, we'll be going back to the days when the songwriters were the ones who cleaned up. Licensing will be the province of the pros - you get Disney or Apple or whoever to license your music, and you've got real money in the real world....just like the way commercial music used to have the church, the king, or the court as sponsors.

 

The only thing that's missing from this "golden age" scenario is more places to play live. Not arenas, just small venues where people can gather. I bet if I put together a live act and let out the word via social media, at least 20 or 30 people would show up. The problem is I don't know where I'd have them show up. But I think that as more people play music, suitable venues will sprout up in time.

 

So what do you think? Is the music business righting itself by music going back, in many ways, to what it always was - personal?

[Nowarezman]

It's pretty obvious that the market for music has undergone a sea change. Most music is so devalued in the marketplace that, by default, most music has to be produced with little or no profit motive.

 

I think I'd quibble with saying that music in ages past was "personal". I'd say it's better characterized historically as social. Related to church, or to community events, or family entertainment, or aristocratic patronage, holidays, etc. It's only our current era that could conceive an idea along the lines that "every child is an artist", or somesuch.

 

I know a lot of songwriter types - but they still are a minority among the usual bass, drums, guitar, keys, vocalists crowd. The players do try to develop some sort of style more or less, but 19 out of 20 are very derivative in their playing. I don't see that as a bad thing - music as a craft is a fine, fine thing. Too many "artists" make for way too much bad art.

 

Maybe I'm sounding more negative here than I mean to - I'm all for everyone having some sort of music chops. The "shame" of being a newbie or amateur is only the result of a sort of communal bullying by the "chops" crowd. More newbies and amateurs means a larger pool from which geniuses can spring. Everyone in the music pool, I say.

 

I do think that the bedroom-studio can be a fine place to carry on a hobby. But music that is "just for me" is I think a rather pathetic thing. I'd much rather be a fan of someone else other than myself. Isn't that where real life begins? What profit is there looking in the mirror to admire that fine-looking dude looking back at me?

 

nat

 

[Anderton]

I do think that the bedroom-studio can be a fine place to carry on a hobby. But music that is "just for me" is I think a rather pathetic thing. I'd much rather be a fan of someone else other than myself. Isn't that where real life begins? What profit is there looking in the mirror to admire that fine-looking dude looking back at me?

 

Well, a couple things. First, I learn a huge amount about myself every time I record a song, it's like a Rorschach. Even if I was told no one else on the planet would hear my music, I'd still do it. Second, my music does get out in the world, so it's a way to communicate with people. Granted it's mostly a one-way communication, but so is writing an article.

 

Most importantly, collaboration is where I get the most satisfaction from music, and I don't think I'm alone...that feedback loop among performing musicians or songwriters is incredible. But, you can't collaborate until you have some level of chops. Those "kids in the bedrooms" are developing chops and an understanding of music. It's not that different from the way guitar players used to woodshed (and I guess some still do) to improve their chops.

 

 

 

[Joe Muscara]

Thanks for saying that, Craig. I agree with you and have been saying much the same thing for a long time. I actually find it quite funny that people bemoan how hard it is to make it big now. I think a lot of the same people were the ones that didn't make it big in the 70s or 80s! It was never easy.

 

I hate this whole hipster ukulele crap, but I remind myself that it is cool that people want to make music and doing anything with it is good.

 

For those that bemoan the person broadcasting blindly into the ether, isn't that what this whole era is? People are doing it on social media already with Twitter and Facebook and whatever else. Might as well be creative and do it.

[Nowarezman]

First, I learn a huge amount about myself every time I record a song, it's like a Rorschach. Even if I was told no one else on the planet would hear my music, I'd still do it.

 

That's a good point. A lot of music-makers (and other artist types) testify to some level, often quite a deep level, of a therapeutic effect to art creation.

 

When I said music I might make "just for myself" would be a rather pathetic thing, I did mean the actual objective musical creation aside from the persona, subjective side of the process. I don't have it in me to polish and perfect tracks that I know have no chance of going anywhere into the world at large. The "for myself" stuff tends just to be improvising on guitar just for the love of playing. But even then, if I come up with something particularly interesting (to me) I'll record it on my phone, save it for later, hopefully for use in a "real" song later - a real song I hope to share at some point. It seems to be built into me and is fundamental to my musical motivation, this desire to perform, to bring forth into the world. But everyone's different to some extent - this is just me.

 

It's interesting, which art forms seem to foster "just for myself" creations versus those that don't. There seem to be a fair number of private poets. But I've yet to hear of a private novelist. It's an old well-known thing that a lot of people paint for the therapeutic effect. But surely the number of people who write screenplays "just for themselves" is pretty small. But then I'm speculating about what people do as private activities, so the margin of error has to be pretty significant.

 

One thing I do believe in pretty strongly is that any concentrated, ongoing mental activity that involves increasing skill, mastery, critical assessment, and rigorous synapse exercises is worth it in terms of general quality of life.

 

nat

 

[J. Dan]

While it's great that it's relatively easy to put something of high quality out there for others to hear, it also creates a lot of background noise in terms of there just being SO MUCH out there. Something goes viral, then you have people just downloading and streaming that one song. Music is consumed so much differently now that it has resulted in being created differently as well. You would almost never see somebody do a concept album, for instance, because people don't purchase entire albums anymore, they download the one song they heard and liked. I think the experience of listening to a whole album while reading the album cover and inner sleeve caused you to explore a little more and dig a little deeper, possibly causing you to open up and expand your interests. While there is the OPPORTUNITY to do that with so much content available, the method of consumption doesn't promote it.

[Anderton]

I hate this whole hipster ukulele crap, but I remind myself that it is cool that people want to make music and doing anything with it is good.

 

I gotta say, I discovered a couple years ago how cool ukuleles can be. I used ukulele a lot on my Simplicity album, and people assume it's some kind of crazy ethnic instrument or something. They're not used to hearing it be played in a less traditional way, with the type of processing used for guitars. I've even used it in some EDM songs. Just remember..."ukuleles don't kill music, people do."

 

Check out the album, about half the songs use ukulele in one way or another. It can add some interesting textures. And people will think you're using some strange ethnic instrument

 

[video:youtube]

 

 

 

[Stoneheart]

nowarez... ive completed 5 novels which shall never be read by other humans... either now or after ive passed, the workings and musings of my heart are my own...

 

now you know of one.

[SteveCoscia]

Thanks goodness for my 26 year-old, musician son. I've had a front row seat to today's 21st century music industry. There are 40 years between he and I, so my music industry development was very different from his.

 

At 13 years old, he started a band. They rehearsed, wrote their own songs, kept rehearsing and got good. At 15 he was playing the Trocadero Theater in Philadelphia and working part-time in a local recording studio (mostly for free) - he learned first hand. The band broke up. He got ProTools and kept writing and producing his own songs. Created his own online presence (today's version of a recording label), distributed his music online, gained a following, made money and was featured as "band of the week" on numerous forums which further promoted his brand.

 

He did all this without a recording contract, without artist & repertoire folks and without and agent.

 

At my age, all I can do is observe because I don't understand how things work today. But it sure has been fun to watch my son do it.

[Geoff Grace]

In my lifetime, I've gone from only being able to play piano sounds to having more world class sounds at my fingertips than I'll ever get around to playing. From that perspective alone, it is undeniably a golden age of personal music.

 

As for the record industry, it seems we've merely flipped the business modelâfrom touring to promote record sales to recording to promote tours. Judging from how expensive it's become to see a concert, I imagine there's still a lot of money being generated at the top level.

 

Best,

 

Geoff

[zeronyne]

As I sit here in my office on the 53rd floor of a skyscraper that overlooks the venue for Lollapalooza, I'm looking right out of my door at one of my user experience designers. She's a quiet, unassuming young woman (25 or so), and a very, very hard worker. The office is super quiet, unlike most web consultancies, so we hardly every talk about personal things. A month ago, she pointed me to her SoundCloud, which was an outpouring of singer/songwriter laments in a very Americana style, along with upbeat indie fare from a band she sits in with, the Marcatos (yes, that is a Rosemary's Baby reference), She told me she recorded it all herself with her phone and laptop except for an EP she did in an all-analog studio. She plays out and is happy to do that and sell the occasional song. The quality was all over the map, but the songs and performances were top notch, and I can tell you positively she expresses herself through music in a way I could never imagine her doing in person.