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Let's assume there are no more concerts...


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I think I know which way this will trend, but I want to throw this out for discussion, because it will--even if only temporarily--change things...

 

Let's assume there are no more concerts...

 

Let's say that coronavirus shuts down all large gatherings for an extended period of time. Or perhaps it's something else. Whatever.

 

So...how do musicians--particularly those who put food on the table by playing music in front of live audiences--make money? What are the alternatives?

 

Grey

I'm not interested in someone's ability to program. I'm interested in their ability to compose and play.

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I'm from the Jurassic era so I don't go out much anymore so I watch clubs that stream live shows like Smalls, Mezzrow, Jazz at Lincoln Center, Ronnie Scotts, and musicians/bands that stream their shows when possible. So if more of that happens it would be good from me. I think for the short term this bars, clubs, and even things like movie theaters and etc are going to get hit. If lasts for awhile it could change peoples social life to more online, companies having more people work from home and in general sadly people being less social. Hopefully this virus gets under control sooner than later and only changes our lives for a short time and things go back to normal.
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Nope, vaccines take at least a year to go into production for regular use, but there might be a few early test runs of a vaccine that certain people get access to either as guinea pigs or because they're rich. We would all best be advised to not presume ready access to a vaccine is around the corner, in spite of the strides forward by the Israelis.

 

I have several concert tickets that are no longer useful, as almost all public events have been shut down here by order of the mayor of SF. I thought it was overreaction at first, but the trajectory of just the past few days has been exponential, so it probably was a wise preventative measure after all.

 

At my own gig on Sunday, I did not notice anyone with symptoms. And there were several hundred people.

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Yeah aside from livestreaming it's difficult to foresee a way to avoid the worst of the harm. And Mark is right - there is NO way there will be widespread availability of a vaccine within a few months. The best you can hope for is something available by NEXT winter in the country in which you reside.

 

The only disclaimer I'd put on that is if the virus mutated and suddenly 50% of people are dying (not going to happen) then the risk of using whole populations as guinea pigs for relatively untested vaccnes could occur. But that's near zombie apocalypse territory and won't happen :)

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It was just northern Italy, but I saw this evening that all of Italy has been shut down. Most working musicians aren't going to have fat enough wallets to last for long if they're not able to bring in money from gigs. That's going to be hard on some folks. Not that this will be easy for anyone, but I'm thinking that working musicians will be hit harder than many.

 

The question I'm asking is how to make money in adverse circumstances. Even for big names, the majority of the money is in touring, not release of albums. But what if that dynamic changes? What if albums or streaming or something (what?) were to become the preferred method of communication between musicians and their fans?

 

How might that work? Obviously, the balance of the revenue stream would have to shift in favor of the musician, but by what percentage and are there any other mechanics that would have to change?

 

Grey

I'm not interested in someone's ability to program. I'm interested in their ability to compose and play.

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Most of the deaths are people over 80 or otherwise compromised immune systems. Nobody under 30 has died in South Korea, and nobody under 50 has died in Japan. I don't see many people over 70 flocking to concerts. The most hazardous locations so far are nursing homes and hospitals.

Dan

 

Acoustic/Electric stringed instruments ranging from 4 to 230 strings, hammered, picked, fingered, slapped, and plucked. Analog and Digital Electronic instruments, reeds, and throat/mouth.

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Most of the deaths are people over 80 or otherwise compromised immune systems. Nobody under 30 has died in South Korea, and nobody under 50 has died in Japan. I don't see many people over 70 flocking to concerts. The most hazardous locations so far are nursing homes and hospitals.

 

My elderly mom lives with us most of the week--though because I have kids, and they might get this from school (schools are basically virus central station) I'm trying to get her to go stay at her house for a while. She won't want to and will think it's my wife trying to kick her out...:)

 

Point is, a lot of people that aren't in the main line of fire still don't want to give it to others. Not to mention the death rate is one thing, but being a "serious" case that might require hospitalization for a period of time doesn't sound like fun--and what if you can't even be seen because all the hospital beds are filled? My serious case at age 52 just got a lot more serious without access to a doc and maybe a respirator etc.

 

I'm personally cutting down my "outings"--I may end up getting this, but the less people that get it at the same time the better.

 

I do feel for the people that are going to be hurt by this. For all I know I could be laid off if my company's numbers drop enough. That's going to be true for many in the travel industries, restaurants, bars etc. I live in Orlando and they've already lost a LOT of money from canceled convention center business, and that trickles down. Much of this town is driven by tourism so an awful lot of people could be out of work soon.

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Well the Unversity lab in Melbourne Australia that first cracked the Covid 19 code said that the fastest that a vaccine has been developed so far for other viruses is 3 months. Guess they should have consulted some keyboard players first before stating that fact.

A misguided plumber attempting to entertain | MainStage 3 | Axiom 61 2nd Gen | Pianoteq | B5 | XK3c | EV ZLX 12P

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I'm behind on my periodicals and just read--in the March 2018 Scientific American--that they had discovered coronavirus hiding in bats in China (they mentioned SARS, as the current version hadn't happened yet) and were hoping that they would soon have a vaccine. Yeah...that was two years ago.

 

Grey

I'm not interested in someone's ability to program. I'm interested in their ability to compose and play.

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Let's assume there are no more concerts...

Let's say that coronavirus shuts down all large gatherings for an extended period of time.

 

Well, I'm from Italy, so for us it's not "Let's assume". It's reality.

 

The whole country is locked down from today. We are allowed to get out of home only to go to/from work (though companies are VERY STRONGLY encouraged to promote remote working or forced vacations/sabbatical), to buy groceries and for medical emergencies.

Anything else (even visiting relatives or partners) is not considered a valid reason for leaving the house.

And anyway, even for the above activities we cannot leave our municipality of residence.

 

All concerts, events, theatres, cinemas, gyms, sport events and social activities (including churches, weddings and funerals) are closed and canceled.

Schools and universities are closed, including of course music schools.

This is at least until Apr 3rd.

 

I have a day job so this won't have a huge financial impact on me, though of course I was not happy to instantly lose 4 booked gigs.

But for all my many friends who are full time musicians or music teachers, this is going to be a disaster.

And this is just a tiny portion of the general economic disaster this thing will be for the whole country.

 

 

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Well the Unversity lab in Melbourne Australia that first cracked the Covid 19 code said that the fastest that a vaccine has been developed so far for other viruses is 3 months. Guess they should have consulted some keyboard players first before stating that fact.

 

Indeed - let's say they do have a potential vaccine in 3 months. Then there are human trials and assuming it all goes perfectly with the first trial, the ramp up to produce hundreds of millions to billions of doses. 12 months will be an amazing achievement if they pull it off, but I'd expect it to take longer than that.

 

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There is an event May 8th at a nice theater here I want to take as an opener but it's up in the air now as things are getting cancelled. I work at a hospital and I get daily emails concerning this. Travel is now shut down for the whole university. This is serious. Most of us that gig in the summer like to because that's when you make your money.

"Danny, ci manchi a tutti. La E-Street Band non e' la stessa senza di te. Riposa in pace, fratello"

 

 

noblevibes.com

 

 

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Aye, we know all that, guys and gals, but the intent of my post was to brainstorm about ways to make money from music if public gigs are not an option.

 

Grey

I'm not interested in someone's ability to program. I'm interested in their ability to compose and play.

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Well the Unversity lab in Melbourne Australia that first cracked the Covid 19 code said that the fastest that a vaccine has been developed so far for other viruses is 3 months. Guess they should have consulted some keyboard players first before stating that fact.

 

Identifying a virus doesn't mean obtaining a vaccine is automatic. Sometimes developing a vaccine is almost impossible even after decades of research. Just think of HIV or Ebola...

 

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One of the CDC (US) people mentioned yesterday that 12 months is a minimum for expecting a deployed vaccine. The recurring Covid can be controlled by vaccine, but this first onset will largely need to be controlled by other means, including methods for controlling spread and methods for fighting the virus in patients (anti-retrovirals for example). At least, that's my ignorant mind took away from the presentation. My heart goes out to our friends in Italy ... it may be that other communities and countries will follow suit. We just don't know. :idk:

 

Thank you to Majuscule and David Holloway for mentioning livestreaming. Perhaps that is the future, just as Facebook has taken over the town square? Dr. Mike Metlay has a live online concert, which has come up a couple of times in his online collaboration forum. Not sure what his revenue model is, but it appears that some pioneers are having successful online concerts and radio shows.

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My cousin and I cancelled trips to Italy to where our parents were from. I just sent an email to my band members as so much is up in the air. This is when we get really busy.

"Danny, ci manchi a tutti. La E-Street Band non e' la stessa senza di te. Riposa in pace, fratello"

 

 

noblevibes.com

 

 

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Well the Unversity lab in Melbourne Australia that first cracked the Covid 19 code said that the fastest that a vaccine has been developed so far for other viruses is 3 months. Guess they should have consulted some keyboard players first before stating that fact.

 

Indeed - let's say they do have a potential vaccine in 3 months. Then there are human trials and assuming it all goes perfectly with the first trial, the ramp up to produce hundreds of millions to billions of doses. 12 months will be an amazing achievement if they pull it off, but I'd expect it to take longer than that.

Well I have to disagree and maybe the sole dissenter from that view on the planet. We are not talking about trials here on people in a remote Scottish village when for example statins were being trialled as the miracle cure for high cholesterol. Shame that only lasted two years cause I was getting statins for free until they got authorised under the PBS in Australia.

 

We are talking about a rerun of HIV. Then I was on the pointy end of the impact of HIV on shareholders, with zero interest on the impact on individual lives. There were arms offered up by those infected by HIV everywhere in the world to test the new vaccines, and the rate at which HIV went from a certain killer to low mortality set a new benchmark. That was the late eighties, medical science has moved on since then and now has real live patients to work with.

 

Let face it you don't die from Covid-19, you die from the complications, for example when an abscess on the wall of the lung bursts and you get complications from the resultant hole in the wall of the lung. All treatable in a first world medical institution. Sadly the majority of the world's population does not live in a first world country.

A misguided plumber attempting to entertain | MainStage 3 | Axiom 61 2nd Gen | Pianoteq | B5 | XK3c | EV ZLX 12P

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70+% of the population will eventually contract it according to the WHO, (not The Who).
And we should all be grateful for that distinction, since we all know Pete Townshend's stance on the prematurely deceased is "thank god they're dead." :wink:

Samuel B. Lupowitz

Musician. Songwriter. Food Enthusiast. Bad Pun Aficionado.

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That's a very good question. I'm noticing a lot of dismissal and false information going around social media. That's not helpful. The UK is said to be 3 weeks behind Italy in terms of public impact. It's gonna effect us in a big way soon. My work is already getting advice from healthcare professionals on how to operate going forward; a lot of our public events planned for the next 2 months are essentially being cancelled. Many of my friends also say their work are putting things into place for working remotely.

 

Many of you are right; for the vast majority this isn't dangerous. The reason things are being quarantined and stopped is so that we reduce the spread to those who are vulnerable. In total the mortality rate is between 2 and 5%, but it's growing. Among the vulnerable there's a 15-20% mortality rate.

However, some of you may have seen the pyramid chart; the vast majority of people who have coronavirus do not know they have it and will not know they have it as they're just experiencing common cold/flu symptoms. Scotland is due to "peak" in June/July, where at least 40% of our population will have had it. Many medical professionals are saying it's going to last into next year, so it's definitely worth thinking about in terms of work.

 

Regardless, downplaying its effect on society isn't helpful; it's absolutely going to effect public gatherings and gigs soon. In France they've already banned gatherings of over 1000 people. Poland and the Czech Republic have banned gatherings of over 100 people. Weddings in Italy are being cancelled; if that happens here it's going to skin many of the musicians I know here who rely on weddings for their income. Unless that person has a day job or also teaches private lessons they're going to be put in a difficult position. The question the OP poses is a good thought for anyone who relies on gatherings of people for their main source of income.

 

As a solution: start a youtube channel. ;)

Hammond SKX

Mainstage 3

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It's a virus, not Ebola. If I get it, I get it. I had the flu a few weeks ago and the symptoms that I had were probably worse than the coronavirus....

 

Again, missing the point. Many of us won"t be impacted by the symptoms of the virus. Many of us likely will be impacted by the effect it has (and is currently having) on society.

Hammond SKX

Mainstage 3

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I think there already is an impact in Westchester, NY (which is kind of the epicenter in NY at the moment). I did a gig last weekend in a small room (capacity of about 50). Although we sold out, I know of a couple of people who didn't want to risk coming. More notably, some fellow-jazz musicians in my area have told me of a few canceled gigs in clubs/restaurants.

 

My guess is that we are going to witness a lot of this in the coming months. Eventually, this will pass, but I'm afraid that some of the smaller venues may decline to bring back music once they have learned to exist without it for a while.

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I'm behind on my periodicals and just read--in the March 2018 Scientific American--that they had discovered coronavirus hiding in bats in China (they mentioned SARS, as the current version hadn't happened yet) and were hoping that they would soon have a vaccine. Yeah...that was two years ago.

There was work on a vaccine years ago, but then funding dried up. See:

 

https://www.nbcnews.com/health/health-care/scientists-were-close-coronavirus-vaccine-years-ago-then-money-dried-n1150091

 

From everything I've read, we're most likely looking at 12 to 18 months for a vaccine available to the general public.

 

Maybe this is the best place for a shameless plug! Our now not-so-new new video at https://youtu.be/3ZRC3b4p4EI is a 40 minute adaptation of T. S. Eliot's "Prufrock" - check it out! And hopefully I'll have something new here this year. ;-)

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