Music sales last year were up 6.9% according to The Stranger (a weekly publication in Seattle). I think it would certainly be too early to herald a “second coming” of the music industry empire (at least in the way that many of us knew it in the last 20 years), but that statistic is definitely worth investigating…

The 6.9% increase was according to releases that were from major record labels or their subsidiaries – so, the encouraging part of that is that many DIY or indie musicians who released music in digital formats and physical records weren’t even included…I’m incredibly optimistic about that fact because that means there is an even larger portion of the music “industry” that is not represented in those sales figures. We are beginning an era of music where though I don’t believe we’ll see the 10 million+ record sales by one artist, but you will see many more full-time musicians able to support themselves because they are able to make a living through a number of different revenue streams.

Speaking of revenue streams – Discmakers released a blog that outlines revenue streams for 5,000 musicians that they surveyed. (You can read it here: http://blog.discmakers.com/2012/04/how-musicians-and-composers-make-money/ ) There are 42 different types of revenue streams that they found between those musicians – that’s awesome. The traditional model of record sales and live performances being the only two methods of income for musicians is definitely dying out…and we’re seeing the resourcefulness and creativity of musicians define the next generation of “working class” musicians who do it for the artform and to provide for themselves, rather than to try to “make it big.”

It’s always great to have some data that backs up what you’ve been thinking for some time, I’m thankful Discmakers and The Stranger have put in the legwork for this study. Here’s to a brighter and better future in music…

Cheers!

-TRMJ

I love getting things for free – I remember the opening day of Chipotle in Fort Worth, TX back in the fall of 2000, they gave away burritos to all of us “starving” TCU students.  I got the barbacoa burrito because it sounded delicious, and sure enough, I remember enjoying every bite of it…until the next day when I either by coincidence had a stomach bug, or else got food poisoning from the burrito. Either way, I do remember the period before the aftermath; I had enjoyed getting the burrito for free. Now being a number of years removed from the situation…I still will enjoy Chipotle from time to time.

Nevertheless, why did Chipotle decide to give burritos away to students for free? Of course, there is always the notion that people won’t know if they like your product until they try it, but does it cheapen the value of your product if you give it away for free? This question has plagued marketers for years, and arguments from both camps have great foundations to stand on. So, when it comes to music, where does the cost or reward of “free” stand?

2012 is a far cry from the music world that I grew up in the 1990’s. My only access to music was the radio, The Box (that cheap network television version of MTV…remember that?), the local record store, and occasionally the copy of Rolling Stone that my friends would give me to after they were through reading it. Looking back, I really only had knowledge of a handful of musical acts at a time – I never really felt like I was overwhelmed with choice when it came to music. And while I never paid the $18 price tag on CD’s that I would see at Sam Goodie at the mall, I would typically pay about $12 for a new release of whatever band I had been exposed to from the one of the few channels I mentioned. The music that I purchased definitely had an assigned value to it.

In 2012, because there are so many channels to hear about new music, it almost becomes a case of paralysis by choice. I’ve addressed that before in multiple posts on my site, but the problem left over is, how do artists get their music to their fans? It seems like we live in the technological era where that should be relatively easy, but because there are so many channels, artists are tasked with really trying to understand who their fans are and what their listening habits are in order to try to connect with them in the appropriate mediums. That is a great thing because fans and artists will hopefully become better connected as that trend continues. The question still arises, beyond word of mouth, how can artists reach new fans? This is where I believe “free” comes in…

My good friend and cohort, Landon Smith, and I rewrote the music to an old Christmas hymn in the fall of 2010, and released it for free on Amazon.com as a music download. We figured, it was the first time we had written and recorded a project together, and because we just classified it in the “fun” category, we decided we’d make it available for free as a little reward for all of our faithful fans’ years of support. 14 months later, the song has had 64,000 downloads from the Amazon website. Needless to say, that song’s success (it is called “Christmas Anthem” if you’re interested in hearing it by the way) far exceeded anything we could have ever imagined.

When we consider the fact that a record will reach top 20 status on the billboard charts if they break the 50,000 unit mark, that was an incredible statistic for Landon and I as independent artists. There isn’t another avenue out there than I can imagine that 64,000 people would not only have access to an artist’s music, but also have it to access later either on their computer, ipod, phone, or whatever other storage device they have. I’m excited about that, because with services like Spotify and I-Match (offered by Itunes), I think music is heading in the direction of subscription services anyway, so our experiment with Amazon just drove that theory home a little more for me…

So, if an artist has the capacity to reach over 50,000 people with their latest project, and all they have to do is make it available for free on a major website? (I realize it’s a little more complicated than just that, but for purposes of this post, we’ll go with it) If that’s the case, my next record might be available at a 100% discount...stay tuned.

Keep on rockin’ in the “free” world,

-TRMJ

Room at the Middle

If your experience was anything like mine growing up, when someone told you they were a full-time musician, I thought they meant one of the below: 

1. A musician in a symphony or jazz band (so they actually were serious and worked)
2. A rock star that was either already famous or well on their way
3. A blowhard that lived on his best friend’s couch and said, “Dude – I’m totally good for the rent, just give me another month”

The option that never occurred to me was that someone could be a full-time “popular music” musician, and be making a decent living just doing that. We’ve all been conditioned to think (because of American Idol, The Voice, America’s Got Talent, or my personal favorite when you combine them – “America’s Got an Idol Voice”) that unless you win the proverbial lottery in the music industry, you will never really be able to be a full-time musician.

The fact of the matter is, these shows are all that is left of the traditional music industry model of the “we’re going to make you a star” ideal. Bands/DJ’s/artists that are out in the world actually creating and performing music on their own have greater resources to find and play to their fans than ever before.  I would argue that this is one of the greatest things to happen to music in decades because we will continually see a rise in the number of musicians that create music because they love music and the art form because they can actually make an honest (even if it’s not a luxurious one) living by doing it.  We’ll also see a decline in the number of people who want to be involved in music just so they can “make it big,” because the chances at stardom are more slim due to the market being so segmented and diversified now.

All of this is not to say that the best artists still won’t rise to the top. Revolutionary artists will continue to shift the paradigm and reflect culture as often as they might influence it.  The revolutionaries just might be in a day and age where the distractions of fame and wealth won’t be the factors that they were before…and for that, I can happily say that I welcome it.

I’ll see you all somewhere in the middle.

-TRMJ

The image of a 37 year old man waking up on his parent’s couch in the basement and shuffling to the kitchen at 2pm to have a bowl of cereal before he “starts” his day is a stereotypical view many have of musicians and other creative types…are they justified in thinking so?

There are always exceptions to every rule, however, I would argue that even the most hard-working creative type can err towards the ease of saying, “I’ll just finish that project later” - the statement that usually leaves painters with canvas upon canvas of unfinished paintings, authors with novels and short stories that trail off before resolve is found for their characters, and songwriters with dozens of songs that have a first verse and a chorus, but the elusive second verse is lost in a sea of Word documents and eraser shreds.

Is that to say that all artists are lazy? No. Is that to say that we all can’t benefit from some discipline in our craft and the practice of our art form? Almost certainly, we can.

Inspiration is very difficult to generate – some might even say impossible. However, we can train our brains to be more prepared to expedite the creative process when inspiration rears its mysterious face.  This can involve anything from training your mechanical skills (practicing your scales with your instrument, bettering your brushstrokes, etc.) to developing the process by which you get into your creative mode.

I’ve begun (at the advice of a book entitled Writing Better Lyrics) writing for a designated period of time each day – that’s something that I haven’t done for years. The purpose of doing that is to train the creative side of my mind to more easily get into the “creative zone” and for the flow of the writing process to go more smoothly and more expeditiously. I love exercises like this. No matter how far along we are in whatever we do, there is always room for growth. The illustration of athletes in training is perfect to draw an analogy to this – the creative “muscles” can certainly go into a state of metaphoric atrophy if they lie dormant for too long. Keeping them in training and practice makes them much sharper and able to be called upon much more quickly when inspiration strikes.

So, as any personal trainer, tutor, music teacher, creative writing professor, or brew master would tell you – just keep doing it, it’ll get better.

Stay creative my friends,

-TRMJ