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"Musicians make money from playing live... This is the future of the industry." I see this sentiment repeated often. I don't buy it. It seems like a better way

"Musicians make money from playing live... This is the future of the industry." I see this sentiment repeated often. I don't buy it. It seems like a better way to put it is that if musicians are going to make money at all, then it must come from live performance. It certainly won't come from recordings, because more and more consumers don't want to pay for recordings, regardless of the practices of major labels, who have always been irrelevant to the majority of practicing musicians anyway. I have only anecdotal data to back myself up with, but of the independent musicians I know, most of them lose money or make trivial earnings from live performance. They do it because they find it rewarding, to be sure, but they're not doing it for money. And touring is usually mutually exclusive with a sustainable day job.

joeguilmette 14y ago
Remember - music existed before money. Selling recorded performances is relatively new - how long have records been around? I doubt the first users of the tech in the early 1900s spent enough on records to support any type of professional musician, let alone create Lady Gaga like stars. Yet, somehow, there have been professional musicians for likely thousands of years. Record companies solved the distribution problem. The Internet proved them obsolete and for the next few years they'll continue their death rattle until they blossom into something that looks like Spotify (which is replacing radio as well), or someone else will fill their shoes (as Spotify is doing today). And then no one will care about programs designed to put lipstick on my 80gb mp3 pig as iTunes does... Unless they roll out their own all you can eat service :)
- gurkendoktor 14y ago
  > music existed before money ?? Before money, artists still needed food and shelter... > Yet, somehow, there have been professional musicians for likely thousands of years. But does anyone really want to go back to the patronage system?
  - oofabz 14y ago
    I want to go back to the system where musicians are not rock stars trying to sell you a product, they are ordinary people with a day job who enjoy making and sharing music for their own entertainment.
    - yardie 14y ago
      We don't demand this of any other profession yet musicians should have a day job and make music for the love of it? I want to go back to the system where musicians were rewarded with money to put invest into their next project. Maybe I'm old fashioned but I don't think Spotify nor Pandora are the answer. My musician friends feel like it's the new Payola. They don't like to be on there because the royalties on 1000 plays is not even worth the postage. Yet, they can't afford not to be there because so many other musicians and listeners are using it.
      - icebraining 14y ago
        We don't demand this of any other profession yet musicians should have a day job and make music for the love of it? Nobody is demanding anything of artists; it's artists (well, mostly labels, but also some artists) that are demanding monopolies from society.
        yardie 14y ago
        ¿Que? I'm not even sure how to interpret this statement. Monopolies of what exactly?
        Karunamon 14y ago
        The ridiculous copyright extensions pushed for by the mafiAA? Ridiculous suits against network printers, computer illiterate grandmas, and children, sometimes for more than the GDP of the entire world?
        icebraining 14y ago
- jbigelow76 14y ago
  >Remember - music existed before money. Selling recorded performances is relatively new You're conflating two different phenomenon here. Music may have existed before money, however, RECORDED distributable music did not. If you had to pay the opportunity cost associated with seeing a live performance every time you wanted to listen to music your argument would hold water.
Adirael 14y ago
Right now, with the social media and all this stuff, I find myself buying more music than ever. I never liked physical formats, I remember having MP2 audio files of all my favorite music and hating tapes and then CDs. Last month I drop almost 40$ on a digital music compilation from an artist I like. He was selling it directly from his Facebook. It's not the first time and it wont be the last. He's selling some vinyls right now and just released the test presses on eBay. I don't even know if this guy has a record label or not, but he tours and probably edits all by himself. I don't think playing live will be the only way musicians can make money (and a lot of them make dimes playing live as the promoters -usually the labels!- take all the money too). You don't need to drop 10K month on studio anymore, you only need some equipment (that can be rented) and a computer to edit your music. Even some big bands are doing it this way nowadays.
deleted 14y ago
[deleted]

joeguilmette 14y ago

Remember - music existed before money. Selling recorded performances is relatively new - how long have records been around? I doubt the first users of the tech in the early 1900s spent enough on records to support any type of professional musician, let alone create Lady Gaga like stars. Yet, somehow, there have been professional musicians for likely thousands of years. Record companies solved the distribution problem. The Internet proved them obsolete and for the next few years they'll continue their death rattle until they blossom into something that looks like Spotify (which is replacing radio as well), or someone else will fill their shoes (as Spotify is doing today). And then no one will care about programs designed to put lipstick on my 80gb mp3 pig as iTunes does... Unless they roll out their own all you can eat service :)

gurkendoktor 14y ago
> music existed before money ?? Before money, artists still needed food and shelter... > Yet, somehow, there have been professional musicians for likely thousands of years. But does anyone really want to go back to the patronage system?
- oofabz 14y ago
  I want to go back to the system where musicians are not rock stars trying to sell you a product, they are ordinary people with a day job who enjoy making and sharing music for their own entertainment.
  - yardie 14y ago
    We don't demand this of any other profession yet musicians should have a day job and make music for the love of it? I want to go back to the system where musicians were rewarded with money to put invest into their next project. Maybe I'm old fashioned but I don't think Spotify nor Pandora are the answer. My musician friends feel like it's the new Payola. They don't like to be on there because the royalties on 1000 plays is not even worth the postage. Yet, they can't afford not to be there because so many other musicians and listeners are using it.
    - icebraining 14y ago
      We don't demand this of any other profession yet musicians should have a day job and make music for the love of it? Nobody is demanding anything of artists; it's artists (well, mostly labels, but also some artists) that are demanding monopolies from society.
      - yardie 14y ago
        ¿Que? I'm not even sure how to interpret this statement. Monopolies of what exactly?
        Karunamon 14y ago
        The ridiculous copyright extensions pushed for by the mafiAA? Ridiculous suits against network printers, computer illiterate grandmas, and children, sometimes for more than the GDP of the entire world?
        icebraining 14y ago
jbigelow76 14y ago
>Remember - music existed before money. Selling recorded performances is relatively new You're conflating two different phenomenon here. Music may have existed before money, however, RECORDED distributable music did not. If you had to pay the opportunity cost associated with seeing a live performance every time you wanted to listen to music your argument would hold water.

Adirael 14y ago

Right now, with the social media and all this stuff, I find myself buying more music than ever. I never liked physical formats, I remember having MP2 audio files of all my favorite music and hating tapes and then CDs. Last month I drop almost 40$ on a digital music compilation from an artist I like. He was selling it directly from his Facebook. It's not the first time and it wont be the last. He's selling some vinyls right now and just released the test presses on eBay. I don't even know if this guy has a record label or not, but he tours and probably edits all by himself. I don't think playing live will be the only way musicians can make money (and a lot of them make dimes playing live as the promoters -usually the labels!- take all the money too). You don't need to drop 10K month on studio anymore, you only need some equipment (that can be rented) and a computer to edit your music. Even some big bands are doing it this way nowadays.

deleted 14y ago

[deleted]