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Welcome to every artistic endeavor ever. You go into a field for love, you have to pay for the privilege by competing against an overcrowded market because eve

by Pxtl 12y ago

Welcome to every artistic endeavor ever. You go into a field for love, you have to pay for the privilege by competing against an overcrowded market because everybody is making a labor of love. To me, the real solution is not go pay more for labours of love, but to institute a shorter workweek so everybody can pursue their own labours of love on the side.

dnautics 12y ago
that makes it worse, because you'll increase the supply and drive the price down.
- Pxtl 12y ago
  Yes, but then everybody can participate instead of the tiny elite select few that achieve a living wage.
- Flimm 12y ago
  Are we trying to maximise the number of people creating good art, or the number of people making a living out of art? It's not the same thing.
  - tunesmith 12y ago
    That's really the heart of it. Everything has moved so fast that I don't think we understand the first principles of the system. For a while I believed that all the new music production tools out there meant that the market is flooded with crappy music released by hobbyists giving it away for free. The system affects of that sort of thing is that the listeners are bombarded, they shut down, they don't have the opportunity to reliably discover "good" music, and that therefore people writing "good" music fall through the cracks, don't earn money, eventually stop writing, and culture is worse off. But... I'm coming around to the view that the market is pretty much flooded now with "good" music. I'm being hand-wavy, defining it as merely music that deserves to exist alongside other "good" music. If that's true, then it's a different model. Great for the consumer, they can probably subsist on a healthy music diet received for free. There the only path through for a musician is to try and invite fans into the "family" and hope fans will pay a premium for that. But still, you're going to have artists that write good music fall through the cracks and stop writing - it's just that in those cases, culture isn't necessarily worse off.
- scarecrowbob 12y ago
  As a 80% of the time programmer and 20% of the time side-man musician, I disagree.... it's a lot easier for me to turn down for less than my rate gigs if I have a "real" income source.
nonce42 12y ago
Yes, a shorter work week definitely helps. I'm currently working 80% of full time, which gives me so much more time to work on interesting (but inherently unprofitable) side projects. I highly recommend working 80%, but I recognize that financial and social factors make it difficult in general.

by Pxtl 12y ago

dnautics 12y ago

that makes it worse, because you'll increase the supply and drive the price down.

Pxtl 12y ago
Yes, but then everybody can participate instead of the tiny elite select few that achieve a living wage.
Flimm 12y ago
Are we trying to maximise the number of people creating good art, or the number of people making a living out of art? It's not the same thing.
- tunesmith 12y ago
  That's really the heart of it. Everything has moved so fast that I don't think we understand the first principles of the system. For a while I believed that all the new music production tools out there meant that the market is flooded with crappy music released by hobbyists giving it away for free. The system affects of that sort of thing is that the listeners are bombarded, they shut down, they don't have the opportunity to reliably discover "good" music, and that therefore people writing "good" music fall through the cracks, don't earn money, eventually stop writing, and culture is worse off. But... I'm coming around to the view that the market is pretty much flooded now with "good" music. I'm being hand-wavy, defining it as merely music that deserves to exist alongside other "good" music. If that's true, then it's a different model. Great for the consumer, they can probably subsist on a healthy music diet received for free. There the only path through for a musician is to try and invite fans into the "family" and hope fans will pay a premium for that. But still, you're going to have artists that write good music fall through the cracks and stop writing - it's just that in those cases, culture isn't necessarily worse off.
scarecrowbob 12y ago
As a 80% of the time programmer and 20% of the time side-man musician, I disagree.... it's a lot easier for me to turn down for less than my rate gigs if I have a "real" income source.

nonce42 12y ago

Yes, a shorter work week definitely helps. I'm currently working 80% of full time, which gives me so much more time to work on interesting (but inherently unprofitable) side projects. I highly recommend working 80%, but I recognize that financial and social factors make it difficult in general.