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August 3, 2002 :: Music, musicians, and the future
We've all been reading about how the world of music is changing, how internet distribution (and internet piracy) have made record labels very nervous. 2001 was the first year that downloading had a real impact on record sales, with the record companies' business down between 5 and 10% depending on who you talk to. This year, the doom-sayers are predicting that it will be down 20% below that level. College students are as used to getting music free on the web as they are to buying CDs. And the generation immediately behind them, the kids who are now 12 - 14, only get their music via downloading: an entire generation that may bypass the record store altogether.
Much is made in the economics pages of the newspapers of the impact that this is going to have on the stock prices of Vivendi and Sony, but little is discussed about how these changes in the way music is commissioned, distributed and heard affect musicians.
So far, I have primarily been like a studio "badger": I bury myself head-first into my projects and work quietly to make these objects called "CDs". Unlike a band, or a singer/songwriter, I don't come from a background of performing live I wasn't discovered in a small club like so many recording artists are. The labels have been my patrons: commissioning the work and then seeing that it gets distributed. Now, it seems, this system of patronage may be disappearing: slowly, but disappearing none the less.
Sooooooo......., I may have to change the model of how I work. Instead of the records being the main deal, the live performance may become the main deal, with the recorded material becoming ancillary.
Maybe I go into permanent remix mode, travelling around with my computers and boxes, breaking down and recreating my music on a nightly basis. That's another 21st century phenomenon: how dance culture has changed the nature of what is perceived as a musical performance. It's no longer just about the singer or player performing a song, it's about deconstruction, flow, mood. The performer is less the center of attention, more anonymous: it's about the effect of his/her performance. Should live performance seek to re-create the recording, or should it seek to be something completely different? The culture is pushing some musicians (like me) to take a more jazz-improvisatory approach to live performance, where the original song is just a jumping-off point.
On the other hand maybe there is a band version of what I do. It could be done, but would be quite complicated. That would be the "recreation" model.
Actually, why can't there be both? They're not mutually exclusive, and the experience of one could inform the other. I'm just turning all these ideas over in my head to try and decide what version(s) of my music I do eventually present in a live setting.
I don't know what's going to happen to the business side of making music in general. For the moment, I continue to make records. Aria 3 is just around the corner, Shimoon gets released in the Spring, and then there's talk of another State of Grace.
After that.........?
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