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ivan@stellysee.de
| From | adamghost@aol.com |
| Subject | Re: eMusic (music as a hobby) |
| Date | Fri, 11 May 2007 20:22:44 -0400 |
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Hey John, I liked your post a lot in terms of putting the concept of "professional musician" into historical perspective.
The point I would make is that -- and I'm speaking from the perspective of someone who did music full-time for three years and now is balancing an active music career with a full time job -- not having a class of professional musicians (or engineers, or label entrepreneurs) scraping by and devoting full time and energy to what they do can severely limit one's development. Again, speaking from personal perspective, spending 2 1/2 years straight on the road as a musician did more for my singing and performing ability than any other experience I can think of. You can't acquire that any other way. You think back on the people that we revere now -- The Beatles, Johnny Cash, Al Green, whoever -- the real greats got that way through the fulcrum of playing live night after night sweating it out in little clubs.
Now, all those cats struggled and made giant sacrifices to do what they did; they weren't getting rich off anything. But the means was available to them to do it. And we'd be the poorer culturally if no musicians were able to devote full time to playing. Now a couple of people have suggested that musicians don't make any money off CD sales anyway, that it's all about playing live, and that's sort of true, but the infrastructure -- the frame, if you will -- of an independent music scene of other artists, labels and record stores and fans has fragmented and crumbled in the space of the ten years I've been at it. You can still go on the road but you're going to make less money in merchandise sales, get less bang for your buck promotionally, and have fewer people at the gig. For musicians to stay afloat, in general, they need to be supported by some kind of subculture or scene. Take that away, and a lot goes with it.
Having said all that, some of the best rock bands have basically been populated by rich kids! They have the free time and money to obsess over the records and hone their craft. And again, that's not necessarily a bad thing.
You can make the argument that music should go back to being totally the purview of non-professionals, but there's no question the overall quality of the music will suffer. Again, that's just how it is. Maybe it's inevitable; I don't know. I actually am in agreement with a lot of what's been said here. I also think music has been overvalued and the prices are artificially inflated in many cases. I'm just offering another perspective, in tandem and support with others that have posted here.
Adam Marsland
www.myspace.com/adammarsland
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