"Liberty means responsibility. That is why most men dread it." ~George Bernard Shaw
As a musician, entrepreneur, and consultant, I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about how to create a new "path" for musicians to succeed.
Unlike the olden days, success doesn’t have to equate with record sales, or even concert attendance.
Why? The emerging music industry is flexible. There aren’t any make-or-break "gatekeepers." It’s wide open and the costs are pretty much zero. There are no barriers to expression. Make a song for your mom and email it to her. Or take over the British singles charts. Whatever. Make what you want of it.
The key word, however, is "you". Even more than usual, musicians are the ones who will be ultimately responsible for music’s progress.
No magical music executive is ever going to appear (before you have
proven traction with fans) and take over the "annoying" parts of being
a musician. But at the same time, no cigar-chomping jerk will ever
stand between you and success.
Your success or failure depends 100% on you, your decisions, your work ethic, and your fans (if you’re good enough to have any).
We’re going to be in a transitory period for a while (the technology
is going to keep moving), which presents some dualities that are worth
thinking about:
- there’s less money in recordings but if you have a Net connection, your potential audience is in the billions;
-
the Net enables you to have a relationship with fans but scaling those
relationships is hard (how many emails or friend requests can you
respond to?)
- professional Music Businesspeople are fewer and
farther between but there are many web services that make doing those
people’s jobs easy (and enable you to keep 100% of the upside).
I believe it is this last duality that deserves the most thought. To
use the parlance of some geek Internet economists, these services have
"atomized" the music value chain.
(That’s good).
What does "atomize" mean?
Practically speaking, it means that all the traditional
responsibilities taken by someone else now fall on the musician himself
to carry out.
Need to finance a recording? CASHmusic.org, ArtistShare
Need to make a recording? Pay someone $30/hr, do it yourself, or keep it "in the box"
Need to distribute a recording? TuneCore, Amazon (or, better yet, Amazon FWS)
Need to promote a recording? AdWords, Last.fm Powerplay, Facebook, HypeMachine
Need to manage a fanclub? MySpace, iLike, ArtistData
Need to book a gig? Sonicbids
Need to license your tunes? PumpAudio, YouLicense
Need to create and sell merch? JakPrints, Zazzle, CafePress
The list goes on and is expanding by the day. Sure, at the moment, I
don’t think Sonicbids is a substitute for a being a client at the Windish Agency but I can imagine a future iteration of that service when it is.
Of course, there is no one "path." Everyone has to find their own
way. What’s great about how the music business is evolving is that it
supports an infinite number of paths. It’s up to musicians to ante up,
own it, and decide how they want to play it.
Note:
I’ll be expanding this article with case studies from my
own experience; if you have a story about how you or an artist you know
has taken responsibility for his or her career and thrived (or learned
a lesson), drop me a line!
Nothing is more difficult, and therefore more precious, than to be able to decide. ~Napoleon Bonaparte
Freedom is not worth having if it does not connote freedom to err. ~Mahatma Gandhi
- Ethan Bauley consults for media companies and musicians (when he’s
not playing music or working on his own startups). He can be reached
at www.ethanbauley.com and www.SpimeCo.com.
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