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A brief history of why artists are no longer making a living making music

rootsmusic.ca

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Re: A brief history of why artists are no longer making a living making music

#21

Post by TheRealDunkirk »

jedberg wrote: post #6

For all of human history, we've been making music and art. And for almost all of that time, it was done for love of doing, not money. For a few hundred years, there was the patronage era, where if you were really good you could get a rich person to feed and clothe and house you while you made art. Or you traveled around giving performances for money or food or clothes or shelter. Then only in the last 100ish years ha…

You're right, of course. Unfortunately, this applies to a lot more fields than just music performance, and society is really going to struggle to sort out living in the post-scarcity economy. Also, the-once revolutionary "long tail" now makes choice so individualistic, and effectively arbitrary, that it's hard to capitalize on any particular genre or act.

Re: A brief history of why artists are no longer making a living making music

#23

Post by jalgos_eminator »

This article reeks of blaming new technology for killing an industry (it didn't), and resistance to change (i.e. things were so much better when I was young). He actually (sort-of) acknowledges this in the last paragraph when he mentions theatre taking a hit when films came about, but music hasn't been replaced like theatre has so the comparison is moot.

> Now everybody can make a record – and maybe that’s not a good thing

No, that is a very good thing. High studio costs mean that you had to get funded by a record company to get anything recorded and released. Record companies were the gatekeepers. Now, you can make a decent sounding record with only a few thousand dollars worth of recording equipment and a laptop. No, it will not sound as good as one recorded at a proper studio, but Joe/Jane Consumer generally won't be able to tell the difference anyway. The magic of music is not how high quality the recording is, but how well the artists composed the music and how they played it. I think the punk recordings he mentions showed that the best, because they objectively sound bad from a traditional music production standpoint, but that was the whole point those punk artists were making. There have been some absolutely great records made in people's home studios, even as early as the 90's. The key ingredient of good music is creativity, not sound quality, and having decent recording gear for cheap just lets more people be more creative.

Re: A brief history of why artists are no longer making a living making music

#24

Post by skookumchuck »

Pfhreak wrote: post #18
jedberg wrote: post #6

For all of human history, we've been making music and art. And for almost all of that time, it was done for love of doing, not money. For a few hundred years, there was the patronage era, where if you were really good you could get a rich person to feed and clothe and house you while you made art. Or you traveled around giving performances for money or food or clothes or shelter. Then only in the last 100ish years ha…

> For all of human history, we've been making music and art. And for almost all of that time, it was done for love of doing, not money. This seems wildly improbable to me? People didn't get paid for art until a few hundred years ago? Are you suggesting artisans weren't a thing? That all the art produced globally outside of the past few hundred years was done just for love of doing?

I've never heard of artisans getting wealthy before the 20th century.

Re: A brief history of why artists are no longer making a living making music

#25

Post by mrj »

Pfhreak wrote: post #18
jedberg wrote: post #6

For all of human history, we've been making music and art. And for almost all of that time, it was done for love of doing, not money. For a few hundred years, there was the patronage era, where if you were really good you could get a rich person to feed and clothe and house you while you made art. Or you traveled around giving performances for money or food or clothes or shelter. Then only in the last 100ish years ha…

> For all of human history, we've been making music and art. And for almost all of that time, it was done for love of doing, not money. This seems wildly improbable to me? People didn't get paid for art until a few hundred years ago? Are you suggesting artisans weren't a thing? That all the art produced globally outside of the past few hundred years was done just for love of doing?

People got paid, but there wasn't a way to reproduce art for basically nothing but sell it as if it was the original. That radically changed the economics of music for a period, which could be seen as a distortion and not the way things should be. OP is now lamenting (right or wrong) that system is gone, only the live performance really still exists as a money maker.

Re: A brief history of why artists are no longer making a living making music

#27

Post by Causality1 »

Sounds like sour grapes to me. "I'm done arguing about it, but analog sounded better" as if he has any evidence to back up his claim. Not all of us can tolerate music with an assload of white noise splattered all over it. I've yet to listen to a vinyl without the experience being ruined by analog hiss.

Re: A brief history of why artists are no longer making a living making music

#28

Post by criddell »

TheRealDunkirk wrote: post #21
jedberg wrote: post #6

For all of human history, we've been making music and art. And for almost all of that time, it was done for love of doing, not money. For a few hundred years, there was the patronage era, where if you were really good you could get a rich person to feed and clothe and house you while you made art. Or you traveled around giving performances for money or food or clothes or shelter. Then only in the last 100ish years ha…

You're right, of course. Unfortunately, this applies to a lot more fields than just music performance, and society is really going to struggle to sort out living in the post-scarcity economy. Also, the-once revolutionary "long tail" now makes choice so individualistic, and effectively arbitrary, that it's hard to capitalize on any particular genre or act.

Sales of recorded music are way down but every other part of the music industry has grown. If this is the pattern that other fields follow, then we're all going to be rich!

Has there ever been a better time to be a musician than now?

Re: A brief history of why artists are no longer making a living making music

#29

Post by Pfhreak »

skookumchuck wrote: post #24
Pfhreak wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> For all of human history, we've been making music and art. And for almost all of that time, it was done for love of doing, not money. This seems wildly improbable to me? People didn't get paid for art until a few hundred years ago? Are you suggesting artisans weren't a thing? That all the art produced globally outside of the past few hundred years was done just for love of doing?

I've never heard of artisans getting wealthy before the 20th century.

"Wealthy" is a different goalpost than "doing art/music for money".

But even then, artisans in antiquity definitely reached middle classes. (And it's plausible to assume that at least a few individuals were wealthier or converted their artisanship into a bigger merchant operation.)

Re: A brief history of why artists are no longer making a living making music

#30

Post by criddell »

saidajigumi wrote: post #17
MereInterest wrote: post #8

> However, with a sampling rate of 44,000 samples per second, there were overtones of sound now missing. Human hearing only goes up to 20 kHz when you are young, dropping to about 12 kHz at the age of 50. 44 kHz sampling gives a Nyquist frequency of 22 kHz, easily encompassing the full range of human hearing. Any overtones that are missing in the recording are overtones that didn't make it through the human ear in th…

There were also serious problems in many early digital (and hybrid) audio production chains. Some productions had great engineers on board who'd taken the time to learn the new tools. Others ... were varying degrees from "meh" to "disaster". For example, I have a CD that's unlistenable if you've still got your high-end hearing – there's major high-frequency artifacting. I'll bet that the mastering engineer couldn't e…

I always wonder how some bands (like Dire Straits) seemed to figure this stuff out so early on while a decade later others struggled to do the same.
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