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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

#141

Post by pmoriarty »

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…

"I think people making money making music was an aberration in history, not "the way it should be"."

I don't want to put words in your mouth, but are you saying you think we should go back to the way musicians used to be treated in the past?

That's a rather reactionary position.

Historically, women in most societies were treated very poorly, often treated like property, and you could say that women being treated with respect is an "abberation in history". But so what? That doesn't mean we have to go back to when women were treated like crap just because that's the way they've mostly been treated before.

Slavery was the norm in many societies for thousands of years, and you could similarly say the lack of slavery is an aberration in history. That doesn't mean it's a good idea to bring back slavery.

If you want to argue that making money off of making music is wrong, you have to make a stronger case for that position than simply saying that's not the way it was in the past.

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

#142

Post by pmoriarty »

xkcd-sucks wrote: post #78
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…

If you're interested the non consumption-oriented music tradition, you'll do well to check out the Clifftop ["old-time music"] Festival [0]. Basically it is a music festival in which the music is made by the attendees, and there are no formally booked or scheduled artists (kind of). A few things that surprised me (I was totally naive going in, just giving a ride to a friend en route to somewhere else): - Old time mus…

I'd like to find something like this for electronic music.

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

#143

Post by wslh »

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…

> I think people making money making music was an aberration in history, not "the way it should be".

I assume you apply the same thinking to software, or movies, which also create artificial scarcity. It is just that movies and software are a new thing. Do you?

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

#144

Post by pmoriarty »

microtherion wrote: post #109
anigbrowl wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This argument crops up on every discussion of this topic. Why is it always people who work in the arts always told their work isn't worthy of payment except when delivered under certain conditions? If you don't think artists should be paid, then neither should programmers.

> If you don't think artists should be paid, then neither should programmers. Pretty sure that RMS is advocating for that kind of vision.

"> If you don't think artists should be paid, then neither should programmers."

"Pretty sure that RMS is advocating for that kind of vision."

That's a common misconception. He actually has no problem with programmers making money.

The GNU Project has an article on this, which starts by saying:

"Many people believe that the spirit of the GNU Project is that you should not charge money for distributing copies of software, or that you should charge as little as possible--just enough to cover the cost. This is a misunderstanding.

"Actually, we encourage people who redistribute free software to charge as much as they wish or can."

More here:

https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/selling.en.html

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

#145

Post by perl4ever »

philipov wrote: post #68
koolba wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not exactly. Before recorded music, a live band (or one man show!) was the only game in town. It was either that or silence. Everywhere that wanted to fill that silence had to hire musicians.

It was not "that" or silence. You're not considering that learning to play a musical instrument was itself more common. Performing music was a community activity people used to entertain themselves; the hiring of musicians was for the wealthy aristocracy.

"Performing music was a community activity people used to entertain themselves"

It still is, among the people I know/grew up with.

See:

https://festival.oldsongs.org/

"In addition to three concerts there are over 100 daytime workshops, dances or performances."

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

#146

Post by pmoriarty »

jedberg wrote: post #38
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?

> Are you suggesting artisans weren't a thing? Historically, anyone who made something by hand was an artisan, so the hammer maker and the sword maker. I suppose you could consider that art, but when I say I art I'm talking music, paining, sculpture, etc. Things that only have aesthetic use, not functional use. And I don't believe there are any examples of people making aesthetic works as their only source of income…

"when I say I art I'm talking music, paining, sculpture, etc. Things that only have aesthetic use, not functional use."

Painting, sculpture, and music have had functional uses since forever.

They had functions such as:

  - reminding people of what happened in the past
  - teaching people moral lessons
  - exulting or placating gods
  - inspiring troops to be braver in combat
  - honoring the dead
  - letting people see things they couldn't see in person
  - training doctors and scientists
  - providing propaganda for rulers or religious organizations
  - inspiring people towards revolution or to right various wrongs
and on, and on, and on.

Only relatively recently has the idea become popular that art should be divorced from function, placed in museums or galleries, and be appreciated merely for its aesthetic value alone.

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

#147

Post by Fricken »

selectodude wrote: post #135
Fricken wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Capitalism is destroying the planet. That's hardly a net positive. In fact it's the worst thing possible. There is nothing humans are even theoretically capable of that is worse.

What is the suggested alternative to a market economy? Command economies aren't what I would consider better for the globe. Energy intensity per unit of labor is almost universally lower in market economies than it is in command economies.

A market economy would be fine if it's impact on the ecology was priced in.

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

#148

Post by Stratoscope »

pmoriarty wrote: post #141
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…

"I think people making money making music was an aberration in history, not "the way it should be"." I don't want to put words in your mouth, but are you saying you think we should go back to the way musicians used to be treated in the past? That's a rather reactionary position. Historically, women in most societies were treated very poorly, often treated like property, and you could say that women being treated with…

> I don't want to put words in your mouth...

Then don't.

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

#149

Post by arvinsim »

pmoriarty wrote: post #141
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…

"I think people making money making music was an aberration in history, not "the way it should be"." I don't want to put words in your mouth, but are you saying you think we should go back to the way musicians used to be treated in the past? That's a rather reactionary position. Historically, women in most societies were treated very poorly, often treated like property, and you could say that women being treated with…

> I don't want to put words in your mouth, but are you saying you think we should go back to the way musicians used to be treated in the past?

If there is a demand, then musicians will be paid. But the economy is not obligated to provide musicians a living.

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

#150

Post by stephen_g »

mrob wrote: post #10
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…

Also: >The sample rate of an MP3 is 23,000 compressed samples per second, half the sample rate of a commercial CD and a quarter of the sample rate of a studio quality digital recording. The MP3 format does not support 23kHz sample rate, which is a strange non-standard rate that I've never hear of anybody using in any format.

Must be confusing it with the 32kHz option, which I don't believe was that widely used. As far as I recall, most MP3s were 44.1kHz (same as CDs) but 48kHz was an option too.
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