Music and the Economy
Thursday, January 15, 2009
The global financial crisis is beginning to take its toll on the music sector, from the orchestra field, which has seen similar belt-tightening, right down to individual musicians, who are taking up second jobs. We speak with Drew McManus, orchestra consultant and blogger at Adaptistration, and Los Angeles Times contributor Blair Tindall, author of “Mozart in the Jungle.”
Soundcheck blog: John Schaefer on the economic crisis and the arts world
Soundcheck blog: John Schaefer on the economic crisis and the arts world
Comments [3]
Here is what i just posted at Dean's blog:
I listened intently to your segment with John.
I have been running a business or working in someone else's business for about 35 years. There are times when there are paradigm shifts based on economics and need. Concert going is not immune to these forces.
The demographics for concert going have been deteriorating for a long time, while the quantity and quality of audio streaming on the internet and the availability of good quality mp3's have both been rising.
In my view, like it or not,these last two are the future of music. Nortel, the telecom giant of yesteryear, just filed for bankruptcy protection, but I just bought a one terabyte Western Digital serial ATA 7200 rpm external hard drive because the size of my mp3 music library and mp4 video library are well over 100 gigabytes.
I get movies from Netflix, which means I have abandoned the movie theatre and also my local video store. Soon, I wont even need to get those DVD's, Netflix will just download the movie to my PC.
On the other hand, NPR just proferred on us a download of a concert. A download of music!! I got the downloads, I liked what I heard and hotsied myself right over to Amazon and bought 5 albums, not on CD, but in mp3 and at 256k. Not too shabby, and I financially supported the artist.
WNYC2 offered Michael Gordon's "Decasia". I loved it. I bought it, right from Bang on a Can, in mp3.
Is any of what I have described going to lead to big bucks? Not from me alone, for sure. But, if I am right and this is what is happening, then the potential of the internet in general and PubRadio in particular is limitless, and others will spend money.
My choice is to financially support living composers. Others will make their own valid choices.
If you read Greg Sandow and Mike Janssen, especially in recent posts, you can see this happening.
Tulsa: part of one of my points.
You can add Pasadena.
Baltimore should not be, but maybe is, a maybe.
You guys should talk about the fact that concert attendance is not the only way for listeners to support music.
The maximum potential for concert attendance is limited by location and time along with money. Outside of the major metropolitan areas like, NYC, LA, SF, CHI, even STL, what is the potential. Sure, there might be symphony orchestras in Des Moines and Dubuke, but what is the audience potential.
On the other hand, the maximum potential for audience on the internet is limitless. Web streaming is growing; music downloads for which we pay at Amazon are plentiful (I even bought Partch, Nancarrow, Brant, etc). This is not big money in the instant case; but in the aggregate it can be international and huge.
So, you should keep these things in the mix of ideas.
>>RSM
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