PG Music Home Forums General Discussion Off-Topic What are your reasons for making music?

Nothing has changed but the technology, and it was around long before Napster.

If they buy it:

Back 'in the day' local radio stations, in order to boost ratings used to announce, "Tonight at 11 we will play _____'s new album without commercial interruption."

Thousands of people would have their tape machines cued up and ready to push the REC button. Then the station would play the LP and when flipping sides, the interruption would be "You are listening to W(or K)???.FM ___ on your dial."

When they buy it:

Cassette copy after copy would be made and shared with friends.

The differences are:

• The Internet makes it easier to share with people you don't know
• Music just isn't as important to this generation as it was to previous ones

I hear people moaning all the time that they can't make money recording music anymore. Well, most musicians never made money with recording. For >99% of all musicians, playing live has been the way to make money. Only <1% made any money from recordings.

For every Beatles, Pink Floyd, Elvis, or whatever there were at least another thousand bands working clubs, parties, hotels, and so on.

Plus most 'one hit wonders' or 'one CD wonders' ended up never making a penny of their recordings, and in many cases ended up owing the record company in the end.

When Motown was courting us in the late 1960s, and they made their final offer, it was $.02 per record. Out of the royalties came inflated recording costs, inflated promotion costs, inflated production costs, and inflated distribution costs. Our lawyers figured that we'd have to sell a million copies of our first recording just to get break even and not owe Motown money. That's when negotiations broke down.

The streaming services aren't doing anything that the vinyl and CD merchants did. Exploiting the artist.

The real difference is that today music isn't as important to the screen generation. Not too many years ago, every hotel from a Holiday Inn up had a band playing 6 or 7 nights a week. Usually a pop band 6 nights and a jazz band on the 7th.

Plus singles bars, restaurants, country clubs and dozens of other venues had to have a band.

The only bars with TVs were corner taverns with a dozen or so bar stools and no tables. Discos came later and they put the first nail in the live music coffin. Now people stay home and watch TV and the 6 night gigs are all but gone.

Music just isn't as an important to this generation. And I don't see a change coming any time soon.

Why music isn't that important is another subject altogether, but I think I've hijacked the thread enough.

To get back on topic, I make my living doing music and nothing but music because it's by bliss and I'm able to make a living at it. If I couldn't make a living at it, it would be my hobby and it still would be my bliss.

Someone mentioned the high. I get into "the zone" almost every gig. That space where there is no place, no time, and no me -- where the music seems to flow through me instead of from me, and the time between when the gig stops and ends seems both infinite and instant. In any case, the gig is over too soon, and although I'm tired, it's a good kind of tired.

Insights and incites by Notes

Notes, do you have any idea on what airplay pays bands? If you get into a rotation where you are played every hour and project that over 2000 stations, and stay there for 4 weeks, at one penny per play that works out to $14,400.

Now, to factor in the odds of having that song get that kind of heavy airplay, you may as well put on a blindfold, try to

1. Get into your car
2. Drive to a bar with dartboards
3. Park your car
4. Find the entrance
5. Find the dartboards
6. Throw bullseye after bullseye, all night long.

MUSIC doesn't matter to this generation. Nobody says "Have you heard the new song by _________?" They say "Have you seen the new VIDEO by _________?" Different world since MTV. I remember when concerts were pretty much about watching a band stand in front of mics and amps and playing. Now it's dance teams, lights, costume changing, fire, smoke..... Personally I much prefer to see The Eagles stand on stage and sing Hotel California.... without elastic audio correcting the vocals on the fly and the high notes being mixed in from the board. It is truly a (sadly) different time.

the pay scale for streamed music doesn't match the pay scale for youtube vloggers. Whereas it seems to take thousands of hits to generate pennies for the talented musicians, relatively untalented people who can consistently generate a vlog per week and build a subscriber base are making about a dollar per thousand views. That's a lot more than the musicians are making.

watch these articles and scratch your head in disbelief:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zn0y3Opb8Wk

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vWlsNOaj1sQ

Pat I don't know if that was to me or not, but I am talking about real radio plays like what you hear in your truck, not internet or streams. We know streamed plays pay nothing.

Nothing but the technology? The technology is everything. Copies back then were analog crap, and not everyone had a tape machine. Every computer, and there are way more of them today than there were tape machines in the day, with a CD drive is capable of making a perfect dupe of any song or album. And instead of giving a few cassette copies to your friends you can share it with the whole world in a few seconds. Basically the general feeling is "if it's possible to steal it, then it's OK to steal it." Personally I don't care. I've never aspired to make a living with music although I have had some nice paydays. But for the folks that think they're gonna make a fortune in the "biz"...good luck with that.

Since the talk has morphed to money.....

Yeah, streaming music is a rip-off for the writers. Building a business model along the lines of Pomplamoose is a good way to make a musical living.... sell direct and don't stream.

Film & TV pays really really well compared to streaming. Pay varies based on length of the cue.... but normally between 5 cents to a few dollars per cue/play.

It's possible, with time and effort, and recording good usable cues, to build a nice, steady, livable income stream.

The conversation has definitely morphed into the good old days were better so let me join in.

I am very excited about the times. Growing up in Zimbabwe what chance did I ever have of making anything at all out of my music? There was nowhere to perform for pay and there was no way for me to expose my music to a label (that I knew of).

Now, for absolutely nothing I can record a song, make a video and release the song on all digital platforms. Who knows who will see it. And I am doing this right now. When else were aspiring musicians like me able to do this in the past?

This recording and video cost next to nothing to produce https://youtu.be/1KagFbfP6x0 and it will be released on my next album.

Exciting times for sure!

You are a breath of fresh air for sure!!! Thank you!

Yes, the upside is you can do your own release to a global audience for very little money, how cool is that?

The downside is not much in the way of money to be made.

It wasn't so much the fact that anyone can just make their own copies of music on their computer to load onto an MP3 player that killed the money aspect of it based on my experience, it is all the new streaming services out there. MP3 players are obsolete, most people just stream these days.

When I first started with CDBaby back in 2003 things were quite different. Initially it was physical CD sales, but that changed very quickly to MP3 downloads via the various partners, iTunes etc. And that was a good thing, there was much more money to be made (via CDBaby) with an MP3 download than a CD sale.

In checking my CDBaby accounting page it looks like the trend from someone buying an MP3 download to just buying a stream started happening around 2006, that is the last year I was consistently selling a lot of MP3 downloads, after that it is mostly streams. MP3 downloads pay the artist around $.77 or so, streams $.009.

Not that I made a lot of money from it mind you, but for the first few years I was able to pay for my BIAB yearly upgrade with a few $$ left over from money made from CDBaby.

But, that's just the way technology has changed the industry and not likely to change anytime soon.

My $.02 for what it's worth

That's interesting info and coming from a seasoned customer,you are providing relevant insight.

A question for you. Is CDbaby still a income vehicle you would recommend to a new artist wanting to publish and distribute their work in today's market? Not just for income, but for exposure as well.

Charlie

Hi Charlie,
Well, at the time CDBaby was the only game in town, now there are more options.

One nice thing about CDBaby is they distribute your music to all of the digital sites, not just a few, and there are lots of them. Also with CDBaby you pay one fee to get a new release up and you are done, other sites that offer a similar service, reverbnation is one, require a renewal fee every year or they take your music down.

But, I haven't kept up to date to be honest, maybe there is a better way to get your music up on iTunes, spotify, etc. now.

The "good old days" really weren't all that good... it's just that your memory has gotten worse with time.

I agree 100%.

1) The publishers always exploit the artists
2) I'd rather hear the real thing than an auto-tuned or other artificially enhanced performance.

And speaking of that. I went to a big rock fest quite a few years ago. I really went to see/hear Dr. John. Alice Cooper was on the bill, and during the scene where they marched across the stage to hang him on the gallows, the tape playing the music and vocals malfunctioned and the only thing you could hear was the parade drum. They went through the motions as rehearsed anyway.

And the publishers exploit the artists. The publisher makes more than the songwriter for the sheet music, more than the artist for a record sale, and so on. And like I said, it's not only musicians. My cousin wrote a novel that sold a few hundred thousand copies, but she never got to the point where she made a profit, and being a fist timer, the publisher just promoted it enough to recoup their costs from the royalties.

Visual artists pay for the canvas, framing, etc. (which is extremely expensive) and for the works that sell the gallery takes home more money than the artist.

Of course, all this changes if/when you break out and become famous. Then you get a better contract because you are worth more to the publisher.



I agree, but people listened to crap. And everyone I knew had a cassette machine. They listened to 2nd and 3rd generation tapes with no problem (except for the few like the musicians with 'ears').

Before that they listened to lo-fi 45rpm records and before that 78s. And what about those 8track players that faded out in the middle of a song, clicked to the next track, and then faded in to play the rest of the song.

The average music consumer doesn't care that much. They want to hear the words and sing along to the tune.

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And yes, you can now get to a global audience with the Internet for minimal investment. That's a good thing.

The down side is there are zillions of others doing the same thing so marketing to get people to find you might cost more than your streaming or download fees.

I can make more playing one gig live than most can with streaming and download profits for a year. And I do this a few days per week. I've paid off my mortgage, taken a foreign vacation almost every year (after we did 49 US states), bought a boat, cars, and paid all my bills doing music and nothing but music. Life is good.

The down side of that is that I'm playing at my full potential. I can't sell multiple copies of that performance and possibly break out and become a millionaire like Kenny G.

But for every Kenny G who makes it, there are thousands who record and try but never make a buck. It probably has about the same odds as playing the state lottery.

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So the way I see it is, the odds of making big bucks in the recording industry have never been good. On the other hand the opportunities have expanded but the field of competition has as well.

The big stars like The Beatles, GNR, and so on have always been the exception to the rule, and that small percentage has been able to live off their recordings since the last half of the 20th century, but with the increase of technology, they are now making less than they used to make.

But for centuries, the vast majority of musicians have made a living playing music, live, in front of an audience. Before mass media, all the musicians made all their money playing live to an audience.

The demand for live music is less than it has ever been since I was a child, but it's still there. Unfortunately there is more competition, screens (especially cable TV), open mic nights where your competition plays for free, DJs, and sports bars.

But a good musician can probably still make more in one night than he/she can with a year of Spotify royalties.

Back on topic.

Most of us play music because we really, really, really enjoy playing music. Those of us who can also make a living by playing music, are IMHO the lucky ones.

Insights and incites by Notes

We used to do a bluegrass song titled "I think We're Living In The Good Old Days."

J&B

That's correct, and you are right. It doesn't get any better than this.

it wasn't posted in response to you specifically. My point was simply to say that if internet ads justify paying vloggers about $1.37 per THOUSAND views... (even after youtube gets THEIR 45% cut) ... pro music surely draws larger audiences to ads that are billed the same way to advertisers... but the music streaming companies are keeping a MUCH larger share of the revenue. It isn't even CLOSE!

You would make more money by putting your music on a youtube blog and monetizing it, doing the things others do to build your subscriber base than you will EVER make by allowing Pandora to stream your music. Plus, putting it on your own youtube site gives you other options, like partnering with retailers, selling merch etc.

Same internet, same ad pricing, different payout schemes. Why musicians continue making their music available to the people who screw them is a mystery to me.

I agree... these are good times for those who think outside the box and look for ways to use the new paradigms and circumvent all the middle men. . Those who continue to use the old approaches are destined to remain one step behind the sharks who dominate that world.

Online streaming is nothing more than "record company 2.0"

We make music because we have to. It's that simple.

Why we let people exploit us is the mystery to me.

• Open mic nights - the owner/management gets paid, the bartenders get paid, the wait staff gets paid, the janitors get paid and the musician works for free, plus he/she even brings friends and family in to make more money for the people who are getting paid
• Playing anywhere for 'exposure' - same as above
• Bad deals with record companies and streaming companies - similar to above

If you want to play for free, there is nothing wrong with that. Find a charity you like, play in a public park, a neighbor's house, a party, or any other non-commercial place you want. But if it's a business and the management and staff are getting paid, don't play for free, you are only being exploited. In addition you are harming the ability of both yourself and other musicians to make a living by playing music.

Insights, incites and a minor rant by Notes

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