The Future of Making Money in the Music Biz

[davd_indigo]

I have a cousin in Jacksonville. He worked for about 20 years as an adjunct at a college there. He has a masters degree in music and taught voice, music appreciation, music theory and such. After about 19 years as an adjunct teacher, he got hired full time. A year later his position was eliminated.

 

Now, at about age 58 he's going to law school. He said that he figures that after finishing school, he should have about 10 years at a high salary to justify law school. I'm figuring he's going to have to become an ambulance chaser to get that high a salary.

 

Another cousin, a 2nd cousin (a generation younger than me) lives in Tampa. He has a masters degree in Jazz Studies. He's worked as an adjunct professor and has taught jazz and classical piano lessons. He also plays in churches and does some restaurant/bar piano gigs. His dad recently told me that he's not making enough (his wife recently had a 2nd baby). He's working on getting a commercial real estate license - development is booming in his part of the Tampa area. His goal is to NOT work in music during the daytime.

 

I'd long held the belief that teaching was the way to make a stable living in music, This no longer seems to be the case in many instances.

[nat whilk II]

I have a cousin in Jacksonville. He worked for about 20 years as an adjunct at a college there. He has a masters degree in music and taught voice, music appreciation, music theory and such. After about 19 years as an adjunct teacher, he got hired full time. A year later his position was eliminated.

 

Now, at about age 58 he's going to law school. He said that he figures that after finishing school, he should have about 10 years at a high salary to justify law school. I'm figuring he's going to have to become an ambulance chaser to get that high a salary.

 

Another cousin, a 2nd cousin (a generation younger than me) lives in Tampa. He has a masters degree in Jazz Studies. He's worked as an adjunct professor and has taught jazz and classical piano lessons. He also plays in churches and does some restaurant/bar piano gigs. His dad recently told me that he's not making enough (his wife recently had a 2nd baby). He's working on getting a commercial real estate license - development is booming in his part of the Tampa area. His goal is to NOT work in music during the daytime.

 

I'd long held the belief that teaching was the way to make a stable living in music, This no longer seems to be the case in many instances.

 

When it comes to teaching in college - any subject - the adjunct prof position has moved from a minority of faculty to a large majority of the faculty on average across the nation's colleges and universities.

 

Adjuncts get a really raw deal in general. Terrible pay relative to tenured and full-time profs, insecure job status, poor or nonexistent benefits, etc., etc. Comes from running colleges "like a business" - a huge shift similar to what healthcare has been undergoing. Lots more money pushed upstairs to the prosperous few, and a growing underclass of workers who have to hold down more than one job to get by.

 

If "free college for everyone" actually comes into being - mark my words - it will be on the backs of adjunct professors. And they are starting to kick back against the system, unionizing and organizing. Expect news along these lines as the free college thing gains ground.

 

nat whilk ii

 

 

[Danhedonia]

I find conversations much more enjoyable when they steer clear of prejudice, professional or otherwise. When an entire class of people (many of whom are your friends, and have played significant and positive roles in your life) are unfairly tarnished, loyalty dictates that I object.

 

Further, attorney bashing is a sport that has a net effect of mooks embracing socially regressive behavior. Let's not contribute to that.

 

Craig, the crookedness of accounting in the old days .... where to start? There was so much unethical behavior within the music industry that it's difficult for me to untangle and analyze. I suppose an easy way out would be to simply cite it as the prevailing business culture, and leave it to those with more time to say why. Truly exploitative. Thank heavens some lawyers came along and demanded better for their clients (though I'd say that at my point of departure from the Biz in the late 90's, curious accounting and non-reporting was still de rigeur). Nothing quite on the level, though, of Allen B. Klein claiming Mick & Keith wrote Robert Johnson's songs.

 

The Patron of the Arts ... I don't know, hasn't this been going on for some time? I recall indie-proper (different meaning here in the states, much more like 'punk' sociologically) getting tarred and feathered by their ostensible fanbase for selling songs to producers for $40k, so they could make rent and eat, etc.

 

One of the things I tried to point out to people was that there is also a very mathematical situation involved that has changed the calculus. From say 1948-1985ish, disposable income was rising in the west, while the amount of pre-recorded music stayed relatively small. Demand for recorded music outpaced supply. Well, DIY ran it's course, and in the last 30 years absolutely everyone can record and distribute music. During that time, wealth also began to be redistributed.

 

That economic shift underpins the technological and cultural shifts in music.

 

I think the real money to be made in the music business is in the selling of celebrity - live shows, instagram, etc. The recordings have almost become like a loss leader.

[Anderton]

I find conversations much more enjoyable when they steer clear of prejudice, professional or otherwise. When an entire class of people (many of whom are your friends, and have played significant and positive roles in your life) are unfairly tarnished, loyalty dictates that I object.

 

I've met lawyers who work pro bono to keep little old ladies from being exploited by people who want to tear down their houses to build a high-rise. Of course, those lawyers are in turn fighting lawyers...as I said, there are plenty of good lawyers, but enough bad apples to tarnish the others.

 

The Patron of the Arts ... I don't know, hasn't this been going on for some time?

 

Yes, I just think that its "market share" is increasing.

 

One of the things I tried to point out to people was that there is also a very mathematical situation involved that has changed the calculus. From say 1948-1985ish, disposable income was rising in the west, while the amount of pre-recorded music stayed relatively small. Demand for recorded music outpaced supply. Well, DIY ran it's course, and in the last 30 years absolutely everyone can record and distribute music. During that time, wealth also began to be redistributed.

 

That economic shift underpins the technological and cultural shifts in music.

 

I think the real money to be made in the music business is in the selling of celebrity - live shows, instagram, etc. The recordings have almost become like a loss leader.

 

100% correct. But, the licensing of those recordings still has power.

 

[Danhedonia]

True that.

 

I'd love to see some stats about licensing revenues; any insight there?

 

My general sense is that, proportionally, there are no more or fewer musicians these days able to make a living via their work (e.g., no day job), but that there were a good many more "semi-pro" musicians for a while, and then a bunch less.

 

 

[Notes_Norton]

True that.

 

I'd love to see some stats about licensing revenues; any insight there?

 

My general sense is that, proportionally, there are no more or fewer musicians these days able to make a living via their work (e.g., no day job), but that there were a good many more "semi-pro" musicians for a while, and then a bunch less.

 

I have to respectfully disagree.

 

When I was young, every hotel from a Holiday Inn to the Fountainbleau had a band. The 'strip' on Ft; Laudardale Beach had dozens of them, at least 4 pieces, and many of them two bands. I played a lounge in Miami that had 3 bands each in a different room. I even played a strip club where the dancers were accompanied by a real band (I was 18 years old, what a great gig that was). Most had 6 or 7 nights a week. I played in many a bar where we did 6 nights and the jazz band played on our day off (Usually Monday).

 

Before Wide Screen Cable TV with an up to $300 per month subscription and before the MADD mothers convinced the law to jack up the drunk driving charges, and before DJs became the choice of the young, and before "Sports Bars" and "Open Mic Nights" it was very easy for a musician to make a living playing music and doing nothing else (no day job).

 

Today there are more musicians (the population has tripled since the 1960s) and many fewer places for a musician to work 6 nights a week - many fewer places for a musician to work at all.

 

The future of making money playing music has always been live performance for most of us, but that is diminishing as well.

 

How to get people out from in front of their TVs and back in the bars where the belong?

 

That's the question that needs answering.

 

Insights and incites by Notes

 

PS - I'm very lucky to be born when I was. I've made a living doing music and nothing but music for most of my life. I'm of retirement age now, but have no plans to do so. As long as I can fog a mirror and as long as there is an audience for me, I'll be gigging. Being a musician is not what I do, it's what I AM.

[davd_indigo]

Ethan Iverson recently shared this Village Voice article on his "Do The Math" blog. It's about a highly skilled jazz bassist in NYC. Linda Oh is her name. It's titled "Almost Famous, Almost Broke: How Does A Jazz Musician Make It In New York Now ?". I found it very interesting. One thing that struck me was that she toured with Pat Metheny in Asia in the spring and yet she says she has the lowest/cheapest tier of Obamacare.

 

http://www.villagevoice.com/music/al...rk-now-8768844

[Danhedonia]

Notes - dates? I only know what I know, which begins in Boston around 1980. I think you experienced an exception. I lived in Vegas for a bit and there were a lot of gigs for musicians and there still are. But that's not reality for Dallas, Cleveland, Des Moines.

 

Either way, the culture has changed. Instead of looking up to stars, people nowadays worship themselves - we're so narcissistic. That's taken a big bite out of career ,usicianship, too.

[Anderton]

Either way, the culture has changed. Instead of looking up to stars, people nowadays worship themselves - we're so narcissistic.

 

Very interesting point. I see it everywhere. Even something as innocuous as a software company's forum..."Why aren't you fixing the bug Ihat I reported? Why are you fixing other bugs? Why do I have to pay money to get an update? Why do the people who pay for the deluxe version of a program get more stuff than the people who buy the 'lite' version?"

 

I've noticed in many of these forums that the people who contribute the most and don't have problems with the software have links to their music. The perennial complainers often don't. Hmm...

 

And this DOES relate to the premise. It's gone from "I'm gonna make my music and if people really dig it, they'll buy it and I'll make some money" to "I want to make some money. What?!?! I have to make something people want to buy? That's crazy talk."

 

Slowly but surely, I'm realizing that "Idiocracy" was a documentary.

 

[Danhedonia]

In 1998 (I think?) I had a very odd experience where I was part of a meeting with some people at Sony and right there at 550 Madison Ave I tried to make the point that streaming was an inevitability. Not really sure what would happen I brought up Audiogalaxy and searched an artist whose music I'd released. There in front of our eyes were four people downloading it. My explanation that I wasn't simply angry (though that was part of the equation) but also glad that the fans were interested fell on very deaf ears.

 

I thought about it for months and came to a realization: in 1970, a kid who wanted to say something picked up a guitar. Now, they write code or plot to become YouTube / Instagram / or worse "stars," and to quote Gertrude Stein, "there's no 'there' there."

 

We can stand around as old men telling kids to get off our lawn all day, but I teach high school now and the kids don't seem too different from when I was kid. What's changed is the role that music plays in the culture. Technology has changed a lot of things.

 

The two biggest changes I've seen regarding music that stem from technology are:

1. Oversupply of recorded music. This is a tough observation, because personally I am all for more people making music, etc. However, from a purely economic perspective, when you go from several thousand promoted releases a year to hundreds of thousands, you can't expect the economic model to remain intact.

2. Young, creative energy has other places to go. (see: above). There are more outlets.

 

Those two things combine to give us more music, yet worse music. It's a talent drain.

[Anderton]

In 1998 (I think?) I had a very odd experience where I was part of a meeting with some people at Sony and right there at 550 Madison Ave I tried to make the point that streaming was an inevitability.

 

I hear ya. Back in the day I had a discussion with some record industry types that the way to own streaming was to put their entire catalogs online in 8-bit/22 kHz - good enough to find out if you wanted to buy it, bad enough it wouldn't substitute for ownership. They thought I was an idiot. Maybe they were right, but their avoidance of using the internet is exactly what allowed the "sharers," and later Apple, to dominate that arena.

 

I thought about it for months and came to a realization: in 1970, a kid who wanted to say something picked up a guitar. Now, they write code or plot to become YouTube / Instagram / or worse "stars," and to quote Gertrude Stein, "there's no 'there' there."

 

Exactly. Any field, when it expands, doesn't push out what dominated previously but simply diminishes its importance. For example TV used to be three network channels. Then UHF came along and the network share become smaller, then cable and the network share shrunk further, then companies like Netflix doing original content and the network share shrunk even more. But the networks still exist, just like kids forming bands still exists...but on a much attenuated level. Or look at terrestrial radio - it still exists, but at one point, it was the ONLY in-home form of electronic entertainment other than the record player.

 

We can stand around as old men telling kids to get off our lawn all day, but I teach high school now and the kids don't seem too different from when I was kid. What's changed is the role that music plays in the culture. Technology has changed a lot of things.

 

This is why I have zero problem with "kids pushing buttons and making beats." That's the new gateway drug to music.

 

The two biggest changes I've seen regarding music that stem from technology are:

1. Oversupply of recorded music. This is a tough observation, because personally I am all for more people making music, etc. However, from a purely economic perspective, when you go from several thousand promoted releases a year to hundreds of thousands, you can't expect the economic model to remain intact.

 

TOTALLY. When the record companies imploded, we lost filters, however imperfect. It used to be that, for example, Mango records or Windham Hill filtered out a particular genre of music so if you liked one of their albums, you'd probably like the others. Any time Peter Gabriel's Real World label put out a CD, I'd buy it because the odds were excellent I'd dig it. The kind of music Real World put out is still around, but spread over a zillion internet radio stations and streaming sites. Finding it and evaluating it is difficult and time-consuming.

 

I posted a thread a while ago about whether we really need any more recorded music. Anything that was ever produced since the dawn of recording is available on YouTube or whatever. When I see people in their teens listening to music and ask what they're listening to, more often than not the answer is Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, AC/DC, etc. It's new to them. Unless a new generation of musicians - or the old guard that's gotten lazy - can generate new music that's superior or more innovative compared to what came before, there's no real need to release that music.

 

Although I have no expectations of my "about-to-finally-hit-the-world" album doing any kind of sales (or even whether I'll market it at all), I felt it contributed something different because it's 60s-style psychedelic music with 21st century technology that I think at least updates the genre in a way that hasn't been done before. I have lots of other music that's simply (at least in my opinion!) "good music." But I don't even post it on my YouTube channel because there's plenty of "good music" out there. I'd just be increasing the noise-to-signal ratio.

 

[Notes_Norton]

<...>. It's gone from "I'm gonna make my music and if people really dig it, they'll buy it and I'll make some money" to "I want to make some money. What?!?! I have to make something people want to buy? That's crazy talk.<...>

 

The never-ending artist's dilemma - should I be commercial or true to my instincts.

 

For some, their preferred art is commercial - they are lucky. Think Janis Joplin. She was very different from any rock female recording artist before her. She did her thing and it was commercial.

 

Then there are those who force commercial. This is not a criticism, but an observation. Think Kenny G who can play much better than the 'new age' boring stuff that made him a million dollars.

 

Then there are those that play their art that isn't commercial. You never heard of them so I don't know their names.

 

And some like Van Gogh never sold a bit of art in their lifetime, but are famous now. Of course Vincent didn't make any money from his painting, but lots of other people did.

 

Making money from records is something that happened in the dinosaur age. The fittest must adapt to survive.

 

Some have done pretty well with YouTube commercialization, but it's probably too late to jump on that boat for must people.

 

However you make money with music now, it probably involves the Internet and a new way to commercialize it. If I knew, I wouldn't be pondering, I'd be doing it.

 

Instead, I'm gigging, playing live for an audience, and taking home enough money to pay the bills.

 

Notes

 

[Etienne Rambert]

Well, around here, local musicians can donate their music to our local NPR station for their "Capital Soundtrack" project, which the station seems to think will be beneficial to the artists. I wrote to them asking if they paid for submissions and got back this answer:

 

"We're a noncommercial, public broadcasting service where the music rights and royalties are negotiated as a blanket agreement by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. That said, any composers hired by us to write a new theme song would be paid through whatever negotiating terms are agreed to (money, on-air credit, etc) and we would the retain the rights moving forward.

 

The real impact of this initiative is about giving our regional bands, artists and musicians a higher profile in the community by airing their music on WAMU. It's truly a "sense of place" effort in that it's reflecting the vast talent our region has to offer in terms of musical culture, and it gives the artists exposure in a way they might not have had before. It's a win-win."

 

Usually when you get a complex answer to a simple yes-or-no question, that means "no." When I filled out the submission form for a fake entry just to get to the bottom (literally) of the terms, in the first and last paragraphs, I found, respectively,

 

"The LICENSOR hereby grants a royalty-free, worldwide, non-exclusive license to American University’s radio station, WAMU, (“WAMU”) and its subsidiaries, affiliates, licensees, successors, assignees, and agents, to use the musical composition(s) and sound recording(s) in the following Recording(s) (hereafter referred to as “Recording(s)”)"

 

and

 

"The LICENSOR agrees that no monetary compensation for licensing my Recording(s) to WAMU shall be due to him or her and agrees that any and all revenues received by WAMU in connection with this License shall belong entirely to WAMU. The term of this License shall be in perpetuity and subject to termination at the election of the LICENSOR for any reason. LICENSOR must provide fourteen (14) days written notice of termination to WAMU 88.5 at music@wamu.org and/or to any applicable authorized LICENSEE representative(s). Upon termination, WAMU shall not include the Recording(s) in future broadcasts, streams, and podcasts. Notwithstanding termination, WAMU has the right to retain the Recording(s) in programming that occurred prior to termination of this License. Additionally, WAMU has the right to continue providing previously aired programming with the Recording(s) to listeners, for archival purposes, after the termination of this License. The LICENSOR has carefully read and understood the terms and conditions of this License, and agrees to be bound by them."

 

But just think of how much you'll make from the exposure.

 

NPR has been using a short clip from one of my songs for almost 30 years. I hear it on Week-end Edition mostly. But I've also heard it on Morning Edition. It's usually a 15-20 second segue between apocalyptic news stories.

 

Never been paid. But some attribution would be welcome. I've never found it on the NPR music lists either.

 

If you ever hear an acoustic guitar finger-picking a D minor on the 5th fret w/an alternating Dmb5 that ends w/ a Wes Montgomery-style elec. guitar slide up to D on the 10th fret, that's my buddy and I. I'm the finger-picker on an old Guild D-25. He's got the ES-335 w/ the Wes-style slide up ending it. It's sort of dramatic.

----

 

If you're not connected (ie., screwing the right people), I recommend offering your composition skills to local theatre and video groups in your town. It's fun. You might land some parts and learn acting. And your music will be heard by audiences.

 

You won't make any money. But at least you'll get a reputation.