bluage

Your celebration of Songstuff's 10th anniversary was a fine and succinct survey of the current state of affairs in the music business and also an exciting and inspirational look into the future. Thank you!

Well, we still need the performing rights organizations to look after that part of process -- BMI, ASCAP, SESAC, and whoever else is out there providing the same service. By the way, the graduates are nieces and nephews. The garden is my Father's. bluage

I think you express yourself very ably - but what you had to say wasn't really much anything to do with the issues in the story to which I linked.

Howdy, fellers... Lazz, in retrospect I can see how my generalization about the "big labels" could incite a challenge to that generalization by a label owner, although I was only speaking of the so-called "major players" like Sony, EMI, Warner, and Universal. Recently I read (and I'm sorry I don't remember the source) that these 'big four" control about seventy per-cent of the global music market, and about 80% of the United States market. But since I didn't list them in my intial response, that makes what I wrote a generalization. John, I received your response with interest and enthusiasm, but I'm not sure precisely what you were reacting to most fervently in my intial response, so I'm gonna ask you for a little clarification, if you don't mind. You indicated that the pitch of your response was not necessarily directed at me personally, and I accept that. Nonetheless, it's obvious that what I wrote induced a potent reaction regardless of who, or what, you were directing it at. So, I'm interested in knowing where and how my words provoked you. What I thought I was saying in my intital response was that us composers / songwriters could bypass some of the most common problems (creative, financial, and promotional) associated with the largest and most propserous music producers by seeking out our own outputs for our creations, which I believe is where the Internet could be most serviceable. Obviously, I didn't get that across as clearly as I wanted to. "I am angered by the general public perception that somehow things have worked out that music is not valued, nor are musicians, nor songwriters and none of the above are due fair recompense." Would you tell me what it was in my response that summoned this feedback from you? I'm not aware of how anything that I wrote could have suggested disregard for music, musicians or their right to "fair recompense". Just for the record, I certainly don't approve of illegal downloading. "Should songwriters expect to go unpaid, or for that matter to simply hand over their songs for free and go work as a waiter? Years of investment, years of training and a lot of hardship... for nothing? Simply put, it's people's livelihoods we are talking." Certainly not! Was there something I wrote that suggested my advocacy for that idea? Let's keep this going. I'm looking at this discussion mostly as a way to learn how to present my written ideas in a fashion that appears less subjective, and more clarified. bluage, beholden

Hello, "Lazz"... Well, you got me squinting on that one! I'm not sure I understand your reply. Come again, would you? bluage

Gents... Other than "YouTube", I'm not familiar with any of the European music industry players mentioned in the article. However, I consider the pitched and contentious battle over the revenue to be gleaned from artistic productions of any kind to be a depressingly familiar and tiresome capitalistic conundrum, and largely a catfight between equally greedy entities. Contrary to popular opinion that says the music industry scours the planet tirelessly looking for the next, fresh, young talents, I believe that the cost of managing such a gargantuan search party is actually prohibitive and way too time-consuming for greedy execs. I believe the music industry barons make musical hits out of creating a scarcity of product, not unlike the diamond industry. In other words, if the marketing forces that promote "new talent" focus more or less exclusively on only a few artists that they can mould, make-over and manage in a cost-efficient way, then only those few artists will ever truly have a chance of becoming "hit-making" performers. That's the reason for all the hyperbole that's generated for the few superstars who rake in such massive profits for the labels. If you repeat something often enough, people will believe it. So-and-so is a "musical genius", another so-and-so is "authentic, the Real McCoy", and yet another so-and-so is "redefining the genre", “stretching the boundaries”, a “real crowd-pleaser”, and so on, and on, and on... They tell us who and what we should listen to, and because we so often attribute success and quality of product to an association with a famous, well-known producer of that product (the larger, most visible music labels, in this case), we believe and buy accordingly. I regularly purchase downloaded music from new artists whom I find exciting off of music sites all over the Internet, like CD Baby and others. I think people will pay what they believe the music they listen to is worth, without help from anonymous "taste-makers", critics, and whoever else sets themselves up to be the so-called experts. The optimal medium and the great leveling ground for the distribution of musical works at this time in history is the Internet. Just as musicians of old roamed the land "playing for their supper", we also have the same opportunity to profit from our creations; only the landscape has changed from dirt to cyberspace. All we have to do is come down off of our unrealistic expectations of overnight success and multi-million dollar contracts, work on our craft, bypass the giant, monopolistic record companies and calmly push our little boats into the great and diverse musical streams of the Internet. We’ll find our audience without all this…this other stuff. And if we happen to find out that we can’t support ourselves that way, then it’s time re-assess our career options, you know? Take up brick-laying, or veterinary medicine, or making kites for kids… bluage

I am a sceptical "consumer" (Ooo, but I hate the way our corporate culture-makers have branded us!), too, especially since in the past I have foolishly and naively purchased so much music-making equipment that ultimately didn't serve me very well. However, at first glance, this "Orange" thing appears to be simply a big, room-filling speaker and computer built into a single enclosure. Not a bad idea, if you're looking to cut down on the amount of peripheral hardware you need to carry around. I believe that at the level of skill I currently possess concering music production, that I have everything I truly need. This product might be an option worth considering for someone who is just setting out to build their "studio"... bluage