Archive for October, 2008
Nashville / Vienna
Do you ever think about the fact that in the olden days Vienna must’ve been perceived as something akin to Nashville, LA or New York? It’s where artists went to make it. Where dreams were writ large. Where you could go and be something.
Back then, the gig was pure patronage. The music business was write for your patron, get a job on the court or with a steady rich dude, and arrange for your tunes to be performed, hopefully with you as a conductor. I just think about Mozart as an Axl Rose-style figure, showing up with his bags and his trunks to make it in the big city. He was, of course, already famous. But still, something about the way that that city held sway and the music scene it created must’ve been as intoxicating as places like Williamsburg these days.
I think I need to watch Amadeus again.
Fundamentals
If you don’t know who Derek Sivers is, you should. He looks like a hari krishna but he drops knowledge.
He put up some thoughts on the future of the biz on New Music Strategies. Here’s the money quote:
Realistically, what would you change about what you’re doing, day-to-day?
And so it comes back to fundamentals.
Just like we know there will be gravity, and water will still be wet, there are laws that don’t depend on predicting the future.
- You know that people love a memorable melody.
- You can’t know what instrumentation or production-values will be in vogue.
- You know that people prefer people who make an emotional connection with them.
- You can’t know what technology will carry that communication.
- You know that writing lots of songs increases your chances of writing a hit.
- You can’t know which song will be a hit.
He’s right. Write songs. Write words. Get them out to people somehow. End of story. Call me when you’re famous.
Facebook erases discontinuity
In the old world, you could lead multiple lives and never fear that they would necessarily intersect. You could be a songwriter by night and a suit by day and not worry that the maintenance of those dual identities would cause a conflict. Similarly, you could assume a certain identity in childhood and, over time, reinvent yourself each time a new chapter of your life began. You could go from being a shy introvert in high school with a certain circle of friends to an extrovert in your professional career.
Again, with little risk of intersection.
Facebook is changing all of that in a fascinating way. The ability to manage separate existences is increasingly eroding. I’m seeing that very directly. Friends from high school and college popping into my life after years of no communication. Getting back in touch with my first year roommate, Kurt, after an extended absence. So that’s kind of interesting.
But also weird.
More weird is the dilemma for an artist or musician. Should I use my existing Facebook profile/persona to market my new musical endeavors? Many people through those mediums don’t necessarily associate me with music. And there are friends from different elements of life such as my day job that I haven’t been as vocal with about the fact that I make music. Should I create a ‘band page’ and try to get ‘fans’ with the ‘band page’ just being another page saying ‘Sam Jacobs’? That feels like a pain in the ass and, in the current state, a little too opt-in for people. So the number of fans I’d actually get would be depressing.
You can use Facebook privacy filters but from my perspective they’re still a little unwieldy. It feels like too much effort to try and maintain different personalitieis.
Here’s the point: the effort and benefits that accrue from maintaining dual personalities is changing and, pursuant to the authenticity vibe we’ve been discussing, it seems like the better answer is to just accept that all of my related ventures and interests will need to co-exist under one roof and that roof will be fairly transparent.
So friend me, I guess.
More real
Fred Wilson had some interesting things to say about authenticity linking to some videos by GaryVee. It’s a point I’ve made before and that many are making. Traditional marketing speak is breaking down. People want real conversations with real people.
How does that manifest itself in music? Maybe it means:
1. put out more demos to your fans and be willing to let your songs take on unintended lives
2. blog and twitter to create an authentic conversation and interaction
3. be vulnerable and honest about what you’re going through
4. if you’re debating between image and honesty, choose honesty
The hi-lo country
Retailers and other brands often pursue some kind of hi-lo strategy. They use low-end, low-price products to introduce the concept of the brand to their target audience and then leverage those introductions to walk the customer through a series of higher-end experiences over time. American Express gives the blue card to college kids and, over time, hopes to escort them up the food chain ultimately to the Platinum card or higher. Ditto Toyota who takes you from a Camry to a Lexus over the course of your life with the car.
The digital world presents an interesting opportunity to do the same thing for musicians. But creating that separation is really difficult. Again, because much of the content is so easiliy transferrable. The low-end part is easy. But what constitutes a high-end experience, particularly one that constitutes something someone would pay for. Bruce says that people will use songs and trade up to a higher-end experience. Maybe it means videos. Maybe it means the liner notes that Apple is now including in iTunes downloads. It’s unclear.
The music business is a tough one and it’s a tough one becuase it’s not clear a) that it should ever have been a business to begin with and b) that there’s something there that over the long term people will actually pay for. The medium is almost perfectly designed to be commodotized through the Web. Like no other medium or format. Songs are the perfect little packet of bytes and bits to be sent out across the atmosphere. Film, books, nothing else really lends itself to digital syndication the way that a song does. And there are lots of songs.
In the midst of all this, I’m about to put out (well, in a few months) a really beautiful record. Lovingly tended to by me and Paul. Incredible musicians. Great artwork. And I’m trying to think about how to continue to build an audience without giving away all of this beautiful music for nothing.
It may be (is probably) a losing endeavor.
But, for now, I’ve settled on a hi-lo strategy that I’m hoping will work. The high-end fully produced stuff will be less frequent and obviously ‘high-end’. But, rather than send out nothing in the time between high-end releases. And rather than making them sound just quite close enough to the high-end that they just sound like average songs trying to be great. Instead, I’m going to be sending out stuff that is so obviously different, so obviously of a different nature, that it couldn’t be confused with the high-end at all. I’m talking about rougher ideas, rougher sketches, demos.
The problem is that you can’t shine a turd.
But I’ve been demo’ing tons and tons of new songs and the vibe on the demos is kinda nice and kinda intimate. And maybe by getting people involved in helping me decide which ideas are the best ideas, I can show people how an idea or an impulse evolves from a little bit of noodling on your piano or guitar and into an actual song.
What do you think? Sound interesting? Or boring?
Do great songs go unheard?
The answer is yes. Unequivocally.
Money quote from my comment:
Long story short: Yes, I’ve heard many many ‘great’ songs that nobody else will ever hear. Some of it may be production, some of it may be marketing, some of it may be arrangements, and some of it may simply be randomness. But I do believe that there is either an infinite amount of great songs or a number close enough to infinite to be equivalent for the purposes of this discussion.
