MUB Blog 15: Classical Music vs. Pop Music

A common theme in our music business class is classical music versus pop music. And by classical, I’m referring to Renaissance, Baroque, Classical, Romantic, 20^th century music, and everything in between. In other words, I’m referring to art music. The Wednesday panel that we held made me really curious as to come up with reasons as to why I believe that classical music needs to still be relevant in today’s society. This topic is actually a big chunk of my music education philosophy.

Let’s face it; classical music is not as popular as pop music in today’s time and age. I mean, there is a reason it’s call popular music. Even so, I still think that classical music earned its right to be studied and appreciated. It’s not a dying genre if people can learn to appreciate it. I’m not saying that everyone needs to binge listen to Beethoven, Bach, and Mozart. I’m saying that it’s been an important part of history, so it needs to be studied much like we study the Civil War in history class. Germany understands this. Classical music is big part of their culture and their government is trying to maintain that culture.

Is there a notion of superiority when it comes to listening to classical music? The first thing that comes to my mind when I think about this is how pregnant women let their unborn infant listen to classical music to make them smarter. I think that is a myth, but I do think that everyone is able to appreciate to classical music if they have an open mind. This is no different than classical musicians who refuse to listen to pop music. If you want to be a well-rounded individual, you won’t close your mind to different genres of music. You don’t have to like it, but you can at least appreciate it for what it is.

Where does the music business come in? Well as previously mentioned in class, the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra is going through a lockout. They are refusing to cooperate with the new financial contract, in which musicians are being cut and getting paid less. These classical musicians are being paid less than pop musicians. The reason this is happening is because tickets are not selling like they used to. Of course, there are many factors that pop musicians get paid more besides the obvious. Nonetheless, it affects the market for classical music, which affects how people see classical music in general. I think that we can help society learn to appreciate classical music or that the ASO needs to incorporate popular music in their repertoire. Obviously, the latter is more extreme, but something needs to be done.

Word count: 450

MUB Blog 14: The Canadian and International Music Scene

In Canada, the government supports the “cultural industries,” which include the music industry, film, TV, theater, and the visual arts. 25 % of all Canadian radio music was written or performed by Canadian artists. When this became a regulation, high quality recording studios were built in Canada, thus giving an industry infrastructure and more jobs in the music industry. This domestic music quota set by Canada was also established in Australia and France. They found that more domestic exposure leads to more international exposure for those artists.

As for international exposure, the technological revolution has helped with giving their music industry opportunities that would have otherwise been unimaginable. The revolution has also created challenges. The inexpensive costs of recording, marketing, and distribution have made it possible for independent artist to be known in an international music industry. The Internet made it accessible for them to enter the international commerce. However it has also declined sales in the recording industry because. We see this nowadays in the transition from soundcarriers (CDs and tapes) to digital files. This has also paved the way for piracy. Digital music sales accounted for a third of recorded music sales according to the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI). There are challenges and advantages to music in every part of the world. It all depends on how each country addresses them.

Word Count: 226

MUB Blog 13: Warner

Warren Barker, composer and arranger, worked for Warner Bros. I don’t know how he landed a job there but I wanted to find out what it takes to get a job there now.  After doing some research, I found that Warner/Chappell offers the following licensing options: synchronization, mechanical, master, and print licenses.  One of the questions was how do composers/arrangers get their music to be heard by the company staff. Their answer was they do not listen to demos given to them—they would have already heard about you if you are important or famous enough. To license a song, you need to get in touch with their sync department as long as you are the music supervisor. To get a job there, you would have visit ww.wmg.com to see posts about job openings. They don’t want to be contacted directly. They take interns at the Los Angeles, New York, and Nashville sites. School credit is needed and applicants must also go to see the job listings. To me, it sounds like you have to be an established composer/arranger if you want to get a job from Warner today.  This makes mostly a lot of sense because Warner is a big company who only wants the best. However, this is also a reminder to composers and arrangers that they need to establish themselves first in order to land the job at a major company. Seems common sense, but it’s also eye opening.

Word Count: 242

References: http://www.warnerchappell.com/faqs

MUB Blog 12: How old is too old?

Chapter 27 is about starting your career. In class we talked about how young people are the ones to make it big in the music world. The old people who are still around are ones that started when they were young. The only old people we could name who started old and were successful were Susan Boyle and Slim Whitman.

http://diymusician.cdbaby.com/2010/06/are-you-too-old-to-make-it/

While this short article is mainly encouraging musicians to achieve their music goals at any age, it was still very interesting to read about this topic from a different point of view. It asks the question: How old is too old? Nowadays, we see more and more young teenagers becoming discovered and successful. So "old" could be 30s or old could be 80s. Instead of asking if you are in the right age of being discovered, an aspiring artist needs to do the right things to make him or herself more appealing. After all, good music is good music. Those who believe in the “perfect” age to become discovered are already doing it wrong. Taylor Swift did not wait to be discovered. She marketed herself like crazy and did all the right things towards achieving success. So whether you are young or old, you need to do whatever it takes and more to make it big in the music industry. You can’t let your age define your success.

Word Count: 229

MUB Blog 11: Spotify vs. Taylor Swift

While we are not exactly on Chapter 27 in the book, a lot of what we talked about this week was the success of Taylor Swift. So even though we were consciously talking about starting your own business, we discussed Taylor Swift’s business.

I don’t know a lot about Taylor Swift, except for the songs she sings. I like her music, but I’m not obsessed with her. However, this class has gotten me to be really intrigued by her.

http://www.detroitnews.com/story/entertainment/music/2014/11/07/taylor-swifts-sales-bad-news/18665081/

This article from Detroit News talks about how her massive sales are bad news for music business. This caught my eye because it contradicts everything we have said about Taylor Swift. While most stars are struggling with getting their albums to sell, Swift sold 1.287 million albums in a week. They say the problem is that she pulled her music off Spotify for this week to increase sales. Spotify doesn’t nearly pay the artists their dues given the amount of work that goes into an artist’s song. Swift does not believe music should be free. The author believes that “Spotify is the greatest thing that has ever happened to music.” As a potential starving artist, I do not agree. Spotify gives the public a notion that music can be obtained by any means for basically nothing. Spotify is a different kind of music business than Taylor Swift. It’s innovative, but its still just a medium for hearing songs. The artist of the song needs appropriate compensation for their art. Spotify takes that away from the artist. Maybe Spotify should be like ISMLP, in which only music that is public domain, should be “free.”

Word Count: 273 

MUB Blog 10: Homes for Music

In the syllabus we are suppose to be on Chapter 25: Music Product and in our class discussion we are on Chapter 17: Music Venues. To make this blog relevant, I decided to incorporate both topics into my blog: Homes for Music.

Different types of concert venues include: stadiums, amphitheaters, festival sites, arenas, theaters, and different sized music venues. I consider these “homes” for music performances. The promoter and booking agent are in charge of getting the venue for the artist. Full-length contracts music be signed and it is rare that the venue will provide all of the necessary equipment. Sometimes the venue will provide stage equipment and staff, but well-paid artists will bring their own. After the venue is booked, the contract is signed, the sponsors approve, and the promotion plan is set, tickets must be sold. Artist Merchandise will also be sold at concerts, usually on racks provided by the venue. If the venue provides labor, then the venue will get a percentage of total sales.

Speaking of merchandise, stores are “homes” for music retailers. The first thing that comes to mind when I think about music business is music retail. It may just be in the music educator in me, but I signed up for music business class because I thought it was going to be about retail and how to manage these kinds of businesses. Some of the best retailers I go to are the ones who have music educators as their employees (not young amateur guitars who try to tell me that a double French Horn has two bells--yes, this actually happened). The book defines music product industry to include “all musical hard goods and printed music.” Of course, the section that intrigued me was the “School Music” section of this chapter. The market for band and orchestra has three groups of customers: the professionals, the amateurs, and schools. School owned instruments, part of the largest consumer group, are obtained through a purchase order or bidding process.

Word Count: 333

Sources: Music Business Handbook by Baskerville (Chapter 17 and 25)