The Problems Musicians Face and How To Solve Them, Pt. 6a

The Problems Musicians Face and How To Solve Them, Pt. 6a

Written by Tommy Darker, originally published in The Musicpreneur.

Travelling the world and chatting with fellow aspiring artists reveals astounding insights about the future of music. Here’s the deal: we think we all face different problems, but the reality reveals the opposite. I will share one of these insights, explaining what it means for the way we work as musicians and how to move in the future.

This is the part 6a. Each part is linked at the end of the post.

PART 6a
The new music world: innovative Messages demand innovative Mediums.

How ready are we to welcome the new music world, where musicians will be entrepreneurs and thrive? Once again, let’s not jump straight to the answer, but let’s go around it. Shall we?

Patrick Vlaskovits created a presentation worth reading about growth hacking [5]. He mentioned something that grabbed my attention and triggered thoughts:

“Innovative products demand innovative channels, context and mediums.”

That is to say, for the new generation of Musicpreneurs to flourish and create innovative art, business models and solutions to their problems (Message), along with the proper innovative context (Medium) need to be in place. And vice versa; as an important and inevitable by-product, each innovative context needs innovative products (cultural and entrepreneurial) to keep making sense.

Alright, enough with the theory. I think I’ve stressed enough that existing Mediums provide wrong context for the era of the Musicpreneur to fully blossom.

Fundamentally, Musicpreneurship is not mastery of the existing system of infrastructure, it’s true innovation set to build a music business and preparing the ground for a new ecosystem.

In my presentation in Midem [6], I mentioned that, despite being in a transitional era, the current D2F is not strong enough to replace the old system set up and maintained by labels. Hence, all the problems and insecurity for musicians that keep letting people down.

What should we focus on, in order to build this innovative environment and musical products? I’ve discovered seven areas imperative to the new music world.

Let’s discuss them.

• Business understanding (business models, revenue streams)

Where do you turn to when the old music biz system is not helping you anymore and there’s no-one to run your business activities effectively? I see only one solution: it’s high time musicians understand the fundamental business mindset themselves.

Where to start? The bullet-point method never fails:

• First and foremost, learn about Lean Thinking [7] and how to build a startup [8]. I’d suggest that you start with Steve Blank and his free courses/blog. This will unlock the perspectives of what an enterprise is and how it drives value to your audience and you. Hint: when musicians demystify what business is, they see clearly that it’s all about creating value for their audience, while enjoying making a profit doing so.
• To get started, there’s no single more representative way to approach the music business methodically than the Business Model Generation system [9]. Buy the book and read/watch the numerous free resources about the topic.
• Find out what other industries are doing. They’ve experimented far more than musicians have, so there are valuable lessons to take away and rework. See examples and how modern business models work for other companies. They will provide inspiration on how you could operate and think as a music business.
• Business is learned better in practice. Studying can help but, from my experience, nothing compares with actually trying to sell something and then trying to understand why you’ve failed to do so.
• Finally, if you’re a musician that loves stating ‘I’m a musician, I only want to make music’, then here’s a personal confession for you: I’m not a natural-born businessman either. Neither did I enjoy it in the beginning. It came out of necessity and desire for innovation and independence. The idea of demystifying the notion of business came from getting immersed and facing the real problems of my music ventures. And, guess what? I find myself more complete and creative now. Somehow, creating new dots, connecting and disconnecting them, as Steve Keller says [10], brings astounding and unpredictable results. The endless possibilities keep me going.

I tend to document everything along the way and put it online publicly. You can read it here.

• Obtaining knowledge (Darker Music Talks)

As I mentioned in Part 4, our current music education system progressively becomes more irrelevant and more unable to illustrate the dynamic, modern environment. Our education needs to be smarter and more practical. Knowledge has broken free from the certificate, which is not as useful as it once was.

How will we build a better educational environment that reflects today’s needs and mindset?

Innovative Mediums require innovative Messages, remember? Instead of courses made to stay static for the years to come (music colleges) or courses with no credibility and touch with reality (music blogs), we could focus on the power of crowdsourcing; learning from experts in our field of interest, and from musicians that have already had success in building their audience and business. All we need is a platform connecting these musicians (demand) with the experts/successful musicians (supply) — which can facilitate this curated knowledge in a platform.

This way, we ensure the relevance and practicality of the knowledge we receive. We won’t have static lessons anymore, but proven knowledge, delivered by the most relevant local resources in the most personalized way.

These resources will not have to come from the music industry itself. The gaming, diamond, casino, porn, and book industries (and so many others) have so many valuable lessons to teach us. I know, because this is how I discover fresh approaches to all of my projects — I see what ideas the other industries have to share.

In practice, how could that work? Don’t worry, I’ve started.

My main venture, Darker Music Talks [11], whose mission is to spread entrepreneurial knowledge wherever musicians around the world are, is a series of discussions that connect local knowledge keepers with musicians, in a chance for a constructive dialogue. Each discussion is free of charge. These conversations are educating more than 700 Musicpreneurs in 6 countries at the moment (as of June 2014), with a goal to reach 13 by September 2014.

For those who want to go a bit deeper, there are limited slots for full-day workshops, where musicians have to pay a small fee (in order to cover expenses and create some budget for the venture’s expansion) to get practical knowledge and actionable plans by accredited educators on subjects such as business models, social media, crowdfunding, project management and lean startup thinking.

Picture for a moment what AirBnB does. This is the mindset Darker Music Talks follows too; AirBnB discovers available local resources, instead of building new hotels, turning local accommodations into rooms-to-rent. Darker Music Talks discovers local knowledge keepers and practitioners, instead of building new music colleges/courses — and turns them into credible knowledge resources.

In a world where Coursera-type online courses help thousands of students obtain information, Darker Music Talks could be the platform to disrupt music education as we know it.

It’s time to provide musicians with practical knowledge on what to do next to build a sustainable business around their music. If you want to organize one in your city, get in touch.

• Productivity

As we saw in Part 4, management is the Achilles heel for musicians. There seems to be some kind of problem that prevents musicians from getting much productive work done.

I think the explanation is simple: too much information. Musicians today are overwhelmed with a vast amount of information and tasks to undertake, making their artistic life less enjoyable.

It makes sense. And, to be bloody honest, a new ecosystem without musicians doing ‘the right work’ won’t really go anywhere. Nobody just wants to be ‘busy’. That’s a myth we artistic types need to get over.

The problem with information clutter could be easily tackled with the aforementioned knowledge system. A filter that shows (and teaches) musicians what information is worth consuming could be a great time saver.

However, it’s not enough to make an artistic person more productive. I’ve been there, trust me. A problematic area seems to be the completion of admin tasks. We’re pretty good at being creative, but not in completing the work that ‘has to be done’. I can already picture in my head the last musician to complain about having to update his social media profiles.

What I did, in order to put my life together and minimize the time spent on workload, is pretty straightforward. Practically speaking, it is not a method I read somewhere, but it’s helped me loads and I’d like to share it with you. Since it’s my own creation, let’s call it ‘The Darker Method’. Again, this list is to be followed by order, otherwise it won’t be of much help.

1. First of all, I focus on getting some pre-work done. Before I undertake any kind of project, I make sure I understand what the heck I’m putting myself through!

In German: I clarify my goals and set priorities. This is the absolute number one step, which creates a structure of thinking throughout the whole project.

I won’t go in depth about goal-setting and prioritizing; there are many resources out there. It’s worth mentioning that I wrote this article, which mentions goal-setting (Why Do Musicians Always Feel Disappointed About Their Careers? [12], and this book about decision-making and action taking [13], which includes practical tips about prioritizing.

2. Once I’ve done the pre-work, I shift my mindset to high-value productivity. Woody Allen wrote, directed and produced 44 movies in 44 years, half of which got awards! THIS is high-value productivity. [14]

Work for the sake of work won’t take you any further than the perfect average.

Moreover, instead of working for the whole day, I found it super helpful to focus on exactly 3 hours of work per day. 3 high-value-productivity hours, forcing myself to get everything done within this timely limit.

This helped me break my constraints and cut the fluff out of the game. In 3 hours, I don’t have much time to contemplate on unnecessary stuff. Instead, I follow what Woody Allen inspired:

“Be bold in conception, but pragmatic in execution.”

No brainstorming, creative stuff or day-dreaming. Just workload that HAS TO be done.

To break this even further, I use 30-min volumes of high-value work, following the Pomodoro Technique [15] (it works great for me) and track my progress with the following principle.

3. “Just don’t break the chain!”, said Jerry Seinfeld about the way he becomes productive. He just gets his work done every day, no matter what. He focuses on not breaking the chain of work he’s created. [16]

A great way to put that in perspective is the ‘Numberless Calendars’ idea that Andrew Dubber suggested [17]. I’ve been following this method for a while now and, I got to confess, it is the perfect drug to keep me doing.

4. Ok, let’s say we’ve managed to organize our shit and become productive, with only 3 hours of work per day (it needs work, trust me).

How more awesome does our day look like now? If you wake up at 6am, like me, you’ll be done by 10am. The whole day for you to devour and do creative things.

To take this one step further, once you’ve got hold of the amount of work it takes to get specific tasks done, you can start outsourcing them. You now know exactly what it takes to get them done. Create a checklist and let other people get them done on your behalf.

Some ideas that could be handy:

• Allocate tasks to your band members. You’re a team, right?
• Ask your fans/interns to get some work done for you. The former want to be part of the experience and the latter want a better CV.
• If you have budget, find a virtual assistant and let them do specific tasks per day. There are many services out there. Just Google ‘outsourcing’.

5. Last thing to keep in mind: once you’ve understood how to manage your time and tasks effectively, it’s high time you get a manager to take you to the next level.

‘A manager will not fund your career, but will help you leverage what you’ve already built,’ says Ian Titchener, a manager and supervisor from London with more than 35 years of experience in the industry, in his interview for my book [18].

I’ve never had a manager, but I have a feeling that they will play a vital role in the era of the Musicpreneur.

Further investigation and resources are necessary to explore the present and future of music, so I reckoned it would be useful to provide some links below. They are either already mentioned in the essay or provide additional context to the issues discussed.

[5] Patrick Vlaskovits on growth hacking
[6] Midem 2014 — A Musician As A Startup
[7] Steve Blank on Lean Startups
[8] How To Build A Startup
[9] Business Model Generation Canvas
[10] Steve Keller, founder of IV Audio Branding, featured in ‘The Indecisive Musicpreneur’
[11] Learn how to be a Musicpreneur at Darker Music Talks
[12] Why Do Musicians Always Feel Disappointed About Their Career?
[13] Tommy Darker — The Indecisive Musicpreneur
[14] Woody Allen and the Art of Value Productivity
[15] The Pomodoro Technique
[16] Jerry Seinfeld’s Productivity Secret
[17] Andrew Dubber — Numberless Calendar
[18] Ian Titchener, experienced music manager, featured in ‘The Indecisive Musicpreneur’

Tommy Darker is the writing alter ego of an imaginative independent musician and thinker about the future of the music industry. His vision is to simplify scalable concepts and make them work for independent musicians.

He is a writer about the movement of the #Musicpreneur and founder of Darker Music Talks, a global series of discussions between experts and musicians. He and his work have been featured in Berklee, TEDx, Berlin Music Week, Midem, SAE Institute, Hypebot and Topspin Media. Find him on Facebook and Twitter.

This research and essay is proudly patronized by its readers.

The Problems Musicians Face and How To Solve Them, Pt. 5

The Problems Musicians Face and How To Solve Them, Pt. 5

Written by Tommy Darker, originally published in The Musicpreneur.

Travelling the world and chatting with fellow aspiring artists reveals astounding insights about the future of music. Here’s the deal: we think we all face different problems, but the reality reveals the opposite. I will share one of these insights, explaining what it means for the way we work as musicians and how to move in the future.

This is the 5th part. Each part is linked at the end of the post.

PART 5

What constitutes today’s success in the music business.

Ok, hopefully we see how poorly we currently behave and the potential for a better future for musicians. Identifying and outlining a problem is one part, suggesting a solution is another. This is what this Part 5 is all about.

Before we dive in, let’s articulate the main idea of this part, so we can provide a framework of thinking along the way:

There are two main Mediums in the modern music world: Mediatization and Communities. Mediatization represents Storytelling and Communities represent Humans.

The First Medium: Mediatization

There is a fundamental premise about modern music (that separates it from classic/contemporary music). Except for the formalistic idea of ‘the intrinsic value of music’ (that is, the exclusive value for what music IS on its own terms), the main value today lies in the context around music (or, value for what music MEANS OR REPRESENTS), which strengthens the musical experience and listener comprehension.

In modern reality, musicians are connectors, not just songwriters. They’re connecting people around stories and feelings. This is the magic power of a song and what the most successful tunes do: they connect. Humans. Around stories.

No surprise, then, that the main economic driver for the contemporary music industry is based on the story built upon the musical expression. As the French economist, Olivier Bomsel [1], calls it: Mediatization.

Mediatization is storytelling upon the musical expression that adds meaningful value to the music experience.

Without attempting to be conclusive on this, I love the idea of Mediatization as the first of the two Mediums upon which musicians can build success in the music industry. ‘Richer storytelling rewards you with success.’ Sounds like an ideal scenario.

And, in a way, it is. Think for a minute what prompts you to buy something — concert ticket, music itself, merch, anything — from your favorite artist. Is it the fact that they wrote some music? Or the fact that you’ve been reminded about their existence due to a new story that’s been published?

We buy music-related products because of the fusion of three factors:

• We have affection for the artist’s craft. That is, we love their music.
• Something triggers our affection towards them. That is, a story gets published.
• They give us the opportunity to purchase something. That is, they have something available for sale.

This is how the industry has been making money Direct-To-Fan so far.

In short, the business value of any musical activity, such as live performances, selling merch, getting sponsorships etc., is mainly based on the Mediatization potential of the artist.

This is the grand picture of the Medium in the music industry. We don’t sell the music itself, we sell the story around music. As Troy Carter, the ex-manager of Lady Gaga, said: “Music today sells everything but music.”

“Interesting. Tell me more about Mediatization…”, you say. Let me explain, without going too much in depth, with the help of Olivier Bomsel (who actually wrote a book on the subject).

Mediatization shapes the music experience and perception of the value of the song. The economic value in the music industry is based on the mediatization potential. As a natural consequence, mediatization contains the extended social functions of music:

• People connect and communicate because of music, and
• The more people that connect because of this music, the more valuable the music becomes, triggering network effects.

Once mediatization has been built upon the musical expression, it cannot be detached.

It’s obvious that mediatization is a meaningful compliment and cannot exist without the great music it’s built upon.

“I still cannot get my head around it. In practice, how does Mediatization manifest? Gimme examples”, you say.

Sure. With the artist’s branding (it can be myths, symbols, story, persona, colours, logo etc.) and the context around the music (campaigns, triggers, discovery process, marketing, distribution etc.). The tongue logo of The Rolling Stones is contained in mediatization. The numerous times David Bowie reinvented himself, the unconventional ways Trent Reznor releases his music, the personal touch Amanda Palmer brings to interactions with her fans.

The blatant truth is: for the music business, Mediatization is more important than the musical expression itself, but the former cannot exist without the latter.

That is to say, for the music businessman, it’s not enough that you’re a good songwriter. You need to be able to attach a nuanced and original story that can endure the course of time.

Needless to say, this story needs to be communicated properly to the people that would enjoy it.

It would not be an exaggeration if I classified ‘Communication’ as a separate Medium by itself. However, stories and music never communicated (or that don’t endure the course of time) maybe serve little practical purpose. That’s why Mediatization and Communication are inextricably connected — and one could say that Communication is a sub-medium contained in Mediatization. As Andrew Dubber mentions, ‘there are only two types of content of any value online: conversations, and the things about which the conversation takes place.” [2] I’m with you, Andrew.

The last, but probably most important thing to jot down, is that each musical expression deserves its own Mediatization.

As a consequence, in the past the mediatization of music was mainly delivered through CDs (and this was the main economic driver, leading to a universal business model in the ‘record industry’). But now the means of music mediatization can be as diverse as the musical compositions themselves (each artist can find their own unique way to show the story of their songs — not just CD releases — leading to a plethora of business models to use).

In short, each artist’s success could be sought upon a unique business model for their musical expression, based on richer and authentic stories. In the digital world, everything can be copied and replicated digitally (even physical objects — see 3D printing), leading their market value to a race towards zero. What will survive, however, are the intangible experiences we can create. Selling copies of music in plastic discs is not the only way anymore and we have to stop pretending we’re still in the MySpace era.

Hint: knowledge about business models and Mediatization is essential for modern Musicpreneurs. [3]

I repeat once again: each musical expression deserves its own Mediatization.

This simple sentence is responsible for the huge mess in the current music industry. We don’t know which business model to follow, after a long period of capitalizing relentlessly on a handful of established business models.

Anyway. No matter how necessary the first Medium might be, the full picture remains incomplete unless we go to the second Medium that artists will have to build their business upon.

The Second Medium: Communities

As we saw, musicians today are not just music creators, but also connectors: they connect human beings with stories. Mediatization had something to do with stories. The second Medium has to do with humans.

The second Medium is Communities.

Musicians attract people around the music. They evoke the audience’s feelings and awaken their sentiments. This phenomenon has better effects when the audience has gathered in a physical space to enjoy a shared experience (in a live performance or any other experience around music, generated by an artist).

You’ve definitely been in a large-scale live concert, right? Remember the feeling you get when 80.000 people scream the band’s name or dance to their music? Priceless. It’s the vibration and exchange of energy with people tuned in the same frequency. Something that doesn’t happen with other arts except for music.

The power of live music as a shared experience lies in the activation of network effects (the more people that use and/or enjoy an experience/music/product, the more valuable it becomes).

This partially justifies my previous argument that ‘music never communicated maybe serves little practical purpose’.

While elaborating on the fact that network effects are an essential — and actually inherent — part of the Mediatization process, it reminded me of another, obscure word connected to them. This word is not a buzzword or something everyone pays much attention to. Yet, the biggest and most high-valued tech companies today ARE this word. And, not many people seem to have realized this idea’s worth.

What is the word? The word is Platforms.

iTunes is a platform. Facebook is a platform. YouTube is one as well. Pinterest, Flickr, Twitter and — hell — even Uber and AirBnB are platforms.

They connect two (or more) parties around a main object. Facebook connects you with friends and interesting social objects to talk about. Twitter connects around real-time news. iTunes connects musicians with the audience directly. AirBnB connects room-seekers with room-owners. And so on.

Three of their common characteristics?

• The owners of the platform don’t create any of the content, they merely connect the content creators with the content consumers, incentivize/help both parties to keep doing so and make the information of the platform easy to find.
• They let other people build businesses upon their platforms. YouTube gives you a share of their ad revenue. Facebook enables you to make money too, through stores and building an audience. Flickr lets you sell your photos and AirBnB lets you rent your room. Any platform with an API allows you to plug your bit into the platform, giving the opportunity for you, the user, to innovate. This is how Apple’s AppStore or any marketplace works anyway.
• More common than ever, the platform will give away one product or service in order to attract one audience and make money from another(or, finally, both). Free in platforms is not a bad thing — it’s a prerequisite and it’s profitable.

By doing so, platforms build their business model upon other people’s activities and make money. They become the enablers. To simplify this nuanced matter, the more people that use the platform and interact, the more valuable the platform becomes and the more profit it makes. Networks effects in action.

Which made me wonder.

If musicians…

• Are connectors already, connecting human beings around stories and common feelings…
• Give away their main product for free — that is music — and…
• Already enjoy and incentivize user-generated (or fan-generated) content around their art…

…then what keeps them away from being their own successful platform?

The answer is: in practice — absolutely nothing. In theory — just the absence of knowledge on how to build and approach a platform.

Platforms are so powerful in the real world, that a Boston University business professor who studies and speaks about Platform Economics, Marshall Van Alstyne, said that “there is a strong argument that platforms beat products every time.” [4]

Your music (and mine, too) has been a product so far. Created, promoted, sold. Like a shoe in a factory and game in a store.

Nike changed from a shoe manufacturer to an interactive platform for runners — and they won big. The same for Apple, who allowed the game developers to create their own app games and connected them with a global audience through their AppStore, taking advantage of their iPhone devices — Apple won big and were ahead of their time, too.

Now it’s high time that the approach to music shifts: music is a platform upon which a serious business can get built, connecting people around musical expressions and musical experiences.

As Andrew Dubber mentions in his ‘20 Things You Need To Know About Music Online’ essay, “we hear music, we like music and then we buy music”. Since each platform has its own, unique business model, what if we ‘hear music, like music and join the platform about music’, instead?

I’ve been studying and experimenting with these concepts for a while now. I find them highly arousing and exciting. I even quit my well-paid job to follow them and implement them in my art. But let me be clear: both Mediatization and Platforms have a lot of theoretical and practical points backing them, but they’re not easy concepts to master.

Nevertheless, before our main focus was to impress a label’s A&R and do whatever they say — getting a cut for this ‘obedience’. Now our main focus shifts to learning about making richer stories and building communities.

More fun? I think so. And I’m looking forward to it for sure. The future is now.

Further investigation and resources are necessary to explore the present and future of music, so I reckoned it would be useful to provide some links below. They are either already mentioned in the essay or provide additional context to the issues discussed.

[1] Olivier Bomsel on Mediatization
[2] Andrew Dubber — Music In The Digital Age
[3] The Rise Of The Musicpreneur
[4] The Economics Of The Internet Of Things

Tommy Darker is the writing alter ego of an imaginative independent musician and thinker about the future of the music industry. His vision is to simplify scalable concepts and make them work for independent musicians.

He is a writer about the movement of the #Musicpreneur and founder of Darker Music Talks, a global series of discussions between experts and musicians. He and his work have been featured in Berklee, TEDx, Berlin Music Week, Midem, SAE Institute, Hypebot and Topspin Media. Find him on Facebook and Twitter.

This research and essay is proudly patronized by its readers.

The Problems Musicians Face and How To Solve Them, Pt. 4

The Problems Musicians Face and How To Solve Them, Pt. 4

Written by Tommy Darker, originally published in The Musicpreneur.

Travelling the world and chatting with fellow aspiring artists reveals astounding insights about the future of music. Here’s the deal: we think we all face different problems, but the reality reveals the opposite. I will share one of these insights, explaining what it means for the way we work as musicians and how to move in the future.

This is the 4th part. Each part is linked at the end of the post.

PART 4

“The Medium Is The Message” in the Music Industry.

Marshall McLuhan, the Canadian philosopher of communication theory, rose in popularity with his thesis “the medium is the message”, a quote from his book ‘Understanding Media’.

In short, the medium carrying the message and the message itself are symbiotic, not separate. The phrase encapsulates the notion that the perception of the message is influenced heavily by the medium that it’s communicated through.

It would be useful, in other words, to examine the context of today’s music world and list the most popular ways we use to deal with problems. Said with brevity: what is the infrastructure we can use (the Medium) to find solutions for musicians’ problems today (the Message)?

We’ll attempt to interpret today’s music world, through the eyes of an analytical musician who uses McLuhan’s suggestions.

MEDIUM — Where we turn to for Business

On one side of the table we have today’s musicians. On the other side of the table we have labels (majors and indies) and tech corporations (YouTube, Spotify etc.). These are the main ways musicians rely on to make some money with their music.

Musicians hate business. They love making art. So they look for bosses (or ‘friends’) when it comes to business.

What do they do?

Musicians provide their musical creations to corporate strangers, whom they trust, because the musicians believe that they ‘see’ business better than them. They also convince themselves that they’re loved by these strangers (because ‘see part 1'). Trusting a stranger with the blind hope that they’ll make you money is a clear sign of desperation.

Obviously, these strangers will do what they do best: take something and squeeze money out of it, by selling it to an audience. They do all the work, so they and their contractors (aka mediators) take the biggest chunk of profit earned, leaving musicians with the smallest bit of the pie. Labels see music as intellectual property and tech companies as content (both of which are human inventions and have nothing to do with the musical expression originally conceived).

The difference between those two (and why we say ‘Fuck The Gatekeepers’ while we ‘Love YouTube’) — labels are remnants of the Electrical Era, and more inelastic to change, while corporations are natives of the Digital Era, and thus more customizable and musician-friendly. The old boss meets the new boss.

Quick recap: Labels and tech companies build a good business upon the massive amount of music submitted voluntarily by desperate musicians. They help only a few to succeed, but feed the hopes and dreams of millions.

Things are quite straightforward with business. What about knowledge?

MEDIUM — Where we turn to for Knowledge

Musicians are always learning stuff. Now, before we assume safely that they want to learn exclusively about making music, let’s ask questions.

The first question is: what do they want to learn about? But it’s difficult to draw a straight line between what we want personally and what we’ve been conditioned to like.

A better question: what do they think they want to learn about? The strongest reason we do things is the idea that we follow the default — the pre-existing choice!

The most interesting question to explore, then, is: what did they have to learn about so far?

Where do they look for answer? Two prominent examples that come to mind are knowledge institutions (music colleges) and knowledge curators (bloggers).

Music colleges are official institutions (governmental or not) constructed to facilitate educational activities on topics that seem to be popular, practical and realistic for a musician’s career. Their value (and relevance) lies in their ability to give you a credible certificate.

Their main value is the credibility of the paper they hand you at the end of the studies and the commitment to learning. Let’s not forget, music colleges are institutions with history, brand reputation and success rates to maintain. Their paper, however, becomes irrelevant in a world where 1) quality knowledge is democratized and freely available, and 2) people care about results or quality products more than simple assurances of one’s abilities (aka certificates).

In reality, music colleges teach musicians about the artistic side of their career, excluding a vital part of today’s reality: the practical and realistic issue of making yourself known...

Practically, the majority of the musicians graduating from a college have no idea where to go next and how to kickstart their career. Yes, they know how to approach, compose, perform or produce music (or some combination of these). But, what’s next? No clue.

Let’s return to the initial question: what have they learnt about so far? The answer: ‘how to make cool art that everyone will ignore’.

This creates a foundational framework of thinking for music students. ‘But… if the syllabus puts gravity on music, this is probably what matters, right?’ Not exactly.

We all make what Andrew Dubber calls ‘popular music’ (nothing to do with ‘pop’ music). In popular music, the context your music lives in matters equally as much as your music does. It’s the aforementioned ‘The Medium (context) is The Message (music)’ that Marshall McLuhan described.

Heck, even hardcore contemporary music practitioners (who used to focus on the inherent value of the musical expression) are affected by the notion of context and have realized they need to adapt to the laws of the new world (or become irrelevant and obsolete).

Why have colleges missed that they need to teach their students what to do next? Because they’re inelastic to change.

Meanwhile, there is another form of education for musicians, this time related to business and promotion. The knowledge curators (bloggers) dominate in this area.

The great thing about blogs: diversity of opinions, they’re free for everyone, you don’t have to commit to a 2-year schedule to read them and you can work on your own pace. Great stuff. Type anything in the search bar, you’ll probably find a few hundred posts about it, examined from various angles.

The downsides of this blog-generated knowledge are conspicuous:

• How credible is this knowledge and how do we filter the signal (useful information) from all of this noise (the incremental vastness of posts)?

• How do you stay accountable to someone, so you can put things in practice after you’ve learnt them, and how do you get support if you have questions?

From my experience, nothing read on the Internet should be taken for granted without investigation. When the entry barrier to publishing is having an Internet connection, quality of content inevitably drops.

Just because someone can write about a topic (in an interesting way, most of the time), it doesn’t mean it’s true or you should pay attention. Heck, not even the words you’re reading now should be digested uncritically.

Everyone can be an expert today and analyze their experiences. This creates a comfortable echo chamber for today’s musicians: everything is possible, you can make a living as a DIY artist, knowledge is free, entry barriers are non-existent.

If all this is right, where does effort and investment come in? Who stands out?

Music blogs never explain, because they’re most of the times impractical and reflect an idealistic reality impossible to implement in the real world.

Quick recap: Music colleges are institutions constructed with the mindset ‘we have a lot of tourists in this area, let’s build a hotel’. They offer credible knowledge but, as a natural result, they are slow to change and can be easily disrupted by a more relevant AirBnB-type of solution — see blogs (less credible, lack of knowledge filters, no accountability) and Coursera-type courses (not enough diversity in the topics discussed — yet).



Now that we’ve sketched today’s Medium (context), it’s time to jump on the modern Messages (how musicians give solutions to their problems).

MESSAGE

Following up on the Medium-Message theory of Marshall McLuhan (Part 4), let’s examine how musicians have been solving their four biggest problems today, as seen on Part 2.

Live performances. Why do most musicians want so badly to perform live? Because that seems the best way today to express your passion, find a new audience and make some income. It is one of the few remnants of the old music world that has survived and still makes sense for musicians.

Most musicians look for gigs by approaching booking agents or doing it themselves. They tap into a network of pubs and small festivals that is known to host similar live performances (Medium).

In short, if a musician wants to perform live, they have to build the business of the pub. This benefits everyone except the musician, since there’s no real exposure performing in front of the same people and the economics of pub gigging are made to favour the business (pub). After all, people go to a bar to pay for beer and have fun. Music is complimentary — not the main experience.

Like the labels and tech companies mentioned before, real businesses win again (the pub, in our case).

My point of view: no matter how broken the system, because of the scarce number of venues in this network and the increasing number of aspiring musicians, we all have contributed to creating an echo chamber that is difficult to satisfy our needs: to grow an audience and build a business. This is not going away unless we look for alternatives.

What we ignore: online performances / personalized gigs in living rooms / crowdfunded or pre-sold performances on demand / custom-made live experiences for die-hard, small audiences / performances in unexpected places.

Making a viable business. The notion that ‘business is bad’ is dominant and ingrained in the music world. It’s not a surprise why most artists hesitate to sell what they produce, let alone make a consistent, scalable business.

The main way of attempting to sloppily make some money comes by tapping into the ecosystem (Medium) that the dominant tech companies have created. Looking at the ways that FutureOfMusic.org suggests, we mainly see:

• Copyright-related revenues (royalties)

• Time-for-money exchanging revenues (performing and teaching)

• Brand-related revenues (capitalizing on your brand)

• Patronising (third-party funding)

In practice, most musicians attempt to make money through live performances, selling music and/or using the solutions of tech companies (YouTube, Spotify etc.).

My point of view: there are big problems with these solutions. Most of them are either not practically sustainable (your brand or fanbase is not big enough), not scalable or too time-consuming (how much time will you exchange teaching and performing?), too dangerous to rely on (I would refrain from building a business on a platform which might not exist in the future — see MySpace, Facebook, YouTube or Spotify) or probably irrelevant in today’s world (this goes for this human invention of artificial scarcity — copyright). In a few words: you’ll never build a real business this way.

How will musicians build a real business instead? By creating their own Medium! It is analyzed in Part 5 and 6.

Promoting music/building an audience. Things are pretty straightforward in this game. Promotion today is a constant fight against noise. Musicians respond by using social media or blogs to promote their work.

Although the way to ensure your music is heard by those who like it still comes down to human-to-human communication, it seems that most artists simply exhaust their personal network and cannot go past that.

My point of view: the noise in the digital world has increased exponentially. Everybody wants you to pay attention to something incredible (which, most of the times, is crap), so people choose to stop paying attention whatsoever. How do you convince some stranger to listen to you, then?

What we ignore: creating an exceptional product worth talking about / being where attention is already (riding the wave) / connecting with influencers / growth from within — fans as your ambassadors / existing fan royalty (community building) instead of constant growth / complete music experiences instead of mere musical compositions / collaborations with other brands/established networks.

Time management. I was not surprised with the massive volume of votes on time management as a huge problem. Nothing confusing here. There seems to be no Medium where musicians tap into when it comes to organizing and prioritizing their tasks/time. What comes close to the answer is probably the DIAY attitude (Do It All Yourself), which is everything but time-efficient.

This is rather sad, because spending time on everything — instead of delegating and outsourcing — leads to frustration, lack of motivation and, ultimately, lack of joy for what you do.

My point of view: I get it, artistic souls are disorganized and all over the place. I’m one myself. However, commitment and resource management (time is included) are what makes things go forward and creates a proper business.

What we ignore: outsourcing to third parties / help from fans — interns / allocating tasks to each band member / building a team around your brand / practical productivity system in place / experiments about what makes you productive / collaborations with partners / clear goals.

Each of the aforementioned problems has a respective environment it lives in and feeds from; its Medium. If the Medium is problematic, then the solution will never be developed.



In my humble opinion and with no desire to sound ominous or dramatic, the only Medium of the four that could bear fruit is the environment of business (with a few tweaks). The live venues, social media and DIAY attitude are the wrong starting point for an aspiring musician and need replacement. I will suggest some possible solutions in the following parts.

There are many other problems highlighted in my research. However, once these four main problems get solved, everything will be much easier. Why spread our attention to every trivial frustration, while we can focus on a few major pains and resolve them?

Let’s start with those four and the others will follow.


Tommy Darker is the writing alter ego of an imaginative independent musician and thinker about the future of the music industry. His vision is to simplify scalable concepts and make them work for independent musicians.

He is a writer about the movement of the #Musicpreneur and founder of Darker Music Talks, a global series of discussions between experts and musicians. He and his work have been featured in Berklee, TEDx, Berlin Music Week, Midem, SAE Institute, Hypebot and Topspin Media. Find him on Facebook and Twitter.

This research and essay is proudly patronized by its readers.


Location:Sycamore Dr,Lancaster,United States

The Problems Musicians Face and How To Solve Them, Pt. 3

The Problems Musicians Face and How To Solve Them, Pt. 3

Written by Tommy Darker, originally published in The Musicpreneur.

Travelling the world and chatting with fellow aspiring artists reveals astounding insights about the future of music. Here’s the deal: we think we all face different problems, but the reality reveals the opposite. I will share one of these insights, explaining what it means for the way we work as musicians and how to move in the future.
This is the 3rd part. Each part is linked at the end of the post.
PART 3

Digital native musicians have always struggled with the same problems. Actually it’s just one.

We have shaped the digital world and its tools according to our needs (a tool is created because it solves a real need for a sizable amount of people). These tools have dominated culture and shaped our behaviour, consistently, no matter where in the globe we reside.
That is to say, our behaviour becomes incrementally homogenized. The more we progress in the digital world, the more interconnected we become with one another, the more we influence each other and the less differentiated our behaviour happens to be.
That is not to say that there are no local specialities (ie. very specialized needs that make sense only in a local environment), but the vast majority of today’s projects seem to spring from the same global motives.
Refraining from generalizing the situation, I could state: within the context of the en-masse-spread culture of the digital world, musicians have faced the same problems.
The aforementioned problems of part 2 existed, exist and will keep existing in the digital economy until musicians realize and accept that the context and the economics of the Digital Era (dominating medium: the Internet — main characteristic: interactivity) are different from the Electrical Era (dominating media: TV and radio — main characteristic: broadcasting).
The problem is one, and it roots back to the belief that the way we obtain knowledge and do business are still the same.

We still believe we belong to the old music industry. You know, labels, CD sales and stuff. What is the new industry, you ask? We’ll get back to this at the end of the essay.
I’m a fan of retrospection. At this point, I believe it will be helpful to closely examine how the old world was moving and how we’d been dealing with our issues so far, only to see more clearly the new solutions that arise.


Tommy Darker is the writing alter ego of an imaginative independent musician and thinker about the future of the music industry. His vision is to simplify scalable concepts and make them work for independent musicians.

He is a writer about the movement of the #Musicpreneur and founder of Darker Music Talks, a global series of discussions between experts and musicians. He and his work have been featured in Berklee, TEDx, Berlin Music Week, Midem, SAE Institute, Hypebot and Topspin Media. Find him on Facebook and Twitter.

This research and essay is proudly patronized by its readers.



Guest Post on 09/08/2014 in D.I.Y., Music Business | Permalink


Location:Sycamore Dr,Lancaster,United States

The Problems Musicians Face and How To Solve Them, Pt. 2

The Problems Musicians Face and How To Solve Them, Pt. 2

Written by Tommy Darker, originally published in The Musicpreneur.

Travelling the world and chatting with fellow aspiring artists reveals astounding insights about the future of music. Here’s the deal: we think we all face different problems, but the reality reveals the opposite. I will share one of these insights, explaining what it means for the way we work as musicians and how to move in the future.
This is the 2nd part. Each part is linked at the end of the post.

PART 2
How do I make money? How do I find live shows? How do I manage my time?

During June ‘14 I conducted a survey, asking three simple questions to the musicpreneurs that follow my updates (you can join here):

• ‘Which are your 3 main struggles as a musician today?’
• ‘Why do you think these problems are unsolved?’
• ‘Do you believe that other regions/countries face the same problems?’

This is not an official academic piece of research. However, without wanting to influence the answers of this survey, I tried to articulate the questions in a neutral manner, for the sake of objectivity in the respective answers.

The responses confirmed my initial assumption: the predominant problems of musicians today are more-or-less the same all over the globe.

The dominant problems are related to:

• Making a viable business around their art.
• Live performances (finding performances and making money from them).
• Promotion of their music and building an audience.
• Time management & productivity.

A bit less popular — but still significant:

• Building a team of quality professionals (bandmates, management, collaborations)
• Funding their projects
• Staying motivated/focused/positive

Every other problem suggested was way behind the list, with merely 5-6 answers out of 100+ answers. The full analysis of the answers will come soon.

We are not alone facing these problems. And that single fact is so eye-opening, for those who can see the underlying opportunity. If what appeared to be a local problem were actually global, there could be a way to provide a collective and smart solution in a large scale.

But first, let’s define the real problem.



Tommy Darker is the writing alter ego of an imaginative independent musician and thinker about the future of the music industry. His vision is to simplify scalable concepts and make them work for independent musicians.

He is a writer about the movement of the #Musicpreneur and founder of Darker Music Talks, a global series of discussions between experts and musicians. He and his work have been featured in Berklee, TEDx, Berlin Music Week, Midem, SAE Institute, Hypebot and Topspin Media. Find him on Facebook and Twitter.

This research and essay is proudly patronized by its readers.



Guest Post on 09/05/2014 in D.I.Y., Music Business | Permalink


Location:Sycamore Dr,Lancaster,United States

The Problems Musicians Face and How To Solve Them, Pt. 1

The Problems Musicians Face and How To Solve Them, Pt. 1

Part1Written by Tommy Darker, originally published in The Musicpreneur.

Travelling the world and chatting with fellow aspiring artists reveals astounding insights about the future of music. Here’s the deal: we think we all face different problems, but the reality reveals the opposite. I will share one of these insights, explaining what it means for the way we work as musicians and how to move in the future.

This is the 1st part. Each part is linked at the end of the post.

INTRO

If you ask a musician in London what their main struggle is, they will tell you that venue promoters don’t treat them fairly and they don’t pay much. Like in Los Angeles.

If you ask a musician in Argentina ‘how’s business?’, they will tell you that the main way to make money is still through selling CDs and performing — probably because they’re not exposed to creative ideas and because they’re not confident about trying something new. However, they don’t know that the same applies in Philippines.

In a conversation with a Ukrainian artist on why people attend to their free pub shows but do not attend or buy when there’s an entrance fee, she had no feasible answer. Musicians in Italy and Greece are baffled as well.

The list goes on. What’s happening here?

Let’s not cast our focus on the individual problems. Instead, let’s think about the pattern of problems, which sketches a wider phenomenon.

image from www.upenn.eduPART 1
“Musicians around the world must be thriving. Except for us.”

Humans love giving explanations.

We all want to explain why various phenomena occur, such as the lack of financial success for individual musicians or a local music scene as a collective. At the same time, we often hear news about success stories and viral campaigns from all around the world.

We urge to explain why this happens to them, but not us. And it’s a reasonable thing to ask.

First things first, the urge to explain seems to be ingrained in our culture; we make snap judgements of people’s appearance, so that we can protect ourselves from potential harmful encounters. It works like some kind of survival mechanism. It seems that giving an explanation is helpful in these cases.

Once the snap explanation has been given, we proceed to the rationalization process; we protect ourselves from any argument which deviates us from our explanations. We seek signs of confirmation, while anything that opposes to our views is off the radar.

After all, we’re humans. We love giving explanations for everything, even when we don’t have enough data to make an informed decision. We’ve been doing this throughout our whole lives.

An explanation is nothing but a decision-making tool: it possibly it helps us follow our dreams, keep track of our progress and survive dangerous strangers. But uninformed explanations keep us from objectively seeing reality — bringing all the consequences such self deception brings.

Why is this reference here?

Because I’ve noticed a common pattern in people’s perception around the world, a stereotypical notion that is allegedly accepted as true, even if it has not been researched so far. I’ve explored the online libraries for related research without merit.

It has long been thought that musicians face problems merely because of their flawed local music scene.

It is believed, in other words, that there’s something wrong with the local musicians, audience and system, while other cities, countries and cultures must be doing alright. This would simply explain why there’s still so much music being recorded daily.
This belief is far from reality…

Because of my projects, I travel a lot and visit culturally diverse music scenes. I also love discussing with musicians and hearing their stories. After numerous conversations with local musicians, it is undeniable to me that the majority faces the same problems. A local musician in Philippines is hit by the same problems as one in Los Angeles. Ukrainian and UK artists mostly struggle with the same basic issues.

We reckon we’re different, but in reality we’re more homogeneous than we think.

What do musicians actually believe that their main problems are? I can tell you, because I asked them.

Tommy Darker is the writing alter ego of an imaginative independent musician and thinker about the future of the music industry. His vision is to simplify scalable concepts and make them work for independent musicians.

He is a writer about the movement of the #Musicpreneur and founder of Darker Music Talks, a global series of discussions between experts and musicians. He and his work have been featured in Berklee, TEDx, Berlin Music Week, Midem, SAE Institute, Hypebot and Topspin Media. Find him on Facebook and Twitter.

This research and essay is proudly patronized by its readers.

WOMEX Celebrates 20th Anniversary Of World Music Industry Gathering In Spain

WOMEX Celebrates 20th Anniversary Of World Music Industry Gathering In Spain

WOMEX is a nomadic world music industry gathering that takes place annually in various locations in Europe. This year WOMEX celebrates its 20th anniversary from October 22 to 26 in Santiago de Compostela, Galicia, Spain.

WOMEX first took place in Berlin in 1994. Now, 20 years later, WOMEX celebrates its anniversary with a well-established 5-day event that includes a conference, trade fair, showcase festival, awards, a dj summit and film screenings.



WOMEX - a short film

An important aspect of WOMEX is the Showcase Festival featuring artists from around the world. You can see all the performers and their nations of origin all the way back to 1994.

WOMEX gathered some thoughts on the anniversary from long-time participants. This tale from Gerd Kespohl, Director, Masala Festival seems a nice mix of art and business:

“I have been at every WOMEX that has taken place, without a break. I remember every year, but the most surprising experience was in Marseille. It was late and many people were dancing in the club-room of the venue. Suddenly I heard the voice of trumpets. I stopped dancing like some other WOMEXicans and we looked to the neighbour venue and enjoyed a Balkan Brass Band. They played in a way I never listened before. It was Fanfare Ciocărlia."

"So I decided to make contact with Helmut from Asphalt Tango and booked the band for our Masala-Festival, which is also 20 years old now. The audience has been so happy, and I booked Fanfare Ciocărlia again and again and they play in our Culture Center "Pavilion" now since more than 14 years. So that's my gratifying story about WOMEX.”

See WOMEX for more on this great gathering.


Location:Sycamore Dr,Lancaster,United States