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Great video. Glad I’m not in a band, and trying to be a pop star.
Under the heading of “Don’t quit your day job”. Sad. And yes “More advice”, +1000 on maintaining control of our intellectual property!
Making music for a living is a choice. Musicians just have to choose wisely.
And yes “More advice”, +1000 on maintaining control of our intellectual property!
++1,000
You have to wonder if licensing is really a viable option for most musicians. If you have the heart and soul of an indie singer/songwriter who bleeds emotions into every song (think Passenger) are you really going to be happy cranking out mountains of production music? Probably not. Doing so would most likely be like putting bamboo under your finger nails, and death to your spirit.
I don’t think that you can successfully rationalize it by saying “beats digging ditches, at least I’m making music.” If you don’t enjoy writing commercial/production music, you may tire of it quickly, because you aren’t making the music that is your passion. An analogy might be a chef forced to work at McDonald’s.
Writers who actually like composing and producing production music, are prolific, have the chops to keep it interesting for themselves and aren’t worried about having “fans” or selling CDs have a distinct advantage. Dare I say it? Some of us are even passionate about writing production music.
Take notice of the woman’s comment where she said “If I tour all the time, I can not have a family.”
Obviously, we aren’t talking about production msuic here. But there is a general concept that applies, specifically lifestyle and what “earning a living” means. Writers with a modest cost of living, will perhaps have an advantage over writers who “need” more. But, that is no different than any other aspect of life.
The fact is that it takes very hard work, and a lot of sacrifice, to succeed. I think most will eventually tire of both.
Thanks again for posting the video More Advice.
_Michael
The fact is that it takes very hard work, and a lot of sacrifice, to succeed. I think most will eventually tire of both.
It helps to have a mate who “gets it” and shares in the creating. Thankfully Robin does both.
“It’s harder than it’s ever been to make a living as a creative person”
I flat out disagree with that statement. How about 500 years ago? Or just 150 years ago? Or even, just 50 years ago?
50 years ago I would not have been able to record and produce what I have done today. I simply would not have been able to afford a studio.
I would not have been able to distribute my music via websites to audiences in every country of the world, for free.
I do not think I would have been able to make a living as an artist at any time in the past, as easily as I can now.
You are correct Tbone. The people that disagree are those that are still stuck on the old model. Being an analog musician in a digital world is frightening and frustrating. But I have only worked in the digital world. I love it.
I am free to create anything I want for very little money. I can share what I have created with the world for free. How great is that?
I think that about 10 years from now the industry will have come to a new equilibrium and then a huge growth curve will follow. Those that choose to participate and disregard the past will be the most successful.
This part of the documentary feels like a dire ‘Who Killed the Electric Car?’ portion. The ‘Revenge of the Electric Car’ follow up would go into the explosion of micro budget producers who still need legal access to music (royalty free sites), and the growth of cable (creating more opportunities for royalties and licensing).
Trailer music (something I’ve been involved in for a while) sells pretty well on CDBaby and iTunes. Sure, you can find it all for free as low quality mp3s on sketchy looking sites, but there are enough fans out there who value our work and are willing to pay for a high quality file. I don’t have to go on the road to drum up sales, (YouTube, SoundCloud and Facebook help with that) selling t-shirts and playing gigs in small towns. I think we have it pretty good as library composers!
I flat out disagree with that statement. How about 500 years ago? Or just 150 years ago? Or even, just 50 years ago?
I agree with you also Tbone. The Internet has made it much easier for me to pull down a decent income as a writer. There are so many more opportunities than 50 years ago. And, I was in the music business in 1963!