First principles part 1: Music
In order to talk about Music Online, it’s probably helpful to actually start from the beginning and consider what those two words mean, both separately, and when put together.
I have no intention of trying to ‘define’ music other than to say that I think I know what it is when I encounter it. You’re probably the same yourself. I could say something about it having melody, harmony and rhythm, but actually, a lot of my favourite music has none of those things. I could say ‘intentional sound’, but then that would deny the musicality of chance acoustic events. I could go into a bit of a riff about perception and the rather interesting truth that the human mind ‘creates’ sound after the fact of its reception by the ears as simply moving columns of air. You don’t ‘hear’ music as much as your brain actually constructs it from the input from your auditory sense. And yeah, that means if a tree falls in a forest, it makes vibrations in the air, but unless there’s an ear and a brain in the vicinity - no sound.
Hell, even a series of dots on a piece of paper can be called ‘music’.
Definitions of music are problematic at best, and need to factor in aesthetic, social, artistic, communicative, anthropological, philosophical and physical understandings of the phenomenon. Precise definitions of music are not the point when we’re trying to deal with the first principles that are important to us here. But we do need to know what it is we’re talking about when we discuss this stuff.
Your music is commercial
I’m going to be entirely culturally reductive here and simply talk about what’s confusingly known as Popular Music. The term Popular Music does not mean ‘music that is popular’ or even ‘pop music’, but instead refers to those types of music that are created, performed or produced in relation to the kinds of cultural exchange that is, in essence, commercial.
I know, I know - the term ‘commercial’ has all sorts of negative connotations. I’m not talking about the ‘commercialisation’ of independent, folk or other musical forms, but about the simple fact that pretty much all music we listen to is inextricably linked with commerce. As Simon Frith points out, without Music Business, no music.
Of course, you’re thinking ‘but what about people who just learn an instrument for fun, and only play for their friends?’ — to which the answer is that the music that they play — its form, structure and derivations — all stems from a kind of music that was designed to be played and performed in a commercial setting. Oddly, I include classical music and jazz in this context. Most folk music too (I say most, because many folk musics are purely cultural and communicative expressions that exist to perform social functions independent of a performer/audience relationship where value is being exchanged).
There’s this widely held idea that music is this pure and natural expression that happens creatively and artistically among human beings, and then commerce comes along and corrupts it all. I say that’s obvious nonsense. Music and Commerce aren’t individual concepts or entities that exist ‘over there’, separate from People. Music and Commerce are both Things That People Do.
Sure, some music is ruined by attempts to reshape it for greater commercial acceptance, but in fact the more fundamental truth is without commerce, no music. If there were not concerts, records, marketing, patronage, equipment sellers, promoters, retailers, managers, professional teachers, venues, publishers and music press, there would pretty much be no music as we know it. At its simplest level, who’s going to form a band if we have no cultural reference for what a band is and what it’s for? Barring those musics that exist purely for tribal and community social function — and these are dwindling as ‘World Music’ is captured and commodified for a willing commercial marketplace — music and commerce are inextricably linked.
So why, if these things are simply part of the same phenomenon, do we have this ongoing tension between the art of music and the commerce of music? Because clearly, there is a tension. The simplest way to explain it away is that people are a problem. Musicians are selfish and precious. Record companies are greedy and corrupt. Audiences are thieves. Promoters are crooks. Publishers are parasites. Retailers are unimaginative. The Music Press either regurgitates PR bollocks or has completely disappeared up its own arse. We often rely on these simplifications and stereotypes to make sense of the fact that being in music (and, therefore, in the music business) is hard. Harder than it probably should be.
Your music is media
Instead of considering musicians as gifted and talented artistes (or self-obsessed primadonnas), and the music business people they have to contend with leeches (or tragically inept but lovable enthusiasts), I prefer to consider music and its business as Media.
We think we understand media. We are completely immersed in it and it inscribes our daily lives. We have a fair idea of how newspapers and magazines work. We get that television operates in a certain way, and that radio is kind of similar. Film we have a pretty good sense of too. These things are clearly media. But we struggle to think of popular music, as I’ve described it above, as being part of that same media family.
Consider a TV Show. Let’s take the Sopranos as a case in point. If we think about it, we can see pretty clearly how a programme like that comes to be. Someone comes up with it. Someone writes it. Some people act in it, and other people direct it. Someone edits it and someone else distributes it. Somebody promotes it to the correct audience. It gets broadcast, and some people consume it by way of an electronic appliance in their home. This is, of course, a complete oversimplification, but in a nutshell, that’s the chain of events.
Even more simply put, I’d break that down into some main stages: there’s a Composition step, a Performance step, a Production step, a Distribution step, a Promotional step and a Consumption step. Map a Coldplay album onto that same chain, and you can begin to see why I think of popular music as media. But you see, the thing with media is that each of those steps is aware of, and takes into consideration the needs and parameters of each of the other steps in the chain. The writer of the Sopranos is no more going to write a 25-minute third act than the director is going to shoot on 70mm IMAX film, or than a publicist is going to target it at pre-teens. The whole Sopranos phenomenon, as a TV show, is made up of the sum of its parts, it fits into generally understood categories and fulfills certain technical and structural criteria so that it works as a media artefact.
This may be a controversial thing to say, but if you have ideas to engage in your bit of the music media chain that resolutely ignores all of the other bits, then you’re going to encounter tensions. These tensions might come when a recording artist wants to make a five-album song cycle as a first release, or when a publicist wants to get a political punk band to pose for a Smash Hits! magazine foldout. In other words, misunderstanding the cultural and commercial parameters of any of the other parts of the chain causes the problems. Thinking of music as the art (or the ‘product’ to be exploited), and commerce as the necessary evil (or the whole point of the exercise) automatically starts things off on the wrong foot.
But when you think of Popular Music Media as a single phenomenon, you can start to arrange the parts in a holistic and intelligent way, in which all of the parts are compatible, and can both understand and deal with all the other pieces of that same thing.
Perhaps most importantly, media tends to factor its audience into the design, all along the chain. Of course, there are television programmes that are made simply to amuse or challenge the writers of the show, and a group of people who happen to think along those same lines may discover and appreciate them, and form its small audience. There are television programmes that are completely constructed to appeal to as many lowest common denominator viewers they can find. And there are television programmes that respect and challenge an intelligent audience, but completely understand the parameters of the media business and consumer relationship they form part of.
I think there are helpful parallels that illuminate the condition of popular music in there. Chances are, what you personally happen to do in all this falls somewhere in the Composition, Performance, Production, Distribution, Promotional and Consumption parts of the media equation. You may even take care of a few or even all of those bits yourself. Personally, I’m down here at the end of the chain, listening to, collecting and loving the music. But although you have to think about us, you also have to think about the whole media ecology you’re part of.
So, when I talk about Music Online, that’s what I mean by the Music bit.
19 Comments, Comment or Ping
Marco Raaphorst
But there’s this thing about music which goes deeper. Maybe something for another article, or maybe you haven’t considered this. It’s the source which creates music. That creative process is art. Composition should be a reflection of the composer’s soul and not be about what people would like to hear. If people like it, great, but the whole creative process should not be hindered by other considerations other than creating something that sounds great.
I am not saying you shouldn’t be making money with music, of course you need to do that. Any good composer deserves to have a good live with money, but that’s another thing. I feel there’s a lot of tension between the creative process and ways to make money of it. Interesting new ideas come to life and you’ve also been a great help for that.
But even without money people will create music. You can find it on the internet. This will be a part of our culture as well. Free music, sometimes created by people who have other sources of income. It’s not black and white anymore, the music world is more diverse than ever before. Countries without copyright or record labels can now join the party. Although we tend to focus on England and America, music is being created all around the globe and a major shift is happening now because we all can publish that on the internet.
Jan 3rd, 2008
Dubber
Oh, I agree that the Art (capital ‘A’) of music goes deeper - and that most of the people I know would continue to make music with or without financial reward. Musician is what they ARE rather than what they DO.
But what I’m saying is that even without commercial reward, the music that they create, and the way in which they create it would not exist without reference to the commercial context from which it springs. Art and Commerce aren’t necessarily oppositional, especially when considered as part of the communicative media.
Making money from music doesn’t stop it from being art (or politics, for that matter) and nor is Art music impossible to sell. Human beings have been known to pay good money for great art. These things aren’t at war with each other. In fact, an anthropologist would probably argue that you could scarcely have one without the other.
Even counter-cultural graffiti artists live in a world inscribed by paint shops, commercial art, popular culture, media and commerce - and their art exists as part of, as well as in response to, those things.
Likewise, things like song structure (verse, chorus, middle 8, etc), durations (3 minute pop songs, 45 minute albums) and musical arrangements owe as much to the realities of formats, professional recording practices and consumer tastes informed by marketing and promotion, as they do to aesthetics and musical vision.
Obviously, this is more true in ‘The West’ where these forms absolutely dominate, but it’s also true pretty much everywhere else. You can’t make rock, pop, funk, soul, hip hop, reggae, punk, jazz, blues, country, avant garde, house, latin, classical, r&b, hardcore, tango, or pretty much anything else without being indebted to the both the commercial and the cultural contexts from which they emerge.
There’s a lot more to be said on these things, and I think that you raise some really interesting specifics - particularly pointing to globalisation, which is definitely something I’ll be talking about.
Thanks for your input.
Jan 3rd, 2008
Michael Winger
“Perhaps most importantly, media tends to factor its audience into the design, all along the chain. ”
Music is a form of culture. Music in countries whose cultures are largely commercial (UK, US, EU, Japan, Australia etc) will be both reflective of and absorbed by that culture.
In the subculture of music lovers and critics, an artist who creates music solely for an audience of commercial consumers is considered crass and vulgar. In the subculture of fashion obsessed pre-teens, that same music could be considered the best thing since facebook or text messsaging. An artist who decides to ignore commercial considerations in his/her work is rejecting or reacting against his / her culture in that creation, which in itself, is still part of the culture. Art does not exist in a vacuum
Culture is inescapable. We either live within it or we react against it. .
The music of our particular era seems to be particularly reflective of this tension between art (the individual) and commerce (the audience).
I think you are absolutely right that the cultural context is all important. I think almost everyone in the music business is trying to find a way to fit an individual and artistic need into the larger culture and hopefully make a living from it. I have a suspicion that the further down the chain you get from the point of creation (the needs of the individual), the more you have to focus on the commerce end of things (the needs of the audience).
Jan 3rd, 2008
Jeff
Outstanding post. I discussed it in the music blog I write on the Houston Chronicle website.
http://blogs.chron.com/brokenrecord/2008/01/art_and_commerce_as_media_part.html
Keep up the great work!
Jan 3rd, 2008
Marco Raaphorst
Good points. I agree.
Hopefully there will be a big shift for those smaller countries, same as which is happening to film. Not Hollywood is the biggest, not Bollywood either but Nollywood. Nigeria and without copyright that is. They produce two times as much films as Hollywood.
Jan 3rd, 2008
John Milton Gintz
Outstanding! If this first “chapter” (dig the floating quotes)…and a sign of things to come for 2008 then I will be fervently returning to absorb all this even more useful information.
You have a wonderful talent for breaking down the myriad of tangled and twisted concepts / ideas around Music Business into quite understandable and approachable information.
Thanks for that!
Jan 4th, 2008
Nick
I may be off the mark here, but what you call Media I call Marketing. I hate using the word, personally, because it has almost as many negative connotations as Commerce, but so be it.
Although a music marketer doesn’t have a direct hand in Composition, Performance or Production of a musical work, they absolutely MUST take these elements into account when considering the Distribution, Promotion and Consumption parts - the content of the lyrics (right down to the emotional impact of the song overall), the quality of the sound, the history of the band/songwriter and their inspriation, the artwork and packaging, the geographical references made by the music, lyrics and origin of the songwriters and their music must all be scrutinized so that:
Distributors can know which stores to target with product to maximize listenership, which demographics are appropriate for the music and artist, where and how to get their attention and ultimately how to find the artists audience, an increasingly difficult tasks as music preferences push down the Long Tail.
So as controversial as it sounds, the person with the best command of the Media Ecology is the music marketer.
Jan 4th, 2008
Dubber
I see what you’re saying, Nick - but I think once I get into a decent discussion of consumption (clue: it’s about more than buying and listening to music), you’ll probably see why I think that doesn’t quite work. However, generally speaking, there needs to be marketing all along that bit of the chain you mention, but the point of this is to conceptualise music and commerce/marketing as all contributing to a single process, rather than simply being two parts that should complement each other.
Although I’d fervently argue that all popular music is commercial, I’d equally stress that not all popular music (in fact, the minority) is created for commercial ends. There’s a real difference there.
Where the music is created (or exploited) for commercial ends, then yeah - the marketing’s going to take over the lion’s share of that second half of the equation. But distribution, promotion and consumption need not be about the selling of recordings or the staging of concerts.
There’s another reason I use the term ‘Media’, and it’s used in a particular way that requires some explaining - something I hope to do soon. Essentially, I use the word the way McLuhan used it, if that’s at all helpful. I’ll say lots more about this in posts to come.
If you can bear with me, hopefully all the pieces will fit in time and you’ll see why I’ve selected it as a helpful way to understand what happens to music under conditions of technological shift.
Jan 4th, 2008
nick
” the point of this is to conceptualise music and commerce/marketing as all contributing to a single process, rather than simply being two parts that should complement each other.”
I’m interested to see how that conceptualization takes place, Andrew. I’m acting on the premise that “if a writer gives good meeting, they’re probably a crappy writer”, if you’ll excuse the Hollywood metaphoe which emphasizes the fundamental differences between those on the biz end of things and those on th Art end. Of course there’ll be some cross-over, but it’ll take some convincing for me to believe that both can be entirely embodied in a single artist/business person. The gauntlet has been thrown!
Jan 4th, 2008
John Milton Gintz
I am hoping to do exactly what Nick suggests as being unattainable (single artist/business person). I think it involves a mind set that one must achieve through focus and determination. With technology it is possible to truly DIY in this digital age.
To be business savvy doesn’t mean to be soulless, but it might mean being intelligent and experienced. Just as being an artist does not mean you must be shrouded in melodrama.
Life may appear to be driven by the majority but in fact that majority is led by individuals. These individuals conceive and even sometimes execute great ideas that change the majority perception (often over time).
I guess what I am saying is that with the right tools and experience people can and will do all kinds of “impossible” things.
Jan 4th, 2008
Dubber
And this is my point. There is no artist/business person. Both have to understand they’re part of an ecology that will involve different people with different skills, points of view and methods of working.
I’d be careful of using Hollywood as a model for anything these days, but again, I see where you’re coming from.
The writer who gives bad meetings may be a great writer, but the tension experienced in those meetings generally comes not from an under-appreciation of the artistic worth of the writing, but from a misunderstanding of the ecology and how the parts fit together. Sometimes that misunderstanding’s an intentional strategy in terms of positioning oneself in relation to a finished creative product, but mostly it happens when studio execs don’t understand narrative - only numbers. Or when writers believe that to be faithful to the novel, it has to be a four and a half hour film - which misunderstands the medium and the business of cinema.
Everyone needs to be pulling for their corner, and the writer who gives ‘good meetings’ is probably folding far too quickly and not invested enough in the whole thing. When these defenses-of-position and debates are in the interests of a better overall media product, then it’s totally worthwhile - but these sorts of meetings can only take place between people with different things at stake, and different understandings of what’s important - but a common goal.
Likewise, the writer who will not listen to another viewpoint, but just repeats their position and defends every word of the text to the death is probably not in alignment with the overall project and should probably walk away.
The best overall media products tend to come when those different parts of the ecology (the six steps, if you like) all work together toward a common, or at least compatible goal. That doesn’t mean that the art has to ‘win’ over the commerce or vice-versa. It means there needs to be compatible vision.
This is why I use the Sopranos as an example of a successful media product. It does everything well, apparently to everyone’s satisfaction. It wasn’t the case that the writers ‘won’ over the producers, or that there was a single visionary who took control of the whole process. It’s just all good and it all works. I bet not everything was smooth sailing, but everyone was at least on board.
It’s a process a friend of mine once called anagonality, and I absolutely love the idea of it. It comes from the term agon from ancient Greek drama, which was the conflict around which the whole thing turns — where heroes win and villains die.
But the idea of an-agon (literally ‘not-conflict’) is the struggle through which mutual advantage is gained.
Teo Macero and Miles Davis are bickering at each other through the studio glass. Macero’s not getting the performance he wants out of Miles and the trumpeter is completely fed up. Macero gets out of his producer’s chair, walks past the other musicians into the studio, and starts a fist fight with Miles. They fight for several minutes and both men are getting pretty worked up. Miles Davis is clearly furious and ready to beat the living crap out of Macero.
“Okay - wait!” shouts Macero. “Now play it.”
He runs back into the control room and gets the take he was after - only better than he could have possibly imagined.
It’s a good story that may or may not be true.
At any rate, it’s exciting to be engaged in this little bit of anagonality with you here. This is exactly what I was hoping for - smart people challenging, disputing and engaging with the stuff I’m writing so that I can try and defend my corner, but come to a better understanding of the whole thing, and through the process, end up with a better media product here than otherwise would have been possible if I’d just agreed with you, or refused to listen.
Anyway… the artist/promoter/businessperson all-in-one deal is a rare find. I’ve met three in my life. Everyone else can and should find people they trust to complement their own skills and shortcomings. Assembling a great team, working toward a common project aim (even when there’s this productive tension), and letting people do what they’re good at is pretty much the key.
Jan 4th, 2008
John Milton Gintz
I agree that the artist/business person is rare. I also agree that a great team is best. I may have spoken a bit to generally by saying that I could ever encompass every aspect of creative/business person, at least not to the point I think Nick or Andrew are meaning.
What I should have written was; I want to be involved in every aspect of the processes that involve my “media”. I know that I am not capable of providing the best solutions for all my needs and I will always seek out and utilize people, places and things.
I also think to involve like minded people of different talents to achieve a goal is best and often results in loftier goals being reached sooner.
Bullocks to going it all alone I suppose! I think the proper point is if you are of the mind and ability to do so, you should keep be involved in all the steps surrounding your own creations.
Jan 4th, 2008
Angry Anderson
No one with a tattoo that wussy has any right to talk about rock and roll.
Rock and roll is for skull tattoos with snakes coming out the eyes, not delicate faux tribal stuff.
A blog about feng shui and tampons, yes. Music, no.
Get ye to a laser surgeon immediately.
Jan 8th, 2008
Tom Parnell
This is very interesting. I agree very strongly, Andrew, with your ideas on Sopranos-esque ‘anagonality’.
Also - it is *certainly* the case that this quality that you equate with ‘commerce’ applies to classical/jazz &c just as it does to pop. Could ‘commerce’ be boiled down to ‘pragmatism’ - or a willingness to work within set parameters? That is, taking away the monetary/economic implications of ‘commerce’.
I’m thinking at the moment of JS Bach, whose Chorale settings so reliably contain brilliant, inspired harmonic writing. The kind of stuff that would have been breath-taking at the time. And every single one is a setting of a simple, pre-ordained melody. And uses a simple four-part vocal texture.
Or Shakespeare - who arguably never wrote a plot in his life - but took existing stories and fused them into fantastic new hybrids.
(Oh, yeh, and he had quite a way with words, too.)
So much great art, it seems to me, is about accepting - then kicking off from - limitations, restrictions and ‘rules’. Absolute, unfettered creativity doesn’t, in practice, seem to be anywhere near as rich in its output.
That may’ve veered slightly off-topic. But your post (and subsequent comments) made me think about the fact that art seems to thrive when its creators are constrained or challenged by rules or circumstances.
Jan 9th, 2008
mono
Great article, and I look forward to more.
Coming from both a business & music background I still found it quite refreshing to see a business marketing model applied to the music industry, as it’s something that a lot of people seem to have a vague idea of, but don’t really know what the stages even are.
Also, I’d strongly disagree with the comment that the artist/manager/promoter is rare… There are absolutely thousands upon thousands of them these days due to the ease of managing a good portion of most of the necessary tasks online. Finding one good enough to get somewhere though - now that’s the rare part. A good, knowledgable team is still almost certainly going to be the most beneficial.
Jan 10th, 2008
Dubber
I think by necessity, the character of the artist/manager/promoter figure is very common indeed — but the temperament and equally-balanced personal qualities that those things need in order to work successfully together are probably more unusual in the same individual.
I know dozens of people who act in those roles simultaneously. I know very few who are those types simultaneously. Does that make sense?
Jan 10th, 2008
Justin Boland
Definitely makes sense to me. On one hand, I feel like I am the artist/business type and I have been full-time for about six months now.
On the other hand, it’s a role that I fulfill out of raw nescessity, and it’s driving me completely f***ing insane. So I’d agree, although there’s a lot of polymath hybrids out there, most of us are not enjoying it.
Of course, that will change over time. I’m a lot more comfortable with this juggling act than I was even a month ago. Perhaps by the end of 2008 it will be natural as breathing.
Jan 10th, 2008
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