Whether you know it or not, most musicians don't make any money. There are all sorts of nebulous ideas floating around about royalties, ad revenue, streaming revenue, etc., but the reality is nothing like you imagine. Long story short, a musician only makes money if you (a real person) give them (a real person) money. Currently, the only people making money are the investors in pop music (aka people with money working hard for an even bigger return on their investment).
Long story long, marketing music is big business. Your 5/10/15 dollars means jack in the grand scheme if things. What matters is that you use streaming services, see advertising, buy crap you don't need online. Retail is pop music's demographic, and companies desperately need the image and feel of pop to sell chinese t-shirts, thermoses, and gourmet popcorn. All of which is completely fine.
What's not ok is forcing the little guy to compete at that level. You buying my 3 dollar album on bandcamp, excuse my language, is a big fucking deal. The market demographic of the big guys revolves around whether or not Crapco sold more jackets this quarter, but mine is any guy or girl who took 10 minutes out of their day to listen to my music and by strange miracles liked it. The album every two years cycle is a product of big money and logistics, i write something every day.
It's not just me. It's all the little guys. Every new website or platform gets quickly overrun by the big guys to the point that it becomes impossible to find new music that actually excites you. I don't want to sell 100,000 copies and play stuff i don't like to make $37 over the next 6 years. I want to sell 40 or 50 downloads in a month or two and move on to the next thing my brain thinks of.
I'm looking for 20 people who dig what i'm doing and like my sarcastic brand of humor and have 5 bucks they are willing to give me. Sites like kickstarter and patreon are great for people with an already established following, but for most people they are truly more complicated that it's worth. No, i don't want you to pledge 50 cents per "creation" or subscribe to my bullshit. If you don't like my music don't make a big production over it, just say to yourself "i don't like it" and ignore me. I'm the type of person who will talk to you about why it sucks. I may even provide new ways to hate it. Don't feel like you have to give me $200 to make it worth it, but also don't feel like your $2 isn't enough. It's more than enough. It does actually matter.
One last thing. I will actually respond to you. I'll answer your questions, i'll listen to your crap too and tell you what i do and don't like about it. I will interact with you like a person.
Thanks for reading this drivel,
Cheers
Tuesday, August 7, 2018
Tuesday, July 31, 2018
But is it worth a dollar?
In the last couple days i wrote a little piece and recorded a couple versions. All in all that's about 3 hours of real work. The daw version is here:
https://paultompkins.bandcamp.com/track/unexpected-frog-dance-2018
A live recorded version:
https://youtu.be/8OAWdERVw0w
The burning question is, is this piece of music worth a dollar? The first version has some timing issues and the mix isn't spectacular. If spent a few more hours rerecording it would it be worth a dollar?
What if i took the audio from the live recording and removed some of environmental noise? What if i did 30 more takes? What if i bought a better guitar, booked studio time, had someone master the recording so it sounded better coming from your 1/4 inch cell phone speaker? Is it worth a dollar yet? What if i befriended another guitarist, convinced him/her to record their version with better solos? Is it worth a dollar?
What if you thought it was fantastic? What if you hate it? What if you woke up in 6 months humming it in your head and thought wow i actually love this little piece. Would that make it worth a dollar?
It sounds heavy handed when you put it like that but it's really just a yes/no question, and it scales up. What about an album? What about 30 albums? What about 20 years worth of music making? This is not actually about me, it's about music in general. Is making music for the enjoyment of making music worth money? Is music worth your money? Most of the world says "no, unless i already paid for the promise of entartainment, and it turns out that you did entertained me."
It should be obvious that the thousands of bands and people making music can't be worth any money (to you). If they were you would be bankrupt, but where is that line?
Monday, July 23, 2018
How to make an album, the p(nmi)t approach
Step 1 - don't write an album. Sitting down to create 7 or 8 or 14 tracks that play nice together is a recipe for not finishing at all.
Step 2 - write a couple pieces of music with no goal other than writing cool tracks.
Step 3 - once those 2 or 3 tracks are completely done, let them suggest a theme. It can be simple or complex or funny or whatever you want.
Step 4 - what leads into those tracks you've written? Where do they go next? Are there ideas that go in between them? Essentially, create a context for those pieces to fit in. If they just don't work together, try repeating this process; you can always use something later in another project.
Step 5 - finish the damned thing. Make cover art yourself, publish it online or force someone else to listen to it. Hell, send it to me, i'll listen to it at least once.
Step 6 - listen to it for what it is, something cool you just made.
Step 7 - the most important step is to move on. Do it again, do something completely different, do something. You just made an album. It's better than every album you hate, and crappier than some of the albums you love. It's a thing that now exists, and that's awesome.
That's it. No magic sauce or fairy dust, no money wasted, just do it.
Cheers
Step 2 - write a couple pieces of music with no goal other than writing cool tracks.
Step 3 - once those 2 or 3 tracks are completely done, let them suggest a theme. It can be simple or complex or funny or whatever you want.
Step 4 - what leads into those tracks you've written? Where do they go next? Are there ideas that go in between them? Essentially, create a context for those pieces to fit in. If they just don't work together, try repeating this process; you can always use something later in another project.
Step 5 - finish the damned thing. Make cover art yourself, publish it online or force someone else to listen to it. Hell, send it to me, i'll listen to it at least once.
Step 6 - listen to it for what it is, something cool you just made.
Step 7 - the most important step is to move on. Do it again, do something completely different, do something. You just made an album. It's better than every album you hate, and crappier than some of the albums you love. It's a thing that now exists, and that's awesome.
That's it. No magic sauce or fairy dust, no money wasted, just do it.
Cheers
Monday, July 16, 2018
Referrences in My Archipelago EP
1- the Galapagos islands are by definition an archipelago. Water is one of the primary associations/images of my music work. The tracks also represent the disparate styles i work in, like islands in the sea of my musical thoughts, each separate yet clustered together.
2- modes of transportation play a significant role in Vonnegut's writing. This ep references modern travel by land, air, and sea.
3- the blue subway tunnel on the cover is the blue tunnel presented to leon, which he chooses not to enter.
4- ice can be just as deadly as anything else (cat's cradle). Hence, track 3 and the robert frost sample in track 4.
5- galapagos features extensive literary quotations. Historical recordings of famous speeches seem apropos.
6- Vonnegut suggests that human intelligence seems predisposed to inventive self-destruction. Nature, on the other hand, has ways of making us more docile, and infinite patience with which to do it. I find it hard to disagree.
I'm sure there is more one could talk about, but that's the extent to which i constructed this album.
Cheers.
One more thing i forgot. Vonnegut places an object (sometimes many) in every story, around which the characters exist. He has a name for it, i just don't feel like looking it up. The object itself is unimportant, except for the ways in which humans misuse it. Mine is the pentacle (mona plays the xylophone or marimba or something...). See, it just keeps going.
Anywho, cheers again.
2- modes of transportation play a significant role in Vonnegut's writing. This ep references modern travel by land, air, and sea.
3- the blue subway tunnel on the cover is the blue tunnel presented to leon, which he chooses not to enter.
4- ice can be just as deadly as anything else (cat's cradle). Hence, track 3 and the robert frost sample in track 4.
5- galapagos features extensive literary quotations. Historical recordings of famous speeches seem apropos.
6- Vonnegut suggests that human intelligence seems predisposed to inventive self-destruction. Nature, on the other hand, has ways of making us more docile, and infinite patience with which to do it. I find it hard to disagree.
I'm sure there is more one could talk about, but that's the extent to which i constructed this album.
Cheers.
One more thing i forgot. Vonnegut places an object (sometimes many) in every story, around which the characters exist. He has a name for it, i just don't feel like looking it up. The object itself is unimportant, except for the ways in which humans misuse it. Mine is the pentacle (mona plays the xylophone or marimba or something...). See, it just keeps going.
Anywho, cheers again.
Monday, June 25, 2018
Brain thoughts...
Every once in a while i get this strange urge to demand that people give me money for creating music. It usually passes.
Why would anyone pay for my music? It's not particularly catchy, or flashy or, technically astounding. I of course adore my music, i wrote it for me after all.
There is so much music out there that i don't like very much, so it stands to reason that most people won't like mine.
For music to be valuable, it must be useful. How do you convince anyone to use your music, then give you some money? I don't think that's realistic. The bottom line is really just "thanks for listening to something i wrote, can i have $5?" That feels like a waste of time and energy.
It feels like begging. It is begging. It's busking without playing on a sidewalk for hours on end. But, at the same time, how much does the occasional $5 really cost most people? Pretend you did give me five dollars. Is my "thanks, man!" the appropriate response or do you expect me to be eternally grateful, devote all my time and energy to give you more more more, beg you for another five dollars next month?
In reality, very few people actually care about music, and those who do feel like they cannot bear the weight of supporting everyone. I can't afford to buy every album i want to buy, my $5 comes straight out of gas/grocery money. You probably can't afford it either.
I'm sure i've written something that's worth your $5, but i write so much music that it would take you hours and hours to find it, and that's a waste of your time.
Oh well. Such is life. Back to the grind...
Cheers
Why would anyone pay for my music? It's not particularly catchy, or flashy or, technically astounding. I of course adore my music, i wrote it for me after all.
There is so much music out there that i don't like very much, so it stands to reason that most people won't like mine.
For music to be valuable, it must be useful. How do you convince anyone to use your music, then give you some money? I don't think that's realistic. The bottom line is really just "thanks for listening to something i wrote, can i have $5?" That feels like a waste of time and energy.
It feels like begging. It is begging. It's busking without playing on a sidewalk for hours on end. But, at the same time, how much does the occasional $5 really cost most people? Pretend you did give me five dollars. Is my "thanks, man!" the appropriate response or do you expect me to be eternally grateful, devote all my time and energy to give you more more more, beg you for another five dollars next month?
In reality, very few people actually care about music, and those who do feel like they cannot bear the weight of supporting everyone. I can't afford to buy every album i want to buy, my $5 comes straight out of gas/grocery money. You probably can't afford it either.
I'm sure i've written something that's worth your $5, but i write so much music that it would take you hours and hours to find it, and that's a waste of your time.
Oh well. Such is life. Back to the grind...
Cheers
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