A few things. One, cursing, and strong words!
I happen to agree. I swear very little, and do so very carefully (which is to say I treat swear words like any other word). But still, someone who thinks they have no place has never seen them put to great use (my favorite example is still the Pope Song).
Strong words!
Slurs, on the other hand, are pretty awful. I handle how I feel about these case by case. I happen to think, like swearing, we put too much weight on these as a society, but that's easy when you're tall, skinny, straight, and pass for white like I do. Normally I'm happy to leave well enough alone. But this Daily Show clip wins.
Finally, I love 2010. First you get this story on the news:
Which, naturally gets remixed:
But here's the best part: a school picked it up and playing it for marching band!
Are we lucky to be alive now, or what?
Showing posts with label music. Show all posts
Showing posts with label music. Show all posts
August 25, 2010
August 14, 2010
Making a living being an artist
This blog seems to have veered from code and cute whimsy to Paul Screed and Bloviation. Lets add one more post to that list, in part spurred by a post by Jason Robert Brown (writer/composer of Parade and The Last 5 Years, among others) that was making the rounds for a while. You should skim it, but he's basically making his case for how it's wrong that artists get cheated out of their royalties by technology by debating the issue with someone who is actively giving away and receiving his music.
First, a note on the post: it's pretty awful. He picks an inarticulate opponent to represent the other side, to the point that it's literally Master Writer vs. Opinionated Teenager. He doesn't contest the more grounded, better-expressed arguments refuting his own position, or even really acknowledge their existence. It's as if the only arguments there are are the ones this girl mentions, and he predictably takes her to town.
Let's make another distinction: this post isn't to say stealing music is okay, it's more to say royalties are doomed, think of something else. With this I mean I won't go into the ethics of downloading music illegally because, like most discussion on ethics and law, it's just way too hairy. It sounds like it should be a no-brainer that the proposition "stealing music is wrong" is true, but a) everyone may have very different definitions of stealing, particularly when b) music isn't a good or service that easily fits most tractable economic models for production or consumption, and c) assumes both speakers agree on a moral or ethical standard, notions of right and wrong, and fair behavior. So the only problems with "Stealing music is wrong" is "stealing," "music," and "wrong."
But I do believe Jason Robert Brown, like most artists who are successful or wish to be in the traditional sense, are clinging to a model that has failed and will continue to do so. That it's not a good idea to cling to an income that is primarily sustained by royalties. Like newspapers, that model only made money when people couldn't opt-out of a bad system. You're hedging your livelihood hoping that people will choose to opt-in to the same bad system, against a better alternative.
I can't find a link, but I remember a quote from the early days of the internet, when a 12-year old kid who loved Dave Barry articles would transcribe them from the newspaper onto his Geocities site: "When someone destroys your business model not because they hate you, but because they love you, you know you're in trouble."
And people won't opt-in. The Times of London online had a 90% drop in readership after instituting a paywall. The most compelling point the girl in the post made, which JRB never addressed, was that she literally couldn't access the music legally since you'd need a credit card to buy it online, and her parents didn't support her passion for theatre.
The act of buying legally itself is also marred with complications. See this graphic of watching a pirated DVD vs. a legitimate DVD, or read about this guy who pirated Starcraft, and had to wait two days to play it when he decided to buy it. While I believe the main reason people pirate is because they're cheapskates (most people pirating could afford at least some of the music they pirate, and could cut consumption like in any other market to make up the difference), it doesn't help that the experience is often better when you pirate.
Finally, and this goes back to arguing over whether it's "right" or "wrong:" most people are incredibly confused by this. When CD burning just started, I offered to make copies of commercial CD's my family bought legally to take with us to Guatemala, for us and only us to listen to. My mom relented (and looked at me like a criminal), thinking the act of burning the CD's was the illegal part (rather than the distribution... and I'm sure some RIAA lawyer would or can make the case that it is).
So regardless of whether or not what you perceive as stealing feels wrong to you (phew), even if you were 100% right and you die and go to Heaven and God himself says "Yes, Jason, you were robbed wrongfully by your brothers on Earth," it doesn't change the fact that while you were on Earth, your model was dissolving and you were being made irrelevant. I'm not arguing right or wrong, I'm arguing working and non-working.
So what should you do instead? Um... well, I don't know. But I'm pretty sure the solution isn't to stay on a sinking ship.
I can make a few suggestions though, as this generalizes nicely into the hard problem of how to make a career as an artist. The first step is to accept that you will take a pay cut. You can't keep the salaries and lifestyle you kept in the bad old days doing the bad old things. This might mean getting a second (or different) job.
The second thing to remember is branding. You're recordings may not be worth much anymore because we can now distribute them losslessly to whoever we want. But there is still only one of you, and that scarcity should factor into your model.
So try using the technology to brand yourself. Form connections. Don't stop producing and respond to your audience. If you're lucky, you can get as famous as Radiohead and give your music away for whatever anyone wants to pay for it. If you're a little less lucky, you could probably still get well-known enough to enough people to score a regular job or commissioned work. Ze Frank did a great daily show and seems to get regular work, even getting to be a speaker at TED.
A fringe benefit of this is that you no longer have to deal with middlemen taking big cuts, and stealing. Hollywood accounting means that you could still, technically, lose money on the Lord of the Rings Trilogy (Peter Jackson and the estate of JRR Tolkien had to sue to get any royalties from the movies). It's how TLC could sell 10 million CD's and still go bankrupt. The bad old days were bad for artists too. So leverage the technology, and work for yourself.
Many of the same artist survival tactics still apply. Persevere, and understand the hardest part of the game is not giving up too soon. Picking up a skill will help you greatly. Like John Goodman said in Inside the Actor's Studio, the most useful advice he got for his career as an actor was to learn to type, allowing him a stable day job to live off while he worked. That skill may even supersede your love for your art, as happened to me. At the very least you will get more perspective of how most normal, non-artists people think and work.
On an institutional level, I can't recommend enough Brendan Kiley's article 10 Things Theatre's Need To Do Right Now To Save Themselves. It caused a major splash and proposed a lot of uncomfortable truths. Many artists hated it, which is precisely the type of reaction an appropriate solution would generate in such a broken system. Incidentally, and I know this makes me a Bad Actor, but I'm tired of seeing Shakespeare.
Obviously, easier said than done. But those are my two cents.
First, a note on the post: it's pretty awful. He picks an inarticulate opponent to represent the other side, to the point that it's literally Master Writer vs. Opinionated Teenager. He doesn't contest the more grounded, better-expressed arguments refuting his own position, or even really acknowledge their existence. It's as if the only arguments there are are the ones this girl mentions, and he predictably takes her to town.
Let's make another distinction: this post isn't to say stealing music is okay, it's more to say royalties are doomed, think of something else. With this I mean I won't go into the ethics of downloading music illegally because, like most discussion on ethics and law, it's just way too hairy. It sounds like it should be a no-brainer that the proposition "stealing music is wrong" is true, but a) everyone may have very different definitions of stealing, particularly when b) music isn't a good or service that easily fits most tractable economic models for production or consumption, and c) assumes both speakers agree on a moral or ethical standard, notions of right and wrong, and fair behavior. So the only problems with "Stealing music is wrong" is "stealing," "music," and "wrong."
But I do believe Jason Robert Brown, like most artists who are successful or wish to be in the traditional sense, are clinging to a model that has failed and will continue to do so. That it's not a good idea to cling to an income that is primarily sustained by royalties. Like newspapers, that model only made money when people couldn't opt-out of a bad system. You're hedging your livelihood hoping that people will choose to opt-in to the same bad system, against a better alternative.
I can't find a link, but I remember a quote from the early days of the internet, when a 12-year old kid who loved Dave Barry articles would transcribe them from the newspaper onto his Geocities site: "When someone destroys your business model not because they hate you, but because they love you, you know you're in trouble."
And people won't opt-in. The Times of London online had a 90% drop in readership after instituting a paywall. The most compelling point the girl in the post made, which JRB never addressed, was that she literally couldn't access the music legally since you'd need a credit card to buy it online, and her parents didn't support her passion for theatre.
The act of buying legally itself is also marred with complications. See this graphic of watching a pirated DVD vs. a legitimate DVD, or read about this guy who pirated Starcraft, and had to wait two days to play it when he decided to buy it. While I believe the main reason people pirate is because they're cheapskates (most people pirating could afford at least some of the music they pirate, and could cut consumption like in any other market to make up the difference), it doesn't help that the experience is often better when you pirate.
Finally, and this goes back to arguing over whether it's "right" or "wrong:" most people are incredibly confused by this. When CD burning just started, I offered to make copies of commercial CD's my family bought legally to take with us to Guatemala, for us and only us to listen to. My mom relented (and looked at me like a criminal), thinking the act of burning the CD's was the illegal part (rather than the distribution... and I'm sure some RIAA lawyer would or can make the case that it is).
So regardless of whether or not what you perceive as stealing feels wrong to you (phew), even if you were 100% right and you die and go to Heaven and God himself says "Yes, Jason, you were robbed wrongfully by your brothers on Earth," it doesn't change the fact that while you were on Earth, your model was dissolving and you were being made irrelevant. I'm not arguing right or wrong, I'm arguing working and non-working.
So what should you do instead? Um... well, I don't know. But I'm pretty sure the solution isn't to stay on a sinking ship.
I can make a few suggestions though, as this generalizes nicely into the hard problem of how to make a career as an artist. The first step is to accept that you will take a pay cut. You can't keep the salaries and lifestyle you kept in the bad old days doing the bad old things. This might mean getting a second (or different) job.
The second thing to remember is branding. You're recordings may not be worth much anymore because we can now distribute them losslessly to whoever we want. But there is still only one of you, and that scarcity should factor into your model.
So try using the technology to brand yourself. Form connections. Don't stop producing and respond to your audience. If you're lucky, you can get as famous as Radiohead and give your music away for whatever anyone wants to pay for it. If you're a little less lucky, you could probably still get well-known enough to enough people to score a regular job or commissioned work. Ze Frank did a great daily show and seems to get regular work, even getting to be a speaker at TED.
A fringe benefit of this is that you no longer have to deal with middlemen taking big cuts, and stealing. Hollywood accounting means that you could still, technically, lose money on the Lord of the Rings Trilogy (Peter Jackson and the estate of JRR Tolkien had to sue to get any royalties from the movies). It's how TLC could sell 10 million CD's and still go bankrupt. The bad old days were bad for artists too. So leverage the technology, and work for yourself.
Many of the same artist survival tactics still apply. Persevere, and understand the hardest part of the game is not giving up too soon. Picking up a skill will help you greatly. Like John Goodman said in Inside the Actor's Studio, the most useful advice he got for his career as an actor was to learn to type, allowing him a stable day job to live off while he worked. That skill may even supersede your love for your art, as happened to me. At the very least you will get more perspective of how most normal, non-artists people think and work.
On an institutional level, I can't recommend enough Brendan Kiley's article 10 Things Theatre's Need To Do Right Now To Save Themselves. It caused a major splash and proposed a lot of uncomfortable truths. Many artists hated it, which is precisely the type of reaction an appropriate solution would generate in such a broken system. Incidentally, and I know this makes me a Bad Actor, but I'm tired of seeing Shakespeare.
Obviously, easier said than done. But those are my two cents.
July 18, 2010
MAGNETS, HOW DO THEY WORK?
Let this be a myriad post with some of the trends that currently come up in this blog:
Music. This was shown to me by a former roommate, and while acapella isn't normally my thing, I found this pretty hip:
Internet lulz. I never really cared much for Insane Clown Posse (see this lame interview, where they manage to make Bill O'Reilly look like the slightly saner party). I had never been exposed to this, a 2009 release that compares to Brokencyde in claw-your-facedness:
What makes this more notable is the meme arising from the line "Fucking magnets, how do they work? And I don’t wanna talk to a scientist; Y’all motherfuckers lying, and getting me pissed."
Murrrrrrrrr.
(edit: Madly Brilliant throws me the link to an SNL parody of the video, which I found sufficiently lulzy).
Programming languages. I like the tone and content of Mozilla's "A re-introduction to Javascript." While I don't love everything Douglas Crockford writes, but I agree with him in that there's a beautiful language trapped deep inside Javascript trying to get out. This helps us get there.
Also, reddit has started a mini-course on programming language math and formal specification/semantics. While it's too early to tell how successful it will be, I'm rooting for it!
----
I have lots more to write about in the coming days: soon I move to San Francisco, and I just took a trip to the Midwest. Now though, I have to pack!
Music. This was shown to me by a former roommate, and while acapella isn't normally my thing, I found this pretty hip:
Internet lulz. I never really cared much for Insane Clown Posse (see this lame interview, where they manage to make Bill O'Reilly look like the slightly saner party). I had never been exposed to this, a 2009 release that compares to Brokencyde in claw-your-facedness:
What makes this more notable is the meme arising from the line "Fucking magnets, how do they work? And I don’t wanna talk to a scientist; Y’all motherfuckers lying, and getting me pissed."
Murrrrrrrrr.
(edit: Madly Brilliant throws me the link to an SNL parody of the video, which I found sufficiently lulzy).
Programming languages. I like the tone and content of Mozilla's "A re-introduction to Javascript." While I don't love everything Douglas Crockford writes, but I agree with him in that there's a beautiful language trapped deep inside Javascript trying to get out. This helps us get there.
Also, reddit has started a mini-course on programming language math and formal specification/semantics. While it's too early to tell how successful it will be, I'm rooting for it!
----
I have lots more to write about in the coming days: soon I move to San Francisco, and I just took a trip to the Midwest. Now though, I have to pack!
June 25, 2010
Terrible, Wonderful Music Videos
Here's a bunch. The first is probably the most cringe-worthy. This is why the terrorists hate us.
Here's another:
Murrrrrrr
Now for some non-crappy ones.
Embedding disabled by request, so you'll have to follow the link for the first one. It's a group called Skindred my former housemate showed me, a group that combines reggae and metal, of all things. I think it works pretty well here.
This one is awful, but I love it:
"El Sonidito" means "the little sound." To quote my brother, who showed it to me: "You need to play this at your next party. I've never seen a cooler bunch of moderately looking guys. Also, I've never seen anyone look so cool playing one note on the cheap keyboard."
The funny/sad thing is, this took off and got way popular. They made a "real" music video with actors, a plot, unexplainable Hot Dancing Women... and it sucks. I like the other one so much better.
On this blog's theme of remixes, we've got a great, Bootsie-sounding one of Mr. Plow:
When I first heard this, I was underwhelmed. They were on the Colbert Report (as their record is released by Comedy Central, and what better way to promo them?). Still, after a bunch of listens, it's pretty hip:
Finally, we'll round out this tour with a little Pitbull, lest we get too classy:
It's more there as a contrast; I sometimes forget what machismo pop culture is like. Also, it's damn catchy.
(I wanted to make a PL parody of this. "Miranda she gets LAZY, Haskell it is LAZY, the Bash Shell it is LAZY, Clean language it is LAZY,..., Now thunk it let's get LAZY, thunk it let's get LAZY...").
UPDATE (6/26/2010): This one, in the 'awful' category, comes from Saurya, though I find it much less an offender than the first two:
I would also place this in less-than-wildly-lame, only moderately-lame-but-lovably-comical! It's dubiously dubbed Crabcore since they stand like crabs to look hardcore. Gotta love the sweet Techno Dance Hall interlude near the end.
Here's another:
Murrrrrrr
Now for some non-crappy ones.
Embedding disabled by request, so you'll have to follow the link for the first one. It's a group called Skindred my former housemate showed me, a group that combines reggae and metal, of all things. I think it works pretty well here.
This one is awful, but I love it:
"El Sonidito" means "the little sound." To quote my brother, who showed it to me: "You need to play this at your next party. I've never seen a cooler bunch of moderately looking guys. Also, I've never seen anyone look so cool playing one note on the cheap keyboard."
The funny/sad thing is, this took off and got way popular. They made a "real" music video with actors, a plot, unexplainable Hot Dancing Women... and it sucks. I like the other one so much better.
On this blog's theme of remixes, we've got a great, Bootsie-sounding one of Mr. Plow:
When I first heard this, I was underwhelmed. They were on the Colbert Report (as their record is released by Comedy Central, and what better way to promo them?). Still, after a bunch of listens, it's pretty hip:
Finally, we'll round out this tour with a little Pitbull, lest we get too classy:
It's more there as a contrast; I sometimes forget what machismo pop culture is like. Also, it's damn catchy.
(I wanted to make a PL parody of this. "Miranda she gets LAZY, Haskell it is LAZY, the Bash Shell it is LAZY, Clean language it is LAZY,..., Now thunk it let's get LAZY, thunk it let's get LAZY...").
UPDATE (6/26/2010): This one, in the 'awful' category, comes from Saurya, though I find it much less an offender than the first two:
I would also place this in less-than-wildly-lame, only moderately-lame-but-lovably-comical! It's dubiously dubbed Crabcore since they stand like crabs to look hardcore. Gotta love the sweet Techno Dance Hall interlude near the end.
March 11, 2010
Good Music
I've been hitting some hard times this last year, namely aftershocks of my sister's illness, as well as personal/relationship troubles which may or may not be related. It isn't the purpose of this blog to delve into them, I'd rather share the better parts of my life, and part of that is the music that helps lift one out of the blues.
Two pieces I discovered in the interim time period that are simply phenomenal recordings:
Christian McBride
Night Train - from the album Gettin' To It
A solo bass performance (Jazz).
Michael Cleveland and Flamekeeper
Jerusalem Ridge - from the album Leavin' Town
A fiddle and mandolin duet (Bluegrass).
A few notes:
Naturally, I also love the music of my brother Robert Meier. He's the bassist on two albums by very talented composers he went to school with, give it a look ^_^.
Two pieces I discovered in the interim time period that are simply phenomenal recordings:
Christian McBride
Night Train - from the album Gettin' To It
A solo bass performance (Jazz).
Michael Cleveland and Flamekeeper
Jerusalem Ridge - from the album Leavin' Town
A fiddle and mandolin duet (Bluegrass).
A few notes:
- I'm providing links to the iTunes store. Obviously I can't stop you from downloading them illegally, but I recommend you purchase them. At 99 cents, it's not much, and these are both living musicians trying to make a living today in genres that aren't very popular. These guys are clearly doing it for love of music. Also, the YouTube versions of these songs are generally terrible, if applicable.
If you must 'try before you buy,' iTunes gives you a 30 second preview. Alternatively, if you buy them and hate them, (and you're a friend of mine) I can give you two bucks back. - Listen to them loud. They're both string pieces, and ideally you'll listen to the loud enough to hear after-pluck resonances (in one of them, you can even hear the artist breathing). You won't regret it ^_^
- As with most (strangely, not all) music, you'll get more out of it if you listen purposefully. Clear your mind, hit play, and let it sink to you
Naturally, I also love the music of my brother Robert Meier. He's the bassist on two albums by very talented composers he went to school with, give it a look ^_^.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
Posts
