joegcpsarts-blog

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Final Arts Scholars Synthesis

• Thinking back to your first semester in the program, describe your personal growth and any correlations you can draw to your experiences in the program.

Along with my acceptance letter to attend UMD in the fall of 2015, I received acceptance into the Scholars Program. From that point, it felt good being in a tighter community of people that I didn’t even know yet. I had actually emailed Brent Hernandez asking to be considered for the program on the basis that both of my older brothers were also in the scholars program and had only good things to say about it. So I’m glad I got accepted solely based off that email I sent.

Our service field trips the very first week of school were a great impression of the program for me. I went to Paint Branch elementary and was painting murals on their new portable classrooms. I made some new friends through the silly ice breaking activities, and got to spend the day collaborating on paintings and hanging out with a few of the elementary school kids. I got paint on my shorts that still won’t come off, but it was worth it. I also enjoyed the DC scavenger hunt because it let me get to know some of the mentors form last year like Graham and Micheal, two very cool guys. I thought we would be doing a lot more of that stuff over the course of my two years in the program, so in hindsight I might suggest those as things we could do more often. I realize it wouldn’t be easy to do for free like it usually is, but those were things I really wouldn’t mind paying $5-10 to do maybe once a month.

• What were your expectations coming into the Arts program?  What did you learn and experience as an Arts Scholar?

Other expectations I had…well I really didn’t know what to expect. I thought of it initially as a group of people here at UMD with which I would share common interests, and we would be involved in art related classes and activities. The workshop section of the program was the most relevant to this vision I had of what arts scholars should be. Last spring, I took miniature 3d clay modeling, and I thought that was a really cool opportunity to have as a creative outlet.

Having lived with my friends from high school in Hagerstown Hall, removed from the “living” part of the living and learning program is something I may have reconsidered looking back on it. I didn’t think that living apart from my scholarly peers would have as much of an impact as it seems it did. Coming into colloquium, I wasn’t feeling the sense of community that I likely would have felt if I lived with and saw all my scholarly peers on a daily basis.

Once we got into the actual semester, with the themes over the last two years being trash and power, I thought that those overarching themes would have more relevance to the things we did in colloquium than it ended up having. Like, I only remember power being mentioned in colloquium like 4-5 times throughout this entire year. Trash was much the same way last year, but instead of it being understated, it was just uninteresting overall. Like I remember an activity where we had to make a ridiculous invention out of trash, and like that’s great and all but what’s the point really

• In what ways did your capstone project draw upon what you have learned throughout your two years in the program (including supporting courses and co-curricular activities)? 

The idea for my project came from the English 101 class I was in during my spring 2016 semester. The basis of my research, exploring and analyzing the music industry through economic and social lenses to explain the growing creative opportunities for artists, came from a research paper I did in that English class. I researched how digital advancements in music (and media as a whole, really) affected record labels, artists, and consumers in a negative way. I had been wanting to expand on that topic for a while and I saw the capstone project as an opportunity to do that, so I began looking at more creative, artist-based avenues of research and eventually decided to learn about creative control. I had a lot of fun being able to develop the thoughts and opinions I had made before; revisiting and reevaluating different aspects of the industry was very interesting to me. Seeing how far I’ve come since then, culminating into the capstone project I completed, was a satisfying experience for me.

I wouldn’t say my capstone drew very much from my experiences as an arts scholar. Maybe in a broader scope it just sort of related to my interests and thoughts as an artist, but didn’t really stem directly from what we did in an arts scholars capacity.

 • How has your understanding of art--including the role of art in your own life—been impacted by your experiences in the Arts program?  What changes have you observed in how you think about art?

Art is huge in my life. I’m a kinesiology and dance double major, and dance takes up the majority of my time. I prioritize my time in the dance studio every other day very highly and rely on that creative outlet to essentially stay sane. I took my first dance class freshman year as an elective requirement for arts scholars, and form there it’s snowballed a lot to become a major part of my life. My kinesiology advisor still remembers me as the student she managed to convert into a dance major since she made the initial suggestion that I take dance200 instead of an architecture class. So right there, arts scholars has had a huge impact on my academic career and my life overall.

A significant number of arts scholars are also dance majors (like 5? So awesome), so I got to be better friends with them because of that connection. I already see them all the time for dance, but seeing them at scholars events makes the events all the more enjoyable. Plus just seeing people more often will usually lead to more bonding and friendship, so the 2 more hours per week I can see all of them is a good time.

• How has the program influenced you as an artist and/or advocate for the arts?

Arts are so important in everything we do. Now that’s easy to say, I realize, but being in an arts major I’ve gained a greater appreciation for all the creativity and art in my daily life. I go to a dance concert roughly every week performed by all my undergraduate peers and they are the greatest people I could ever ask to interact and create with. The messages and ideas being expressed, complicated social issues or personal experiences, in these pieces are special in that they can be interpreted through this universal language of dance. I go to dance classes every other day and learn about this art and how to better myself and those around me through art. The fact that the national endowment for the arts is getting completely cut is a horrible decision; Earth without Art is just Eh.

As an artist, yea I’ve definitely grown from being in the arts scholars’ atmosphere with all my creative peers surrounding me. It’s hard to accurately define where all my inspiration came from, but again being able to collaborate with all these people that share my passion for their own sorts of artistic expression has to have some sort of residual impact on my own creative process.

• Looking forward, in what ways do you foresee your experience as a Scholars student will have the most significant impact on your career and/or personal ambitions?

I came to UMD with the intention of going to medical school when I graduated and becoming a medical doctor. Since then, I have changed from a kinesiology major with a pre-med track to a kinesiology and dance double major with a pre-PT track. Now I hope to one day become a physical therapist specializing in dancers. I can only credit arts scholars with being the first door to open towards where I am now.

Because all my ambitions for dance were indirectly introduced by arts scholars, I feel I can say that my experiences as an arts scholar will be a part of my daily life in the future. What I do will be a combination of artistic expression and scientific knowledge used to help others in a positive way. The activities we did specifically in workshops, meditation and 3d clay modeling specifically, will likely not be very useful in my career, but the occasional meditation in dance is pretty relaxing.

Thank you to Harold, Jess, Kenna, all the TA’s, workshop leaders, and peer mentors that helped make this final year of arts scholars run smoothly for everyone. I’m sad to see it end after what did not feel like two whole years. So sad, in fact, that I might apply to be a TA so I can see all of you and stay immersed in the artistic atmosphere for another little while.

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I Hope You Like Reading

Finding a Balance: Creative Control and Success in the Music Industry

I.                    Introduction

Music is an influential part of society; always has been and always will be. It is a $16 billion industry here in the United States and is projected to be a $43 billion industry worldwide (Facts, 2016). Millions of people make a living off of this wildly popular art form, and we will be looking at how they affect this global industry and likewise how this global industry affects them.

A few moments in the history of the music industry (1950’s and 1970’s) will be overviewed to build a groundwork for the conversation of creative control. Knowing where this industry has been based for the last 70 years is important in knowing how it got to where it is now and what its future looks like. This research also seeks to better understand the relationships between artists and labels as well as between artists and consumers. Music has become a well-integrated part of American culture, and for the last century or so it has grown as an artistic, multibillion dollar industry. Looking at the effects of this integration will give us necessary information about evolving artist-label relationships, differing revenue streams changing with the rising popularity of music, and the industry’s evolving relationship with its consumers. Along with this huge growth and change, artists have more options when it comes to creative control of their work. Creative control is something artists have to sort of balance with their success. Record labels exist to promote, distribute for, and profit from the artists they hire. In some cases this works out great for everyone involved, but in others it can lead to a poor artist-label relationship, a lack of creative control for the artist, or a disappointed consumer. Looking at how technological advancement has affected these relationships will give insight into why an artist may choose to embrace a record deal or work as an independent artist.

There’s a lot to talk about, but essentially:  1) Record labels controlled physical sales of music, so record labels basically control artists; 2) Popularity of internet is making physical sales obsolete; 3) Record labels no longer control artists to the extent that they did in the past; and 4) you don’t need a label to succeed anymore, and therefore creative control is much more in the hands of the artists than it was back then.

II.                  The History Lesson

 a.      Music Industry in the 50’s

The music industry has been controlled by huge multinational music groups. In 1950, one of these large music labels, Hollandsche Decca Distributie, became Philips Phonografische Industrie. Aside from this large change, there were still four other major labels; Decca Records (British), Columbia-CBS Records (American), Electric and Music Industries (British), and Music Publishers Holding Company (American, later became Warner Music Group). So all the multinational conglomerates of the music industry consisted of five corporations located in only two countries (Record Label, 2017).

Major labels have controlled the marketing and distribution aspects of music since physical music sales became popular in the 50’s. Their immense market shares give them all the resources they need to promote their artists. From controlling what’s played on the radio to packaging of CD’s and vinyl’s, major labels could keep the overhead costs of producing music lower than anybody else because of their seemingly endless resources.

Record labels were around before the 50’s (Columbia Records being the oldest, founded in 1887), but the early 1950’s is when the 45 rpm vinyl record came to be and the first major growth of the industry along with it. 7-inch 45 rpm vinyl discs sounded better than their 78 rpm shellac disc predecessors and were also much cheaper to make, so people could all of a sudden afford to own all the music they liked hearing on the radio or whatever.

The music industry is an economy of scale, and that just means put a little in get a little out, put a lot in get a lot out. In a pre-digital age, this shows why record labels were such a powerhouse; they were a golden scenario for an up-and-coming band. A record deal represents putting a lot in, and the marketing power that came with a record deal is where the band could potentially get a lot out. Simply the percent of a label’s budget that went into marketing for a band was huge, and having your name plastered pretty much everywhere can do a lot for a band’s commercial success. These were times when physical music sales were incredibly popular and having your CD on the shelf of the local music store was the best step in the right direction in terms of being successful. This growth peaked in the 1990’s but the growth existed and thrived for decades before then.

   b.      Music Industry in the 70’s

Over the last fifty years there has been a great move to consolidate the media industries. Whether it be print, music, television, or film, the majority of content is being produced and owned by a smaller and smaller number of corporations, huge multinational conglomerates now referred to as the Big Three. The premise of each of these deals was that with each acquisition, the resultant larger company could keep production and distribution costs lower, and could have even bigger access to the public and so could generate bigger sales on higher margins than either company individually. This worked for decades and is the reason that we are left with three major music labels internationally. Essentially an oligarchy of companies controlling music distribution made them an artist’s only option for success.

You have the major labels, Warner, Universal and Sony, that manage almost 90% of music industry revenue (Satariano, 2014), but then there are tons and tons of small, independent record labels (“indie” labels) that cater more to local, lesser-known artists. Few independent labels were able to establish themselves before the late 1970’s because of the immense power that the major labels had in terms of the distribution of music. But a few independent labels like Pinnacle and Spartan were able to establish an effective means of distribution eventually. As independent labels have become more popular, they have become a feasible avenue for up and coming artists to make a career.

In addition to being unable to market your album unless a label was backing you, two problems that artists have faced in the past regarding releasing their music, independent of the funding and connections of a label, are access to studio space and connections with retailers (Arditi, 2014). These were some of the barriers that prevented artists from being successful outside the funding of major labels.

c.       Music Industry in the Now

Major labels still hold the power for physical distribution, but the internet lessened the demand for physical music. Music sales have been trending away from physical sales and towards streaming. Subscription streaming services more than offset declines in unit based sales of physical and digital music download products in the first half of 2016 (RIAA, 2017), so the industry is growing again after a good decade of financial losses every single quarter. An artist can make a spotify account and have their music made accessible to their huge base of listeners for a lot less time/money/effort than a record label telling you they can do it for a huge percent of your profit. Now obviously there’s still the issue of promotion; how can an artist that doesn’t have all the resources of a record label make any sales? Well there’s the internet for that.

The internet has done a lot in terms of empowering artists to not be forced into record deals anymore. Chance the rapper, Joey Bada$$, Macklemore, Tyler the Creator; these are all examples of artists that have gotten popular just as independent artists and arguably the internet had a major role in their roads to fame. I like this quote by Chance the Rapper; “Label deals suck, that’s just the truth of it. People believe you have to be discovered by a higher power, who hires you and takes a percentage, but in reality, you have to garner a fan base on your own.” Being discovered may have been relevant back in the 70’s, but nowadays he is absolutely right; being your own marketing division through social media is so easy to do and has such huge benefits for virtually no cost.

The two problems that artists faced in the 70’s of studio space and connections with retailers have been addressed and somewhat fixed by more modern technology. Nowadays, recording technology is cheap/small enough that artists can reasonably afford to have their own home studio to record their music (this also reduces pressure to finish an album not having to pay to use the recording equipment by the hour).

d.      Music Industry in the Future; Thriving as a Global Economy

 1.      Growth of Online Music; Streaming as a Vessel for Growth

 This consolidation of media that began 50 years ago, particularly music, was relevant before the internet because of the cost of distribution; making the CD’s/vinyls, packaging them, selling them to distributors, etc. These physical sales have been taken over by digital sales for the first time just this last year, and that trend is only going to continue with the rising popularity of music streaming services worldwide, growing almost 750% in the last five years (Goldman Sachs Research, 2017).

The building of legal online downloading platforms—the most notable of which being iTunes—was the start of the music industry’s long, arduous transition to online marketing and sales, this being later adapted into the subscription services we are most familiar with today (Spotify, Pandora, stuff like that). With changes like file-sharing and digital music, ownership of music is no longer as important as access to music. Therefore paying for services like Spotify, and having access to catalogs of millions of songs represents a better deal nowadays. Instead of paying per song by way of say digital downloads, you are paying per month to have access to virtually any song you can think of, and that’s why subscription-based streaming services are becoming so popular.

2.      Piracy’s Effect on the Industry as a Whole

Up until the 1990’s, the music industry was thriving in their ability to control the physical sale of music, but the rise in popularity of the internet led to an increase in file-sharing and direct-to-consumer distribution, but mostly just digital piracy, and along with it a decline in physical music sales. Launched in 1999, Napster was a site that combined a music-search function with a file-sharing system; a perfect combination for making music a vulnerable target for piracy.

Relating back to the main idea, these losses of sales mean artists aren’t making as much money as they should. Artists making less money potentially means their creativity is being throttled through mindsets like, “I’ll only make money if I make radio single-type songs”, or, “I’ll only make money if the label keeps liking what I’m making.” Money has a lot of power in this industry, but being that it is growing into a more and more digital-centric industry, its artists, as well as the product they produce, as a whole are being heavily affected by technological advancements.

The best way to combat piracy, however, is convenience. If you make it cheap enough/easy enough to legally purchase music legally, then piracy will decrease. It’s this great morality issue where people are forced to ask themselves, “how scummy am I for stealing this when I could easily pay the $X and just buy it?”

 III.                Making it big at the cost of creative freedoms

 a.       Creative control

 Creative control for artists has been a controversy since artist-label relationships have existed. As an artist, the way you make music is, in however small a way, influenced by the label you are signed to. Avoiding this issue can be done by staying an independent artist, but this can lead to other difficulties involving marketing and distribution. Artists have to decide how they want to be a part of the industry, through the three avenues of 1) signing to a major label, 2) signing to an independent label, or 3) being an independent artist. Each has its benefits and drawbacks, and everything depends on what the artist wants to get from their career.

This major label/indie label/independent decision for an artist will also have an impact on how they will be pressured to create music. Creative control is essential to an artist ("Creative Control issues for artists", 2012), but it will often result in a balancing act. Artists have to balance creative control with financial gain. Do artists want to be free to do what they want and basically have no money (independent), or do they want to give up creative control to some extent and have a lot of money (Major label route, or “selling out”). Independent artists make up one end of the spectrum, and it means there is no influence from a corporation in what you make; you do all your own recording, marketing, distribution; the whole nine yards. Signing to a major label is the opposite end of this metaphorical spectrum, where you will get all the funding you need at the cost of creative liberties in your musical style. Independent (“indie”) labels are anywhere in between really, depending on the individual artist or label. The independent labels usually aimed their releases at a small but devoted audience, not relying on mass sales for success, giving artists much more scope for experimentation and artistic freedom (Wikipedia; “Indie Labels”). So where you end up as an artist comes down to how you want to approach the music industry; are you in it for the money or for your own art?

Artists want to control as many aspects of their music as they can, but it’s easy to get sucked into the corporate structure as an artist. In addition to maintaining creative control, you also want to be a success, to have lots of people being exposed to your music, make money from it, and for people to value your creative vision as an artist as much as you do. The corporate structure can have a negative influence on maintaining your artistic vision.

b.      Physical Distribution Becomes Obsolete; Major Labels Lose Power

Although it seems to be growing more and more obsolete, the revenue from physical music sales, CDs, vinyls, etc., still makes up a third of total music sales in the U.S. Organizational influence on recorded music: a look at the independents, by Ulf Oesterle, explores the influence record labels exert on the content of popular music. Major labels control 82% of physical sales of music in the forms of recording, manufacturing, and distribution outlets. This was back in 2005 but that figure hasn’t changed much. They still control about 80% of music sales as of this year (McDonald, 2017).

Since physical sales still make up 30% of total revenue, however, it is still worth mentioning. When a CD sits on a store shelf, it has already incurred a number of costs that are incorporated into the price of the CD. The price of manufacturing and packaging each CD ranges from one to two dollars, depending on the number of CDs being printed and the type of packaging that comes with it (Hull, Hutchison, and Strasser). On top of the cost to manufacture the CD is the actual cost to get the CD from the manufacturer to the retailer. Most distributors charge about $1.70 for each CD shipped (Hull, Hutchison, and Strasser 255). Additionally, the retail stores have their own costs and profits that they work into the price of a CD. A standard CD is sold for $12 wholesale, but the retail price is often around $17; this means that approximately five dollars of the price of a CD is a surcharge for the ability to purchase a CD at a store (Hull, Hutchison, and Strasser). The largest part of the cost of a CD is in the gross margin of the record labels, which can be from $5.51 to $6.86 depending on the rate of artist royalties (Hull, Hutchison, and Strasser). Understanding the manufacturing and distribution costs that are figured into the price of a CD is important because they contribute to the market value of the CD (Arditi, 2014).

All these costs put into a CD are represented by what is called intermediaries, all the middle men that take their own percentages. This long list of intermediaries exists with physical distribution between an artist producing an album and that album being put on the shelf at a record store. But the internet has cut out a lot of those intermediaries through digital distribution. One file of the album can be copied and shared limitless times, while physical distribution involves making copies of the album on CD’s. Making CD’s costs a lot of money relative to…the zero cost of digital distribution. An artist can upload their album straight to an online distributor without any of the hassle involved with selling music as a physical unit. David Arditi talks about this concept of disintermediation in his article, iTunes: Breaking Barriers and Building Walls. The major labels, having controlled the means of production and distribution since forever, were being interrupted by the power of the internet to share, buy, and listen to music virtually.

In recorded music the artist or band made of several musicians is often thought of as the main vehicle that brings a song from an idea through to the final album version. In some cases this is true but there are often others influencing the final version of a song. Some roles are more active in influence than others on the creative process including artist and repertoire representatives, record producers and the CEO or owner of the label. So you, as an artist, will have to change the sound of your music, sometimes a little and sometimes a lot, to fit the mold that the label has in mind. Now of course there are a lot of labels to choose from and lots of molds that might line up with your sound a little better, but the fact of the matter is that labels exist to make money, and if they don’t see you as a potential source of profit, they will try to alter your sound through a bunch of different filters, be it the A&R division, producers, etc., or they just won’t want to sign you.

Maintaining your own vision under a major label is a bit tougher than it seems however. You also have to fit into the creative vision of the label—how they present themselves to the public through their advertising as well as the artists they sign—if you want their oodles of money. The ones in charge of retaining or sculpting a labels public image/sound is the Artists and Repertoire division.

Artists and Repertoire is the division of a record label or music publishing company that is responsible for talent scouting and overseeing the artistic development of recording artists and songwriters (Cook, 2005). These guys basically have the most influence over how much your sound will change between being signed to the label and getting your album released. They essentially represent the creative interest of the label and exist to pick and choose basically what they like and don’t like from your songs. So what that means is they might tell you to make some minor edits to a song or two, or they might tell you to cut a track or two. Sometimes it might be in your best interest to take the creative direction they’re giving you, but other times it can be seen as a hindrance on your vision–your integrity as an artist. This isn’t as much of a problem when you’re a superstar, however.

c.       Income Inequality in Music; The Rich get Richer

If you’re a big artist you can have more leverage to do what you want; you’re already well-known and you can sell albums pretty much regardless of what you put out. For example, anything Drake makes, good or so-so, sells over half a million copies in its first week (XXL, 2017; Billboard, 2017). Maybe you’re so big, you have your own record label (and this is a big list)–Jay Z with Roc Nation, Ray Charles with Tangerine Records, Led Zeppelin with Swan Song Records, Kanye West with GOOD Music (Diply, 2017)—then the only person you answer to in terms of creative direction is yourself. But the point is big artists have more room to makes demands in terms of creative control, essentially more room to fail, while small artists have to sort of conform to their label just to stay signed, essentially having no room to fail.

Those superstar artists listed previously make it pretty hard for smaller artists in terms of economic opportunity. But that’s pretty obvious; it probably doesn’t surprise you that the top 1% of artists earn 77% of the $2.8 billion in global revenue from all avenues of music sales (Resnikoff, 2014). The music industry in America has always reflected greater economic trends, meaning music revenue that goes directly to the top 1% of artists has doubled since the 1970’s (Vandiver, 2013), and now for every $1000 in music sold, the average musician makes $23.40.

Artists are therefore facing challenges economically as well as financially. Between labels telling them how to make their music and more successful artists earning wildly disproportionate amounts of revenue, it is difficult to make music into a living. But although it may seem like record labels have a lot of power over the artists they sign, that power is being called into question because of the internet.

Well-known artists are found all over this major-indie-independent spectrum, so there isn’t an end all be all solution for what will make you a success in this industry. Their experiences with the industry will naturally have differed–record deals are not all the same, labels are not all the same—but finding something that works well for them is likely the key to their success.

  IV.                Conclusion

Music is becoming a dominantly digital form of media, just like newspapers, television, or film have become in the last decade or so. Big labels had power over artists back in the day because physical sales made money and big labels pretty much had a monopoly on physical sale and distribution channels. But now that the internet cuts out the need for physical distribution (CD’s and the like are basically obsolete), artists can get rich and famous without the absolute necessity of a record deal. Because major labels are losing their pseudo-monopoly on selling music to things entities like streaming services and independent labels, that means artists have more diversity in their choices on how they want to succeed as artists. Creative control is something that an artist can actually control instead of the only feasible option is signing away your control to the record company.

References

18 Musicians Who Started Their Own Record Labels. (2017). Diply. Retrieved 23 April 2017, from http://diply.com/musicians-who-started-their-own-labels/4?publisher=reggae

2016 Mid-Year RIAA Shipment and Revenue Statistics | RIAA - RIAA. (2017). RIAA. Retrieved 22 April 2017, from https://www.riaa.com/reports/2016-mid-year-riaa-shipment-and-revenue-statistics/

Arditi, D. (2014) iTunes: Breaking Barriers and Building Walls, Popular Music and Society, 37:4, 408-424, DOI: 10.1080/03007766.2013.810849

Cook, Richard (2005). Richard Cook's Jazz Encyclopedia. London: Penguin Books. p. 16. ISBN 0-141-00646-3.

Cool, D. (2015). Major vs. Indie: What really happens when you sign a record deal. Bandzoogle.com. Retrieved 26 March 2017, from https://bandzoogle.com/blog/major-vs-indie-what-really-happens-when-you-sign-a-record-deal

Drake's 'Nothing Was The Same' Passes 1 Million In Sales. (2017). Billboard. Retrieved 23 April 2017, from http://www.billboard.com/articles/columns/chart-beat/5778279/drakes-nothing-was-the-same-passes-1-million-in-sales

Drake's 'Views' Debuts at No. 1 on Billboard 200 Chart, Sets Streaming Record. (2017). Billboard. Retrieved 23 April 2017, from http://www.billboard.com/articles/columns/chart-beat/7358025/drake-views-debuts-at-no-1-on-billboard-200-charts-sets

Facts, U. (2016). Topic: Music Industry. www.statista.com. Retrieved 22 April 2017, from https://www.statista.com/topics/1639/music/

Goldman Sachs | Our Thinking - Music in the Air: Streaming Drives Industry Comeback. (2016). Goldman Sachs. Retrieved 23 April 2017, from http://www.goldmansachs.com/our-thinking/pages/music-in-the-air.html

Gopal, R. D., Bhattacharjee, S., & Sanders, G. L. (2006). Do artists benefit from online music sharing? The Journal of Business, 79(3), 1503–1533. http://doi.org/10.1086/500683

Here Are the First Week Sales Numbers for Drake's 'More Life' - XXL. (2017). XXL Mag. Retrieved 23 April 2017, from http://www.xxlmag.com/news/2017/03/drake-first-week-sales-numbers-more-life/

Hull, Geoffrey P., Thomas W. Hutchison, and Richard Strasser. The Music Business and Recording Industry: Delivering Music in the 21st Century. 3rd edn. New York: Routledge, 2011. Print.

Independent record label. (2017). En.wikipedia.org. Retrieved 23 April 2017, from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Independent_record_label

Oesterle, U. (2007). Organizational influence on recorded music: a look at the independents (Dissertation). Retrieved from ProQuest Dissertations and Theses database. 3267443.

Record label. (2017). En.wikipedia.org. Retrieved 28 April 2017, from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Record_label#cite_note-11

Resnikoff, P. (2014). The top 1% of artists earn 77% of recorded music income, study finds... Digital Music News. Retrieved 23 April 2017, from http://www.digitalmusicnews.com/2014/03/05/toponepercent/

Satariano, Adam. "SoundCloud Said to Near Deals With Record Labels."Bloomberg.com. Bloomberg, 10 July 2014. Web. Accessed 27 Apr. 2016.

Shanley, M. (2017). Spotify monthly active user base reaches 100 million. Reuters. Retrieved 25 April 2017, from http://www.reuters.com/article/us-spotify-users-idUSKCN0Z61FM

 Vandiver, D. (2013). Rock and Roll, Economics, and Rebuilding the Middle Class. whitehouse.gov. Retrieved 23 April 2017, from https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/blog/2013/06/12/rock-and-roll-economics-and-rebuilding-middle-class

Why Economies Of Scale Don't Matter In The Media Anymore | TechFruit. (2012). TechFruit. Retrieved 23 April 2017, from http://techfruit.com/2012/02/21/why-economies-of-scale-dont-matter-in-the-media-anymore/

[joegcpsarts-blog]

In case you missed it, you can see my presentation here, and maybe have a good laugh along the way.

[joegcpsarts-blog]

Personal Reflection - April 26

I’d say my project is sufficiently done now. I just have to make a PowerPoint. I super don’t want my presentation to be serious, even though I’m covering a pretty serious discussion. I feel like people don’t pay attention, or even care at all, about a thoughtful (boooooring) presentation amidst all of the art and visual talent that my peers had made. How I like to make informal presentations is sort of like a conversation between the audience and myself, so I think that’s what I’m gonna do. Something like the title of each slide is like a question I pose to myself from the audiences perspective, and then I proceed to answer all of “their” questions that “they” ask me.

[joegcpsarts-blog]

Personal reflection – April 22

This is about the time of the year where every class comes crashing together with work at about the same time. Nevertheless, I hunkered down and wrote most of my paper in the last few days. Finding the time to write was probably the hardest part about this project, honestly. The past few weeks have been jam packed with work; I’d show you my schedule but I feel I’ve made my point without those semantics.

Here’s the intro I came up with:

A few moments in the history of the music industry (1950’s and 1970’s) will be overviewed to build a groundwork for the conversation of creative control. Knowing where this industry has been based for the last 70 years is important in knowing how it got to where it is now and what its future looks like. This research also seeks to better understand the relationships between artists and labels as well as between artists and consumers. Music has become a well-integrated part of American culture, and for the last century or so it has grown as an artistic, multibillion dollar industry. Looking at the effects of this integration will give us necessary information about evolving artist-label relationships, differing revenue streams changing with the rising popularity of music, and the industry’s evolving relationship with its consumers. Along with this huge growth and change, artists have more options when it comes to creative control of their work. Creative control is something artists have to sort of balance with their success. Record labels exist to promote, distribute for, and profit from the artists they hire. In some cases this works out great for everyone involved, but in others it can lead to a poor artist-label relationship, a lack of creative control for the artist, or a disappointed consumer. Looking at how technological advancement has affected these relationships will give insight into why an artist may choose to embrace a record deal or work as an independent artist.

Also, this is only a third of the whole introduction, but this explains the biggest part of the paper and I don’t want to bore you too much.

[joegcpsarts-blog]

These are the written journals I made around spring break. I didn't make entries consistently because I wasn't working consistently either. Some weeks it would be like I haven't actually touched anything, or I've only written like half a paragraph, so why would I post about it. After I finished my outline, I tried writing a little bit but I couldn't really get into the frenzied, page-churning-out mood I wanted.

[joegcpsarts-blog]

Advising Report #2

NAME: Joe Gipson    

ADVISOR: Harold

MEETING DATE & TIME: March 30, 11a.m.

In 3-4 sentences, please describe what was discussed during your meeting.

We talked about how I should be narrowing down my research. There is still more that could be done there even though it was a point of conversation during the first advising meeting. We also talked about when I should be done with the paper, and how I’m the biggest procrastinator I know. It all boils down to what gives me the kick I need to do the things I need to do, and that is consistently a time crunch.

In 3-4 sentences, please explain what the next steps you will take with your project will be.

My next steps will, obviously, be trying to narrow down the focus a little bit, and get the writing train rolling. Also, since I’ve decided to do a presentation instead of a display for arts fest, I will be making a PowerPoint based on the paper I have yet to complete. We’ll just take it one step at a time though; put our metaphorical horse before the cart as one might say.

[joegcpsarts-blog]

Advising Report #1

NAME: Joe Gipson

ADVISOR: Harold

MEETING DATE & TIME: Friday Feb 10 at 12pm.

In 3-4 sentences, please describe what was discussed during your meeting.

Harold and I were discussing how I can narrow the focus of my research paper. Instead of covering the music industry as a whole since the dawn of music, he suggested I pick a point to start from, and from there analyze how music has impacted society and such since then. In addition, he suggested I try to answer a few general questions regarding the music industry’s three main groups of people: labels themselves, artists, and consumers. Having some set questions for each of these groups can give some coherence to what I’m talking about, because it is a lot.

In 3-4 sentences, please explain what the next steps you will take with your project will be.

The next steps are the same as I planned out before the meeting. I will look at a few new articles or sources every week and summarize/discuss them to get a better understanding of their viewpoint. Understanding many viewpoints in this topic will give me a more encompassing understanding of how the music industry work.

[joegcpsarts-blog]

Arts scholars showing up big for kickball this year. We were down from the start, fielding only 8 players instead of the maximum 10, but we were still able to win 4 of our 5 games. 3rd place ain't so bad, especially because we got most of the sammiches from the lunch table.

[joegcpsarts-blog]

I’ve been exploring filesharing/music piracy as a major loss of revenue for the music industry in the last 15 years, and I’m seeing if this is something that will die off with more and more easy, legal ways of downloading music online or if it will continue to hurt the industry in a large way. Basically just something for my present and/or future of the industry sections.

 Gopal, R. D., Bhattacharjee, S., & Sanders, G. L.. (2006). Do artists benefit from online music sharing?. The Journal of Business, 79(3), 1503–1533.  http://doi.org/10.1086/500683

This article talks about how this lost revenue is impacting artists. Artists are somewhat split on whether or not file sharing is a good thing. On one hand, their product is being mass-produced and given away for free, but on the other hand a CD will basically always have higher quality playback than a digital file so people are likely to pay for a high quality version if they listen to it for free first. I’m not here to take sides in this argument, but both arguments have their merit and help to define the issue that is being faced by some artists.

[joegcpsarts-blog]

I’ve been looking into the relationship between money and creative control some more.

Oesterle, U. (2007). Organizational influence on recorded music: a look at the independents (Dissertation). Retrieved from ProQuest Dissertations and Theses database. 3267443.

(McDonald, H. (2017, March 06). How the Big Four Record Labels Became the Big Three. Retrieved March 28, 2017, from https://www.thebalance.com/big-three-record-labels-2460743)

This paper “explores the influence record labels exert on the content of popular music.” Major labels control 82% of physical sales of music in the forms of recording, manufacturing, and distribution outlets. This was back in 2005 but that figure hasn’t changed much. They still control about 80% of music sales as of this month (McDonald, 2017).

These charts show that music sales are trending away from physical sales and towards streaming. Ownership of music isn’t as important as access to music, so paying for services like Spotify, having access to catalogs of millions of songs for a small monthly fee, represents a better deal nowadays.

Whatever; creative control is what we’re talking about. It’s easy to get sucked into the corporate structure as an artist. All you want to do is be a success; have lots of people being exposed to your music and hopefully making money from it. But you also have to fit into the creative vision of the label if you want their oodles of money. So you, as an artist, will have to change the sound of your music, sometimes a little and sometimes a lot, to fit the mold that the label is setting. Now of course there are a lot of labels to choose from and lots of molds that might line up with your sound a little better, but the fact of the matter is that labels exist to make money, and if they don’t see you as a potential source of profit you won’t get signed.

[joegcpsarts-blog]

It’s on the last picture, but credit to theoatmeal.com

perfectly applicable and simplified via chubby marshmallow characters. Big labels had a choke hold on artists basically because of their leverage with marketing, and because of that they could make it so artists would only make pennies on the dollar from their own record sales. Now that the internet lets anyone reach a huge audience through social media and essentially be their own marketing team, that leverage the the major labels had is sort of lost and a lot of the reason people would sign with those major labels is disappearing.

[joegcpsarts-blog]

Just curious; what’s an example of other aspects of carnatic music? I can appreciate artists who look past that “main event” feeling in their work and build something deeper and more interesting underneath what most people will be looking for, and in music it’s no different. Especially since vocals aren’t just the main event in a cappella, they’re the everything. Knowing those deeper layers of music and adapting it to a solely vocal perspective sounds very interesting, and I’d love to hear what you come up with :). 

I took a World Music class my Freshman year, and was introduced to the Garland Encyclopedia of World Music, and found this to be an extremely valuable resource throughout my capstone project. I’ve been searching the internet for scholarly articles on Carnatic music, and found the Garland articles to be helpful because of the simpler terminology used. I found these excerpts from the edition, South Asia: The Indian Subcontinent. I especially loved that the article explored all aspects of Carnatic music, rather than just voice which often tends to to be the ‘main event.’ Especially since my project includes imitating instruments with voices, I found it really important to be able to learn about the instrumentation of Carnatic music as well. 

[joegcpsarts-blog]

This immediately reminded me of the song that plays during the end credits of episodes of The Legend of Korra. Through less than a minute of research I’ve also learned that the instrument used for that song was an Erhu, which is essentially the Chinese equivalent of a haegeum; fairly interesting :). But wow, that’s a fascinating instrument to see/listen to. It’s like the trombone of string instruments, having just two elements of the instrument to manipulate (in the trombones case, the players mouth and the slide, in the haegeum’s case the strings and the bow). Learning to play an instrument for your project sounds like a very daunting task; are you planning on performing something at arts fest on the haegeum?

Watching ton and tons of videos

So today I spent some time on Youtube trying to find my classical piece and Korean traditional music piece to use for my final project. I think I’m most likely going to use a more slow and calm Korean piece so I’m currently trying to find a classical piece that has a similar slower beat. At the moment, I’m thinking of using Arirang as my Korean piece since its kind of the unofficial national anthem of Korea, even if it is slightly clichey (but still beautiful!).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2OrPafGSoYg This is a link to a performance of Arirang on the haegeum. This style in which this common tune is played is really beautiful but also quite sad at the same time.

[joegcpsarts-blog]

This is super cool. I’ve never had the opportunity to use a 3D printer let alone design anything to make in one, but I’m glad to see you know what you’re doing and using it in an inspired way. Since it’s made out of plastic instead of brass, will that hinder it from sounding like a trumpet? I can only assume it’ll end up more like a vuvuzela haha. Also, a note about those sketches you drew a couple posts ago; were trombones adapted from that old school trumpet with the sliding mouthpiece? When I first looked at that I was really intrigues by it since that was nothing like any trumpet I’ve ever seen.

Finally finished my original mouthpiece. It took 3 attempts to print total - the first attempt was scaled wrong (second picture shows the wrong one next to the right size), the second attempt had a problem in the design that caused the 3D printer to drill the nozzle through the center of the mouthpiece (the third picture shows the outcome of that), but the third print was just right! I designed the mouthpiece so that it had a larger diameter and was deeper so that it is best suited for symphonic playing. In addition, I had a medium sized bore that works well for symphonic playing. I did this design based on research that I had collected previously and wanted to create a mouthpiece that I could use to play an etude on for my final presentation. More photos of the CAD drawing coming up!

[joegcpsarts-blog]

These are all amazing. The fact that you are doing four original compositions is really awesome and brings me back to my days of playing violin in elementary/middle/high school. I bet it wouldn’t be that hard to get people from the music department to perform this with you. You’ve clearly put a lot of meaning into every measure; even with pieces of this length no time is wasted. Perceived emotion is definitely limited by the music program you’re using (you don’t get the human element of music like breath, playing through the tempo rather than on it, etc.) so I’d be really interested to hear this live. I wish I had a better ear for music like I used to, but it was just really great and I’m looking forward to hearing the rest of what you’re making. :)

Mvmt 2 completed?!

https://www.noteflight.com/scores/view/3d0370b60378674e263ee9c07d4d51e139aaa03e It’s pretty much done. Feedback is greatly appreciated! So, how did I do on being angry? Could be angrier indeed… Symbolic things worth noting. look at the motifs. some of them are from the first movement.I gave them all namesred is “dead”- pitches DEAD of course.blue is “resolute”- symbolizes the desire to improve ochre/mustard is “time”- scale degrees ti to me in some important key.magenta is “ memory”- symbolizes remembering back to a time before the griefpurple is “no”- every time you see it, it’s the character saying “no” symbolizes denial. Green is when something about one of the motifs is off, perhaps the character is lying to themselves (The person that caused me grief is an oboe player, thus the oboe in this piece does more green than the other instruments) cello solo is basically you/ the protagonist/ the thought process e.g measures 100-107 the protagonist starts remembering the past (memory motif) and so the oboe is messing up your resolution.Throughout the piece, you want to be in D minor. The oboe is playing your resolution in the parallel major, making you feel like it’s okay. But it’s not okay. It’s all weird and stuff. I feel like there’s a better word than motif for the longer melodic lines. “Themes” perhaps? If you have any questions, comments, suggestions, anything else constructive, please talk to me I’m super glad to talk about my composition!

[joegcpsarts-blog]

My goal for over spring break was to get an outline together for my research paper. I'm happy with what I have so far. Deciding on sections for the main body was tough because I didn't want to stray too far from my original topic but I also wanted to include stuff that's interesting. So I've settled on 3 main sections: 1) history and advancements in music, 2) impacts that the music industry can have on artists, labels, consumers, and 3) the future of this industry as a growing global economy. The third section will pretty much be speculation based on how it is now, but I hope it'll make sense/be informative and cohesive enough to be thought-provoking.