Fan Participation and the Democratization of Music

Posted on 28. Feb, 2010 by refe in MUSIC INDUSTRY

A good old fashion sing-a-long.

Digital technology continues to transform the music industry. Most believe that this transformation is causing the industry to evolve into something new that will resemble nothing that has come before it. Others are beginning to suggest that perhaps the music industry is instead reverting back to a state closer to how it all began. What will all of this mean for musicians?

I hope all you wonderful readers have had the opportunity to read through the comments of last month’s Can Music Stand On It’s Own piece. If you haven’t I highly recommend that you do yourself a favor and spend some quality time reading through them. There’s a lot of great insight in there from some truly bright folks.

One subject that kept surfacing is the changing role that fans may eventually play in the creation and performance of music. The idea is that as technology improves it will become easier and easier for ‘non-musicians’ to create music and become instead amateur musicians.

This has already begun in a big way. Garageband comes preloaded on every new Mac. Samples and loops exist for every instrument, timbre and sound imaginable. Auto-tune can whip even the most tone-deaf of voices into a presentable shape. Electric guitars can now tune themselves and a single synthesizer has the versatility to replace every member of the band.

The future that some are predicting takes these advances even further, imagining instruments that essentially play themselves and computer programs that turn music theory into an automated process.

What does this mean for music? When anybody can participate in music the gap between the capital ‘A’ Artist and everybody else eventually evaporates.

Is Fan Participation something new, or something old?

Before getting into what all of this may mean for professional artists and the music industry, it’s important to get some perspective.

There are those who talk about this idea of fan participation as though it is the next evolution of the musical experience. The coming ‘amateur age.’ Some see it as an opportunity – for example, artists who encourage their fans to participate in the creation and performance of their music can potentially cultivate loyalty and buy-in that can lead to greater exposure and increased revenue.

Others see it as the final nail in the industry’s coffin. The amateurs will, by virtue of their much larger numbers, eventually overtake the professional musicians. The mystique of the artist that has prevailed for centuries will fade when greatness no longer comes at the expense of thousands of hours of practice and sacrifice. Business will grind to a halt. If anybody can do it who’s going to pay for it?

Another group of folks sees this possible future as simply an inevitable normalization. According to blogger and music teacher Ethan Hein (who is also one of the lovely commenters from last week,) “The specialization of music to professionals or highly dedicated amateurs is a historical and cultural anomaly. For most of world history, music was something that everyone participated in as part of daily routine.”

In other words fan participation is not an evolution, it’s a kind of primal baseline. It’s a center that music culture is forever drawn into no matter how far out it may venture at certain points throughout the course of history. Everyone is supposed to participate in the musical experience – the professional musicians of the 20th century are the outliers, the exceptions. The very idea of a ‘music industry’ is based on the inaccurate assumption that this ride we’ve been on for the past four decades would last forever.

Is the professional musician really a historical anomaly?

If music as a viable business is destined to be nothing more than a glittering speck in the sands of time there are some serious implications. With substantially less – or even zero – money to be made the music industry as we know it will effectively cease to exist. This goes beyond creative deconstruction – this is essentially just deconstruction.

Yet before we all resign ourselves to this fate and toss out the practice routine, I have some issues with this conclusion.

First of all the idea that with the exception of the 20th century music has always been “something that everyone participated in” is flawed. Sure, over the centuries taverns have been filled with rousing choruses and prison lines sang spirituals to the slow beat of the pick-axe. These were community experience – there was no training or discipline required to participate.

However, there have also been for centuries traveling musicians and performers playing for tips or food as a bartering tool to acquire goods or crafts. There is clear evidence of highly trained musicians in ancient Greece and Rome. There are even Old Testament references to skilled artists and musicians who spent years honing their craft. In other words, there has always been a division between artist and amateur.

Don’t give up – but don’t get comfortable either

With that in mind, I don’t think there is anything wrong with working hard to ensure that musicians continue to be able to earn a living for the art they create. In fact, I think that to do anything else would be irresponsible. Of course, I’m not trying to suggest that good folks like Suzanne Lainson and Ethan Hein are suggesting that we just give up on music as a profession. I do see how easy it might be for many musicians to consider their version of the future and get discouraged.

Music will remain a viable business as long as artists and those supporting them continue to find creative solutions to new market challenges. Whether it signals the pop-pocolypse or not, the ever-shrinking divide between the artist and the amateur poses a challenge. But it also provides a whole new world of opportunities for creative artists to find ways of engaging with fans and driving revenue.

This is certainly not the time to give up on the dream of creating and performing music for a living. It isn’t an easy dream to realize, and it isn’t getting any easier, but the opportunities are there for the taking.

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Tags: fan participation, MUSIC INDUSTRY

17 Responses to “Fan Participation and the Democratization of Music”

Suzanne Lainson

28. Feb, 2010

I fully believe in music. And I believe in talented artists to such extent that I have done as much as possible to help a few who I thought could do well with the right help at the right time.

So when I talk about the democratization of music, it isn’t so much that I want professional musicians to go away. I’m just trying to prepare everyone for the possibility that as the technology presents more options, we may have a world of musicians and each of them has few paying fans.

I started to come to that conclusion when I watched how audiences were changing over the nine years I have been heavily involved in music. They were coming to shows and texting their friends; taking photos and sending them out in real time; taking videos and then uploading them on YouTube, etc. So the audiences were perhaps more engaged in showing themselves at the event than they were absorbing the music. In essence, they were looking for ways to be part of the show themselves.

So it doesn’t take much of a leap to think that if the average person can find a way to feel like a rock star, that might be more fulfilling than being a fan who latches on to someone else creating the music.

The idea that there will be artists who will have tribes of fans who adore them so much they will come to every show, buy all the merch, etc. may not be the model of the future.

Also, if you hang out with a group of local musicians, you know that many of them are looking for ways to be the center of attention. “Come to my show. Buy my CD.” Now expand that to everyone who creates music and you’ve got a lot of people competing for the same audiences. After while everyone is just playing for themselves, friends, and family anyway.
Ethan

01. Mar, 2010

I’m all in favor of having a robust market for professional musicianship, but I expect the job to look very different than it did in the past few decades. Having such a steep barrier between the few performing specialists and the many passive audience members seems neither sustainable nor desirable. The musicians who do well are going to lead amateur participants by example rather than carry the entire weight of music-making. Maybe that means creating remixable stems and Rock Band tracks. Maybe it means something unimaginable to us now. I find it hard to imagine that stadium shows and recordings are going to be the center of the business and I’m perfectly fine with that.

I see a strong analogy between music and food. Right now we have a music culture where nearly everyone is doing the equivalent of eating packaged prepared foods for every meal. I’d like to see more home cooking. People will always want to go out to eat sometimes and will want cookbooks, classes and recipe web sites. I’d like to live in a world where personal music-making is the norm. That will only benefit musicians like me, since I enjoy teaching aand otherwise engaging with amateurs.
HubertGAM

01. Mar, 2010

Let there be a real pro league for musicians. Those with real skill and/or unique creative talents should be the ones to be able to make a living from music, not just any Tom, Dick and Harriet.

Malcolm Gladwell explored how the most successful people in the world got to where they got in his book – Outliers. It was never luck, but the fact that people like Tiger Woods and Bill Gates were diligently working on their respective crafts all the time. Musicians/music acts need to consider that it may take a lot of work to attain any kind of real success, but when it does come you should be more than ready.
Phil Johnson

01. Mar, 2010

All great points. Two things popped to my head. First the allure of styles like early rock and punk was the “hey I could do that too” factor. People were attracted to the idea that there was music out there they could play too.

My other thought is that the people I know who are most passionate about listening to music are people who play. Not professionally (though them too), but the people who “sort of” play. They have an insatiable listening appetite because they’ve gotten a taste of what it is to make music.
- refe
  
  03. Mar, 2010
  
  Great comment, and you’re right – rock and punk have always been fueled in part by their low threshold of entry. Yet there have always been a few that rose to the top in popularity and earnings. But without the rest of the music community (whether amateur music makers but hardcore listeners, or would-be pro musicians working for their big break) who knows if the ones who made it to the top would have had a market to play and sell to.
Suzanne Lainson

01. Mar, 2010

There have been times when bands were formed by people who had little to no musical experience. It would be obvious that they had limited skills, but they would become popular anyway because they were cute, or had high energy, or were making a statement.

There sometimes is no correlation between years of practice and popularity/success.
- refe
  
  03. Mar, 2010
  
  True, but practice and dedication do generally correlate with quality.
  
  Money isn’t the only factor that determines the health of an industry, especially when art is at the center of it. This post is of course about the implications on artists’ ability to earn a living making music, but for many segments of the listening market quality is still a big factor.
  
  If there is any reason to fear an ‘amateur takeover’ that cripples the economics of the music industry (which I don’t really expect) it is to have a market full of mediocre noise at the expense of truly great works.
  
  Of course, much of what is successful is exactly that – mediocre noise – but hopefully I’ve gotten my point across.
Ethan

01. Mar, 2010

One reason I won’t be sad to see the end of the present music industry is that it rewards sexual desirability more than musical ability, the odd Susan Boyle case notwithstanding. Sometimes the attractive people are also good musicians, like Lil Wayne or Beyonce, but marketability and musicianship aren’t necessarily related right now.
- refe
  
  03. Mar, 2010
  
  Amen to that.
Dexter Bryant Jr

01. Mar, 2010

Phil we have similar experiences that have led us to the same conclusion:
“people I know who are most passionate about listening to music are people who play.”

Those are the people who are most engaged with my music and they are the ones who always come to a show when they say they will. They are my biggest supporters.

My strategy is to engage this audience of (what I consider to be) hippies and musicians, collaborate on projects with them and source them for ideas, and essentially make my success “ours”. They are a very encouraging bunch and fun and inspiring to be around.
- refe
  
  03. Mar, 2010
  
  I’m glad you left this comment because it highlights some of the incredible opportunities that an increasingly participatory music industry brings.
  
  The fact that this post conspicuously leaves those sorts of innovations and strategies out is simply a factor of length. I think the article is long enough as it is
  
  I hope to go more into the opportunity side of the equation in a future post. Feel free to expound on what you’ve been doing to get your fans in on the creation process and the results you’ve been seeing.
  - Suzanne Lainson
    
    04. Mar, 2010
    
    I definitely think there are opportunities, but often they require a different set of skills than many musicians have.
    
    The artist who can draw others into the performance (even doing something as simple as encouraging everyone to sing along) should do well. The artist who can serve as community organizer or creative spark will be in demand. But that may mean thinking about what your audience wants.
    
    At a basic level, pretty much any kind of music that gets people dancing is an example of this principle.
    - refe
      
      06. Mar, 2010
      
      But they are skills that many musicians can develop if they are serious about making a career of their music. Truly creative people are often more than capable of applying that creativity to different functions. There are also a growing number of resources out there that can help artists do this. That’s one of the primary reasons this blog exists, and why anyone bothers to read it!
      - Suzanne Lainson
        
        06. Mar, 2010
        
        I see a few musicians who excel across a variety of media. David Bryne is one of them.
        
        But I know a lot of musicians who got into music based on a concept of what a music career might be. They want to be the next Bob Dylan, or the next (fill in the blank with a much admired band or artist). And when today’s reality doesn’t fit that expectation, they can’t or won’t change.
        
        The successful musician of the future appears likely to be someone who is social (both on and offline), who knows how to market a variety of products (or who can bring in the right people to do that), and who is willing to share the spotlight in collaborative projects, either with other musicians or with fans/users on line.
        
        We’ll definitely have these successful musicians, but we’ll also have a community of people who just make music. It may not make them a living, but hopefully they’ll be happy just to make music and do something else for income.
Suzanne Lainson

01. Mar, 2010

Yes, looks and age have factored heavily in terms of which artists get signed, who gets sponsorship and investors, etc.

That was one reason I was thrilled with Boyle’s popularity. It proved it doesn’t always have to be this way.
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