The Changing Game
Category: Music

From a Bob Lefsetz letter on Soundscan:

Focus on awareness, not sales.

Forget the Pirate Bay trial, forget P2P piracy and cease and desist letters. They are now the sideshow. We’re moving from ownership to streaming. Spotify is king here, but it’s not the only one. There’s MySpace, there’s iMeem and the pay granddaddies, Rhapsody and Napster. Streaming is better than ownership. All of the foregoing are licensed by the major labels and numerous other rights holders. Can these outlets generate enough capital for the rights holders to garner the revenues of yore? Doubtful. iMeem is on the ropes right now. But that’s irrelevant. Bottom line, people are becoming accustomed to being able to access everything whenever they want. The old model of buying individual items will not evaporate overnight, but it will start to fade, just like the CD, which was the last physical vestige of this paradigm.

But, philosophy aside, sales just suck. In eight weeks, Bruce Springsteen has sold 483,803 albums. An absolutely horrible figure. Bruce is fine, he’s got a guaranteed contract. The man who made this deal, Andy Lack? He was neutered and then left the company. Sony is holding the bag, it’s Sony’s problem that they’re upside down on Bruce’s new album. Nothing seems to make a difference, the Super Bowl, all that press, people just don’t want Bruce.

But he can sell a bunch of tickets.

U2 is doing better than Bruce. They’ve got a cume of 693,310. But this last week, their third on the chart, showed another 42% drop, they sold 76,317 albums. Not exactly chicken feed, but there’s no way they get to ten million, there’s no way the label takes everybody out to CUT and orders thousand dollar bottles of wine on this revenue.

Kelly Clarkson is still number one, but she only sold 90,393 albums, after selling 254,671 last week. Her sales are declining. Everybody’s sales are declining. To look to music sales to make your income is to be absolutely horrified. They’re going in the wrong direction.

We can delineate why, but you know, it’s not a secret. You can get the stuff free and you’re not beholden to just a few acts. No one can dominate. It’s every man for himself. Green Day is debuting their new video on MTV. Do labels still make videos? Does MTV still play them? Isn’t that like saying they still make Beanie Babies, or Hula-Hoops? Videos are a passe fad, late twenty first century relics, now it’s about the music once again. And the trappings are not enough to sell the music. Otherwise, Scarlett Johansson’s album wouldn’t have stiffed. Running a record label is bad business, which is why companies want 360 deals. But the label is no longer the dominant player, the focus is now on the act itself. How does the act itself break through?

I’m not saying the act, the musicians themselves, have to do all the work, but they’re no longer slaves on the plantation, they’ve got to take their destinies into their own hands. Rather than look for a fat cat to dump a bunch of money on them, they’ve got to start from the ground up, by themselves, no one’s got that kind of money anymore, you’ve got to start with AWARENESS!

Don’t see it as free music. That’s referencing the old game, where music sales were the main source of revenue. That hasn’t been true in years. Most acts make the lion’s share of their money on the road. How are you going to get people to come to see you?

Sure, radio still has some power, and television too, but they’re waning in influence. You reach fewer and fewer people, many of whom don’t care. And if you’re trying to get them to buy your record to check you out, you obviously don’t surf the Net, because everything is available free, to hear online!

Think about this. You used to have to purchase the record to know what you were getting. Now you can test drive everything first. But why bother to buy after test driving? If the dealer lets you keep the car every day, why bother to own it? That’s what streaming is. Granted, now you can only stream efficiently on the lot, in front of your computer, but that’s going to change, as 3G wireless penetration expands, as 4G makes its debut. You’ll be able to stream your music anywhere. And then the game will change. It’s how are you going to get someone to LISTEN to your music?

After a label sold a CD, it didn’t care if the buyer played it. The label didn’t care if the buyer threw the damn thing away. But in the future, it’s going to matter exactly how many times someone plays your tracks. THAT’S how you’re going to get paid! It’s not about a good come-on, it’s about ultimate delivery!

How can you get someone to spin your tracks so much, so many of them, that they’ll bond with you and not only want to come see you perform, but buy your merch. Online streaming payment is now low, if it grows dramatically, it will be slowly. Piracy will not be the problem, but overall revenues will. So see the game not as getting someone to pony up the bucks for your tracks, but to listen to them!

In this transition period, let everybody stream all of your music, whether it be from a third party site or your own. It’s your only hope of breaking through the clutter. Sure, you can sell your music too. Some people still want to own it, others want a souvenir. But don’t get hung up on recorded music as revenue stream. True revenue comes way down the line, when you’ve established a body of work and a fan base.

Are you getting this? It doesn’t pay to be a one hit wonder. All that money the label spends? It reaches so very few people, only a fraction of whom want to own, and a tiny slice of whom want to see the act live, usually once.

You lamented the decline of artist development at the label? Don’t worry, artist development has come back! It doesn’t pay to jam.

Don’t worry about driving your SoundScan numbers, worry about getting people to listen. It’s not about money, but time. How can you convince someone to burn three or four minutes of their time checking you out. That’s why you’ve got to be really good, because with so many options, both musical and other entertainment varieties, people make decisions very quickly. Good isn’t good enough. Your track has to be GREAT! Otherwise, people will click over to something else, their time is too valuable. Don’t ask for patience, deliver something so appealing that people will be drawn to it, and will tell everybody they know all about it.

And people are looking for great things. And one person can start a conflagration. One unpaid fan will tell everybody how great you are, if you truly are that amazing. They won’t want compensation, they won’t sign up for a street team, they’ll do it because their lives have been enriched.

That’s the game. How can you make the life of the listener better. Not how can you extract dollars from his wallet.

The major labels have been preaching their model, speaking of their woes to an ignorant mainstream media for a decade. All the while, the game was changing, off the radar. The tipping point has been reached. The major labels have lost so much of their power, they’re never going to regain it. It’s about a bond directly between the artist and fan. The fan pays you, not the label, not the bribe-able gatekeeper. Be nice to the fan. Make it easy for him to check you out. Deliver something that will get him through the night. And the day after.

Monday Inspirations—Here are 3 weekly ideas for song lyric, poems, instrumental titles, photos, video, short story or anything they inspire you to create.  Use the title if you like & make something! 

10.  Creepin Decibles
When the volume in your head or outside your head starts getting louder, and louder and louder and pretty soon, you need to turn it off.  OFF.  Silence.  Stop the creepin decibles before they blow my eardrums my mind my future.  Then a little lullaby song starts up ever so softly, and you’ve got more creepin decibles.  

11.  Radical Rampage
Teen angst, pre menstral syndrome, bad boss blues, my baby done me wrong and I’m on a radical rampage song.  You can twist it up positive if you like.  “I’m finally taking a stand for …. against….   This is me and you better listen up bucko!”  I feel a little, radical rampage coming on+++

12.  Our Mary Poppins
You can be our Mary Poppins.  Float on down and lift our spirits.  You can be our Mary Poppins.  Teach us how to fly… Do you have a Mary Poppins?  I do.  She taught me how to dance.   

This in an excerpt pg. -36-37- from an enlightening book by Julia Cameron titled Walking in This World - The Practical Art of Creativity:

     All of us need and require accurate Believing Mirrors.  Believing Mirrors reflect us as large and competent creatively.  They mirror possibility, not improbability.  They ignore “the odds” against us.  These mirrors are held by people large enough and expansive enough spiritually not to threatened by the size and grandeur of another artist shaking out his sizable wings.  When I was twenty-two and a fledgling artist, veteran literary agent Sterling Lord took me on.  The same year, William McPherson, who later won a Pulitzer of his own, hired me to write for him at The Washington Post.  These men saw something, and all artists tell stories like mine of older artists who “mysteriously” gambled on them.

     As artists, we are often grateful and indebted to those who help us know the things we know.  An unhappy violist encounters an older composer who suggest a possible affinity for arranging.  An arranging career sprouts wings.  A singing teacher tells a young pianist, “Don’t sing, play!”  A photo-shop owner tells a farmer’s wife, “You’ve got quite an eye.  I wonder what you could do with a real camera.”  The answer is “Be a phtographer,” and the answer, like the film itself, develops over time when exposed to the right encouragement.

     Sometimes our encouragement bubbles up unexpectedly in the passing interest of a neighbor, an art-supply clerk, an elderly aunt.  Sometimes we come across a magazine article or book, catch a half hour of talk radio in our area of interest, run across a video or an Internet site specializing in our interest.  We also experience a phenomenon that I call “inner support.”  This is an insistent and private inner knowing that tells us we are meant to be, do, or try something - even when there appears to be no outer support.”

A year ago this month we made a MobiFlick with the team of Christopher R. Coppola’s PAH Fest, at Columbia College in Chicago.  The name of our movie is Harry’s Shipwreck and you can view it at www.pahnation.org under Theater - Chicago - MobiFlicks - Harry’s Shipwreck.  It was a very exciting project & we split our first scene doing it.

Because of Chris’s energized digi movement, we are now into High Def videotaping of musical events as well as any big or small subject that catches our attention.  Digitalized autobiographies so we can look back and say “Remember the day…” 

Thanks Chris, for your willingness to share your love of digitalized videography with the world.  You have a kind and generous spirit and it’s an honor to have met you.  Thank goodness our paths crossed up on the 8th floor.  Salute!!!

After sending out this link to Seth’s interview in our Newsletter last week, I came across it again today.  This guy must be saying something important so let’s post it up again.  Enjoy ~ R 

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The relationship with the fan
Category: Music

From a letter of Bob Lefsetz:

Thought you’d enjoy this very recent interview with Seth Godin

http://www.musicmarketing.com/2009/03/seth-godin.html

I don’t remember how I first met Ritch Esra. I’m sure it was in e-mail, but I don’t remember the content of his missive. But I’m sure it was nice. Ritch is always nice, and enthusiastic and insightful. We’ve developed a friendship. We go out to dinner at least once a year with Michael Laskow of TAXI and Ritch forwards me exclusive information on a regular basis. Which is probably why I agreed…

Suddenly, I remember how I met Ritch, he invited me to be on his radio show, broadcast to students. You might not be able to get me to do this today, especially the part about driving to Burbank, but we develop special relationships with people who are there for us in the beginning. My list had a fraction of the number of subscribers it does today. If someone was tracking me down to give me an opportunity to spread my message, I was accepting the offer.

Last year I spoke at Ritch’s class at the Musicians Institute. Because of our history, because of the relationship. Which is why I listened to this Seth Godin interview. I might have skipped it if someone else had posted the link, I certainly wouldn’t have listened to the whole thing. If Seth Godin HIMSELF had told me to listen to the interview, I wouldn’t have. I don’t like promotion from the act itself. Even though I know Seth a bit. I’d say to him “Why are you working me?” Is that our relationship, where you use me to get ahead? My friends don’t market me, don’t hype me, don’t work me. Maybe if Seth had sent a friendly note, explaining why he thought I’d be interested in the interview, I’d check it out. But this is sensitive ground. Especially when someone already has traction. We’ll help the up and coming, if we know them personally. Bottom line, if you’re up and coming and I don’t know you, I owe you nothing. And if you’re working me, you’re violating our friendship, I won’t view you in the same way ever again.

Furthermore, I listened to entire clip because I figured I might run into Ritch and he’d ask me about it, or e-mail me and want to discuss it further. Let’s be clear here, Ritch was not asking me a favor, he made an assessment of who I was, what I was interested in, and sent me a targeted link. He doesn’t do this every day, rarely, in fact. So, based on our friendship, I listened.

Anyway, the first half of this lengthy interview with Seth was ground I was quite familiar with. Then, when speaking about Tribes in the latter half of the conversation, Seth spoke about permission marketing, the relationship with the fan.

How do you build that relationship? How do you get people interested?

By doing something great. Seth unleashed his book, “Unleashing the Ideavirus”, online, for free, a decade ago, and gained fans that way. He didn’t compile an e-mail list and spam people, he focused on the work. And then using the distribution platform of the Web, he allowed people to pull it, for free! To the point where people implored him to print a hard copy, that they could buy, they wanted to own it. Is your music so great that it will draw its own followers? If not, you’re going to have a hard time in the new universe. Listeners have unlimited choice, they don’t care that you’re broke, went to Berklee and have invested a ton in equipment. They’ve got no preexisting relationship. Your calling card must be your music. The number of friends you’ve got on MySpace, your stunting, they might garner passing interest, but a listener might wonder if you’re better at marketing than music. And so many of today’s wannabes are. They’re computer-savvy, they’ve grown up online. But they haven’t practiced their chops in their bedrooms alone, they haven’t spent endless hours in the garage. So, there’s nothing at the core.

And once you’ve got a fan, once they’ve found you, you’ve then got permission to contact them. But here’s why I’m writing this, Seth said your tribe is people who would be DISAPPOINTED if they didn’t hear from you!

Think about that. Kind of like a girl you met at a bar, at a friend’s house. You exchanged phone numbers, e-mail addresses. You sent her a note, a text and…SHE DIDN’T RESPOND?

You wouldn’t shrug your shoulders and not give it another thought. You’d wonder, WHAT HAPPENED? Did she lose her phone? Does she not have computer access? Did she get in a car accident? When you spam me, telling me about your project I’m not interested in, I don’t wonder if your mom has grounded you, if you’ve been in a car accident, I DON’T KNOW YOU AND I DON’T CARE ABOUT YOU! Whereas if a week went by and I didn’t get an e-mail from Ritch Esra, I’d wonder… Did he go out of town? If two weeks went by and there was no e-mail from Ritch, I’d e-mail Laskow, I’d do a little research, DID SOMETHING HAPPEN?

Today’s acts dun you for notice, and then when they’ve made it, they remove themselves. Whereas a relationship must be nurtured, and CONTINUED! Once you’ve got the relationship, you must KEEP IT UP! To make an album every three years is ridiculous. You’ve got to release a track, a demo, a video, SOMETHING for your regular fans. They’re starving, you’ve got to feed them, to keep up the relationship. Believe me, the guy who doesn’t hear from that girl doesn’t think about her every minute of the day THREE YEARS LATER! He’s on to something else.

The old model was limited product pushed down people’s throats.

Today’s model is endless product available to those who want it.

That’s another thing Seth said. You can’t try to reach everybody, only your tribe, only those who are interested. They’ve got enough money to support you. That’s what the overpriced vinyl and books and CD packages are about. Feeding the fan frenzy, not the casual buyer. The true fan will pay ten bucks for the album at iTunes, he doesn’t need to buy “No Line On The Horizon” for $3.99 at Amazon. Those sales are almost meaningless. Not only do they cannibalize those of the fans willing to pay more, the casual buyer enticed at this price is not going to buy an exorbitantly-priced concert ticket. (The casual fan would be better off getting free access…)

Point being, are you growing fans or just another SoundScan statistic? There are not enough album sales for the SoundScan statistic to be truly meaningful. You’ve got to branch out, sell more to the tribe, your fans, who truly care. If you’ve got a fan club it shouldn’t be primarily about getting good seats to the show, but providing more of what fans truly want, communication, product and access.

Your tribe is enough to support you. As long as you have reasonable expectations. A klezmer musician may never reach 100 million people, but can sustain a career and a life, because of the passion of klezmer fans. He can’t complain that he doesn’t fly in a private jet, he must change his direction if he desires to do that. Then again, he might just have a fan who’s that rich and is willing to put his Cessna at the musician’s disposal.

It’s amazing what friends/fans will do. But they won’t do it for everybody.

Don’t collect e-mail addresses, collect FANS! Don’t spam people, don’t give people what they don’t want, it’s hard enough navigating this world of endless media. Instead, hope your music is good enough to infect fans who will spread the word for you. Not because they’re getting a reward, street teams are passe, but because they love your music and they want their friends’ lives enriched.

I know, I know, this is not how the major labels do it, this is not what they taught you in business school, you’re impatient. Well, welcome to the real world. People only need great. You’ve got to be great. And even if you are, you won’t be an overnight success. But people are looking for great, and when they find it, they tell everybody they know.
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Monday Inspirations—Here are 3 weekly ideas for song lyric, poems, instrumental titles, photos, video, short story or anything they inspire you to create.  Use the title if you like & make something! 

7.  Romance Me - Run through the field picking wild daisies.  Come to me with a ribbon and a flower.  Once you kiss my lips, write a love poem.

8.  Don’t Bite My Leg Dawg - Create your own words like - dawg.  Not sure Webster has that one yet and I’m not sure what it means.  I am literally referring to the canine dog when I say this.  My dog Ada came to us about 5 months old and would bite our calves as we walked past her.  I told her “Don’t bite my leg dog,” and liked that as a title referring to this dog and all the dawgs the word dawg refers to.  I’m certain it works both ways. 

9.  Sninny Dip Dippin’ - My husband said he wanted to buy a pool.  I said, “It’s like this.  I’ll swim naked in the pool but won’t lift a finger to keep it clean.  It’s your baby.”  We bought the pool.  I swam naked and he cleaned.  Happy ending.  Ever skinny dip?  While vacationing in Canada we crawled over a fence one night to swim naked in a motel pool.  Happy ending. 

“One of my favorite ways to talk with friends is to walk with them.  I love being engaged with the larger world and with each other.  I love having my thought interrupted by the raven sailing in to land on a stone wall.  I love the slow drift of autumn leaves, of snowflakes, of apple blossoms - each in season.  Walking and talking humanize my life, draw it to an ancient and comforting scale.  We live as we move, a step at a time, and there is something in gentle walking that reminds me of how I must live if I am to savor this life that I have been given.”  

Songs2Share.com Move The Music - Forward

Songwriters Will No Longer Be Paid Like They Used To 

Monday Inspirations—Here are 3 weekly ideas for song lyric, poems, instrumental titles, photos, video, short story or anything they inspire you to create.  Use the title if you like & make something! 

4.  Lose My Equilibrium 
 Ever have an ear infection or tail bone injury?  They both can make you dizzy.  Ever been in love, divorced, widowed, heart broken?  Love can shake you good.  This idea is about anything that gets you off balance.

5.  Bought A Ticket
I bought an imaginary ticket (a decision) that brought me to a place of sexual awakening.  The same ticket has brought intense growth, enotional and some physical pains along with the pleasures.  Funny thing - huh!  I bought another ticket and took a train ride to Chicago to see Dolly Parton - all by myself.  We buy tickets everyday with our decisions.  What tickets have you bought lately?  Write a story with a happy ending!!!

6.  Trees Are Down
Real hard storms bring the trees down.  We’ve all seen them on the news.  I’ve seen them in my yard more than once.  A visual title for a project concerning storms of life.   

A recent study done at Glasgow Caledonian University found that people who were listening to their favourite music felt less pain and could stand pain for a longer period of time. 

Pain researcher Laura Mitchell believes her research can make a difference in how people deal with chronic pain
or deal with painful medical tests. “We want to give clinicians and
health care professionals a means to make it more comfortable for
patients.  To take their minds off the scariness of being in hospital
and the noise and people rushing about that can make you feel worse,”
she said.

Pain researcher Laura Mitchell has measured how people respond to
pain with various forms of distractions, including relaxing music,
listening to humorous audio tapes, doing math puzzles and looking at
art.

“Favourite music has come out consistently, even to an extent that’s
really surprised me in designing these studies, as being extremely
effective in how people can tolerate the pain and in actually reducing
how much pain they feel,” Mitchell said.

Source: technology.sympatico.msn.cbc.ca

Pain management has only recently been given the importance it deserves, Mitchell said.  “It’s something that really, just in the last five years, become really really important.” 

“In Europe now about one in five people suffer from chronic pain and
they have it on average for seven years and two-thirds of them feel
their medication just isn’t enough to really give them the relief that
they need.”
“We were looking to see whether music would have an effect on
people’s tolerance of pain - to how long they could tolerate some kind
of painful stimulus and also whether it would reduce the actual
feeling, their actual pain perception for them and whether it would
reduce the anxiety of human pain and whether it would help them feel a
bit of control over pain they’re going through,” she said.
People reported their ability to distract themselves from pain more
than doubled if they were listening to their favourite music, while
their perception of the amount of pain they felt fell significantly.

Source: technology.sympatico.msn.cbc.ca

She’s been studying art and pain management for eight years, and believes it’s the emotional association of music
that lessens human perception of pain.  “It’s the distraction of music
that you love and you have a relationship with.   And you’re so
emotionally tied to it, you’re so emotionally engaged, that it can
actually take the pain away,” said Mitchell.

Source: http://www.nowpublic.com/health/music-can-take-pain-away-study-finds?import_id=499c53806ee3c9.61527301
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Cousin Lori sent me the October 2008 issue of Energy Times.  It is devoted
to Music & Health with great articles with great musicians.  There is certainly
truth that music lifts the mood.  I’ve met two students studying to be involved
with music therapy.  There is a musical genre called Easy Listening/Healing Music.
Put on some music and - make merry!