Sammy Wrath: October 2011

Today Chris gave a pretty hefty presentation and i must say i really enjhoyed it!. It opened my eyes a little and it really inspired me about my future decisions as a musician and honestly i just enjoyed it so thank you Chris for giving the lecture!

Music in the Freelance World:

Music Industry – New Models

Kevin Kelly (Journalist, weird magazine editor, new thinker)
1000 True Fans
Some artists have discovered this path without calling it that (Wired)
In a nutshell, 1,000 True Fans can be satisfied simply, a creator-musician, photographer, craftsperson, performer, animator, designer video, maker needs to acquire 1000 fans to make a true living
(Magazine called ‘Wired’)
(www.kk.org)

DEFINITION – someone who will purchase anything and everything you produce,
Will drive 200 miles to see you perform
Will but box set of your stuff even though they have the low-res version
Have a Google alert set for your name
They have you sign their copies
They buy the t-shirt, the mug and the hat
They can’t wait till you issue your next work
They are true fans
You need to connect to your True Fans directly
Another way to state this to you, you need to convert a thousand lesser fans into a thousand True Fans
Assume conservatively True Fans will each spend one day’s wages per year in support of what you do
That ‘one-day-wage’ is an average, because your Truest fans will spend a lot more than that
True Fans spends at least $100 per year
If you have 1,000 fans that sums up to $100,000 per year, which minus some modest expenses, is living for most artists.
One thousand is a feasible number
If you added one fan a day, it would take only three years
True fan ship is doable. Pleasing a true fan is pleasurable, and invigorating
Is rewards the artist to remain true, to focus on the unique aspects of their work, the qualities that true fans appreciate
The key challenge is that you have to maintain direct contact with 1,000 True Fan
The key challenge – you have to make direct contact with your 1,000 true fans
They are giving you their support directly
Maybe they come to your house concerts
They are buying DVDs from your website
They order your prints
As much as possible you retain the full amount f their support
You also benefit from direct feedback and the love
The technologies of connection and small-time manufacturing make this circle possible
Bogs and RSS feeds trickle out news
Upcoming appearances of our new works
Website host galleries of your past work, archives of biographical information, and catalogs of paraphernalia
MySpace, face book, twitter and the entire digital domain conspire to make a duplication and dissemination in small quantities fast, cheap and easy
You don’t need a million fans to justify producing something new
A mere one thousand is sufficient
Some circle of diehard fans, which can provide you with a living
Surrounded by concentric circles of Lesser Fans
LF’s will not purchase everything you do, and may not seek out direct contact, but they will but much of what you produce
The processes you develop to feed your true fans will also nurture lesser fans
As you acquire new true fans, you can also add many more lesser fans
If you keep going, you may end up with millions of fans and reach a hit
Who is not interested in having a million fans?

Classroom Exercise 1

In 2007, the year of its release, global revenues in recorded music were $19.4bn.
In 2009, global recorded music revenues dropped to $17bn.

In July Thom Yorke warned apocalyptically of its being “simply a matter of time – months rather than years – before the music business establishment completely folds”. His advice to young bands: “Don’t tie yourself to the sinking ship, because believe me, it’s sinking.”
“More and more managers are having to take more responsibility to put money up front,” Message says. Adam Tudhope, for example, began his career managing the platinum-selling Keane. Two years ago he put £40,000 of his own money into Mumford & Sons, a fast-rising London band now signed to Island Records. “Every band is going to need £20,000-£40,000 for the first two years of their life, and then they’re probably going to need £200,000 for the next stage of their career,” he says. He didn’t want to risk his own money on the £200,000 stage with the Mumford’s: thus the record deal.
In the United Kingdom, where the album also hit the top spot, it sold 208,000 copies in its first week making it the biggest-selling January release in five years. In mid-February 2011, after a performance at the Brit Awards, the album track "Someone Like You" went straight to number 1 on the UK singles chart, while the album 21 also remained at number 1. According to the Official Charts Company, Adele is the first living artist to achieve the feat of two top five hits in both the Official Singles Chart and the Official Albums Chart simultaneously since The Beatles in 1964. It is the first time that one act has held the top two places in the UK albums chart since The Corrs in 1999.

The point of this strategy is to say that you don’t need a hit to survive
You don’t need best – seller Dom
There is a place in the middle where you can at least make a living
That mid-way haven is called 1,000 true fans
It is an alternative destination for an artist to aim for
Young artists starting out in this digitally mediated world have another path other than stardom
A path made possible my technology
Instead of trying to reach the narrow and unlikely peaks of platinum hits they can aim for direct connection with 1,000 true fans
It’s a much saner destination to plan for
You make a living instead of a fortune
You are surrounded not by fad and fashionable infatuation, but by true fans
And you are more likely to arrive there
This formula – one thousand direct true fans – is crafted for one person, the solo artist
What happens in a duet, a quartet or movie crew
Obviously you’ll need more fans
But the additional fans you’ll need are in direct geometric proportion to the increase of your creative group
In other words if you increase your group size by 33%, you need add only 33% more fans
As your true fans connect with each other, they’re more likely to increase their average spending of your works.

Class exercise 2

The standards Project Summer 2011
Bob Brookmeyer
Jazz
In this new project Bob will explore the American songbook through fresh arrangements of eternal standards for the New Art Orchestra in association with BR-KLASSIC and the award winning vocalist Fay Claassen
Receive prominent credit listing on the new Standards LTD Edition CD
An exclusive look into Bob's musical journey as it unfolds with the creation of the recording
Play a major role in the creation of the new music as this new project comes to life
Take an audio journey through the American songbook: a compilation of Bob Brookmeyer's favourite performances of his favourite standards.
Receive a dedicated iPod containing all the videos from the project experience and music chosen specially for you by Bob Brookmeyer
Receive a personalized handwritten letter from the artist
Receive personalized video welcome message from the artist

We were asked to research ''Artist Share'' and what it does for musicians with a strong fanbase and this is what i came across in my research!

ArtistShare is a business model for musicians and other creative artists which allows them to fund their projects outside of the traditional recording industry model. It utilizes a "fan-funding" model to allow the general public to directly finance, watch the creative process of the recording, and in most cases gain access to extra material from an artist. It was founded in 2000 by Brian Camelio, a professional musician/producer in response to the threat of digital piracy and the futility of digital rights management for music. The ArtistShare model ensures that artists are compensated for their work before it is released. It is widely recognized as the first model of its kind for the purpose of funding artistic works through the Internet.

Buisiness Models Are Artists post projects which announce the creation of a new artistic work. The project consists of "Project Experience" which is the documentation of the project and "Participant Offers" which are priced from low to high. "Participants" (fans) buy Participant Offers of various levels in order to finance the project and gain access to the "creative process" behind the scenes. Depending on the level of participation the fan receives anything from credit listing on the CD at the end of the project to an invitation to the recording studio.

Since 2005, ArtistShare fan-funded releases have received a total of 5 Grammy awards, 17 Grammy nominations and one Latin Grammy nomination.

We were then asked to research a band called ''Marillion'' and their involvement with ''Artist Share'' and this is what i came accross in the short time i had!

Marillion are a British rock band, formed in Aylesbury, England in 1979. Their recorded studio output comprises sixteen albums generally regarded in two distinct eras, delineated by the departure of original vocalist & frontman Fish in late 1988, and the subsequent arrival of replacement Steve Hogarth in early 1989.

The core lineup[2] of Steve Rothery (lead guitar, and the sole 'pre-Fish' original member), Pete Trewavas (bass), Mark Kelly (keyboards) and Ian Mosley (drums) has been unchanged since 1984. The band has enjoyed critical[3] and commercial success with a string of UK Top Ten hits spanning their career, an estimated fifteen million total worldwide album sales and even an entry[4] into the Guinness Book of World Records.
Marillion's music has changed stylistically throughout their career. The band themselves stated that each new album tends to represent a reaction to the preceding one, and for this reason their output is difficult to 'pigeonhole'. Their original sound (with Fish on vocals) is best described as guitar and keyboard led progressive rock or "neo-prog", and would be sometimes compared with Gabriel-era Genesis.[5][6]
More recently, their sound has been compared, on successive albums, to that of Radiohead, Massive Attack, Keane, Crowded House, The Blue Nile and Talk Talk, although not consistently comparable sonically with any of these acts. The band themselves in 2007, tongue-in-cheek, described their own output merely as: "Songs about Death and Water since 1979..."
Marillion are widely considered within the industry[7] to have been one of the first mainstream acts to have fully recognised and tapped the potential for commercial musicians to interact with their fans via the Internet circa 1996, and are nowadays often characterised as a rock & roll 'Web Cottage Industry'.[8] The history of the band's use of the internet is described by Michael Lewis in the book Next: The Future Just Happened as an example of how the internet is shifting power away from established elites, such as record producers.
The band are also renowned for having an extremely dedicated following [7] (often self-termed 'Freaks') with some fans regularly travelling significant distances to attend single gigs, driven in large part by the close fan base involvement which the band cultivate via their website, podcasts, biennial conventions[9] and regular fanclub[10] publications.

Some say it has "all the elements of Led Zeppelin orchestrated by Schubert in space", others might describe it as "beautifully crafted and exquisitely performed adult rock" and you wouldn't be far off saying "it's reminiscent of Pink Floyd during their most creative period, without the inflated pig".
Rock
Part of Marillion's new deal for fans involves letting them get their hands dirty, by choosing set lists and even joining the band on stage. Taking this one step further, they're now inviting anyone to have a go at remixing a song from their most recent studio album, Anoraknophobia. For the modest fee of £10 or £60 for all nine, they will send you compiled tracks as WAV files, meaning stereo drums, individual guitar/keyboard/bass tracks, a stereo mix of the vocals with fairy dust sprinkled over, and dry versions of the individual vocal tracks for you to immerse in your own brand of reverb. As far as they're concerned, the more radical you get the better.
An album of the best remixes will be released and the lucky dozen or so remixers will receive £500 (and more importantly, the opportunity to have their own artistically pure, full-blown reworking heard by the world). Of course, if you're just a fan who has no interest in looping, cutting, splicing, and track mashing, but would simply like to play along with the band minus the guitar, bass, vocals, or you want to listen to just the bass on its own, all you have to do is line all the tracks up on your computer at the same start point, press Play, then mute or fade at your leisure.

Marillion are considered with many types of genre but they are closely to rock but the other category’s they fall under range from Progressive rock, neo-progressive rock, art rock, acoustic rock, alternative rock, pop rock. A wide range of musical genre’s.

Sammy Wrath

Tuesday 4 October 2011

Chris's Class Week 2

Chris's Class week 1

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