The Music Industry is Dead (here's how musicians survive)
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- Опубліковано 4 тра 2024
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#music #industry #guitar
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Not gonna watch the video or your garbage advertisement.
Everyone knows the entire entertainment industry, movies, music, and television is satanic pedophilia. Based on the title of your video alone we already know.
Well I'm still trying to figure out how you make money out of it. If you have something really good you really do need to get paid for it.
@@tomstulc9143 sell your soul to Satan. That's the only way
"The Music Industry is Dead " . . . . I 've heard this sentence for the past 20 years . . .and the industry is still going.
great video. make more of these documentary style stuff. you have the narrator voice.
The thing about introverts hit me hard. I suck at selling myself.
You are free to expose yourself to things you are not good at
Yeah it sucks, people might say hurtful things or are mean, but if you know what you're bad at, try to get better at it. Do something that requires you to knock on doors or talk to people, consult someone who's good at exactly that. You've got the creative thing down already, nothing wrong with focusing on weaknesses
@@wireless-earbuds-brain-tumorThat’s really good advice. I appreciate it.
On introverts, check ronaldjenkees music here on youtube, especially super old stuff. Perhaps, it will inspire you a bit.
you and me both
@@Reed5016 The difference between sucking at something and being good at something is doing the thing you suck at. A lot.
"Some people feel the rain, others just get wet" - Bob Marley
You could have completely made up attributing that to Marley (I don’t think you did, just internet and all), and I haven’t yet looked it up, but that is a great quote either way. Thanks for that one.
I believe you mean buzz martin the singing logger
@@rww71 I'm sure he wasn't the first to say it, but Its a sentence so serene I couldn't imagine it in another's voice... maybe Bob Ross?
I thought that was bob Dylan.
It seems that the quote is actually by genius singer songwriter Roger Miller, according to the website quoteinvestigator.
There's definitely a discussion to be had about the state of AI and music, I've only heard the insane advances in it in the last few days. Should I make a video on it????
The pace of development is frightening. It won't be long before personalized music is auto-generated on demand for the listener. No royalties need to be paid to pesky musicians.
Yes, I think you should 👍
Yes indeed!
Yes definitely, what's interesting about AI and art is that yes people will be able to make insane music using AI and for some that will be the end goal. However, art/music is partially about the journey. I personally, have only played in front of a live audience very few times, yet I still play guitar almost every day for what? Well, mostly for me. On the other side of that is an audience. Some people will only care about the end result to listen to stuff they want AI or not, yet there's going to be a lot of people that are more interested in the "handmade" music.
Pretty similar to paintings, technically with computers, digital art, fractal generations, printers, and now even AI art, a handmade painting is still more about the journey than the destination for the painter, and people appreciate handmade paintings more as well. There is going to be a market for AI art, but we still have people that appreciate the craft.
Would love to hear your take on it
I still abhor the fact that the industry is still trying its hardest to leech money from the artist. If it was just the streaming platform that would be one thing. I wouldn't mind making little to no money from my own music if it was even near a fair cut for my work.
Hmm, I remember that I saw a chart 20 years back about how many cents an artist makes per full album sale, and where the rest goes. Most of it was marketing.
But on the other hand, marketing is what makes you sell stuff
It's a business. Every business tries to buy their product at the lowest price, obviously. It's inherent to capitalism.
@@thenerktwins duh of course it's a business. These 3 dirtbag record labels are at this point just milking the giant monopoly they have. We have no need for them anymore and they know that. don't even get me started on publishers, yikes.
@@thenerktwinsI'd say corporate oligarchy is a closer description. In a proper free market you don't have a state backed monopoly stopping you from have negotiating power in order to make some kickbacks
Exactly, even though there was majors, the label marked was a lot closer to free market then the streaming platforms.
And as I already mentioned in another comment, the corporate state of mind leaves place almost only to opportunistic people, the composition quality, it is no more important, just do the old recipes that works and you're good to go in an opportunistic views, that's why all sounds the same now.
We even are to a point where the market is drowned by opportunistic artists so that opportunism is not enough to stand out (but it's almost a must to stand out and the quality is no more required at all, it does not makes you standout anymore at all).
I'm really bitter about how it works nowadays.
Gotta love Tim's open-mindedness, observance and nuance. You'd think with the names he worked with he'd be stuck in time or his own head, but not at all.
I grew up during the album era. I learned to play guitar and bass, got pretty good at them, and dreamed of getting signed and making a living as a rockstar. I jammed with a lot of friends and had a great time, but due to the fact that I use a wheelchair and have some mental health issues, there were just too many barriers to properly pursue that dream. A few years ago, I starting learning to sing and in 2022, at the age of 50, I started releasing my own original music. It's very nichey (just vocal and ukulele), I still haven't found much of an audience, and I seriously doubt that music will ever be my job. But the fact that I can record a song at my dining table and have it on multiple platforms, among the music of my heroes, in just a couple of days is honestly satisfying enough. From a purely artistic standpoint, I definitely think it's better today.
Nice video, but it always bugs me hearing youtubers gushing about the freedom we have nowadays. Here are a few points that I believe we should think critically about:
- The online platforms are the new music industry. You can't bypass them, and your success depends on the algorithm and policy changes.
- Being able to upload whatever you want is not freedom, not without a few caveats at least. To make a living, you will have to conform to whatever the internet audience is expecting, and youtube videos are actually more formatted than we give them credit for (topics, length, visuals...). Plus the sheer mass of people competing for attention is a high barrier to get over.
- Survivor's bias: just because _you_ made it doesn't mean anyone can, even if they follow your steps. It's eluding the vast majority of people who gave up along the way, who could have been great artists if they had a structure supporting them.
- Which leads us to hope labor: working hundreds of hours hoping that it will pay off in the long run. It seems we're accepting working hard for free and in isolation for online platforms, with the carrot on a stick keeping us going. Just because it's our choice to invest these hours doesn't make it okay.
I didn't write all this to claim it used to be better, I just think it's important to stay critical and to expect more
Excellent points. And to imagine that this power and glory is pure meritocracy in action compared to the bad old days of the DJ gatekeepers is silly. The in-crowd game of music, 'TV' or YT and money goes on, just differently. Talent can still find a way.. We are fortunate, but the gates to financial success are still there. YT is freer than Spotify for uploading tunes, though.
There are so many flaws and erroneous assumptions in your comment that I can’t even be bothered to address them all.
@@RustyKnorr Please don't hesitate to keep your wisdom to yourself. We're all dying to not hear it, and love the sound of you rolling your all-perceiving eyes.
yeah and if you're a cute kid, algorithm loves that, what about the ugly dudes?
Youre spot on imo, streaming is literaly paying monthly for an access to pirated music on a server
Rick Beato made a good point about how the music industry destroyed its self. Around the time Napster came out labels would focus on 2-3 songs that would be the hit singles and the rest of the album would be shitty filler songs, and than sell the album for $20. No one in their right mind would spend $20 on 2-3 good songs so naturally people turned to Napster. Granted alot of people probably would have used Napster regardless of how many good songs were on the album but still.
Let's not forget the rise of corporate radio. My music pipeline died when Toronto`s CFNY got bought out. Suddenly there was no way to find new music that had not been pushed as a mass market product. Napster was a godsend when it hit the scene.
And the fact that on youtube and even in hollywood no one was lisncing new music only the old or free stuff because the fear of getting law suited into the ground or having to pay stupid amounts of money.
So completely contradicting the point you just made…
Even if an album have 100 hit songs, people would still download it instead of buying. The problem with piracy is that people have no regard for helping artists make music and just selfishly decide that they should be able to own anything they want for free.
The other even bigger problem is that piracy is extremely easy. If it was very difficult to pirate music or other forms of media, people would pay instead. It is much easier and faster to simply download a song illegally versus buy a CD in a store. Streaming and online purchases have mitigated some of this as it is now just as easy to stream music and buy it online, but given how easy it is to steal comparatively to paying, people are tempted to just steal instead.
Rick Beato is a whining old boomer.
@@nyanuwu4209 "Rick Beato is a whining old boomer."
Yeah, what does he know about the music industry? You're the guy with all of the REAL info.
So Lars Ulrich was right.. Napster really did kill the music industry.
Tech killed Media not just the music industry. Only problem is it took culture with it.
@@redwithblackstripes Wouldn't say it took culture..
If you watched the same video I watched, he pointed out, the world is a safer place for indie artists now. More indie artists and less record lables means more singer/songwriter acts and less singer and corporate songs being packaged togather as a product. The world is becoming a better place for Old Taylor Swift and Old Ed Sheeran, and a lesser place for New Taylor Swift and New Ed Sheeran.
Actually makes me wonder if Taylor Swift has just peaked and will finally fade into obscurity. But then, I thought Red was her peak.
@@redwithblackstripes wdym it took culture with it, don't we have concerts and real world stuff?
I’ve been saying it for years.
It's thanks to this system that I could listen and learn from this channel, from Tim's channel and from Beato's channel.
The “industry” has always been a sh*t show. People making art for people is all that has ever mattered. Everything else is gilded product.
Amen! my favorite artist today is Gran for that reason, I'll post a link since I can't spell his last name for shit ua-cam.com/video/qJpGCoZ4dts/v-deo.htmlsi=dOrAqIHzxpw-Xg4q CC is English! Cheers!
This is the only relevant comment on this entire stupid thread. Thank you for showing me there is at least one person who understands.
There are still gatekeepers in streaming music. Think about their "curated" lists, how do you think songs get on those lists? There is so much music being created now the hard part is getting people to hear it. Don't get me wrong, I agree it's better now in terms of artists ability to create music cheaply at home, but the volume of music produced today has skyrocketed which makes the problem of getting it heard difficult.
It's easier to produce music cheaply, but many artists end up creating a cheap product (creativity aside!): Only digital sounds, sampling, modelings, profilings, re-amping, auto tune, you name it
At what point in time was a real instrument recorded (edit: ideally in a fully analog signal chain)?
@@wireless-earbuds-brain-tumor True but I don't think it matters in music in Video game devlopmet absulotly but in music all that matters is, is it good/ people like it... Like you could make a full anlog song littly by geting a sub $100 austic guitar and mic it up and post to youtube with a cheap phone and mic... But making it good is hard and even then it would have to compete with a produced peace using only free downloads on a littlal pato PC. Not saying nonone should I like having one real instrument I played in my stuff but nokone has to make their songs that way.
@@GreenBlueWalkthrough Okay, fair enough. But don't get me wrong, I'm not all about "is it analog".. instead, "is it real" is what I'm trying to get at. For example, when I went to the opera last year, I found myself tearing up a lot. And no I'm not trying to talk down like "I am so cultured", in fact I haven't consumed culture in a long time. But I'm trying to point out the difference between realness and how realness is substituted with digital production tricks etc. so we barely hear real real stuff anymore.
I forgot the rest that I wanted to say
Making music with a computer does not make you a musician, actually playing a musical instrument makes you a musician and NO, a computer is not an instrument.
I don't agree on the creativity aside concerning cheap music, nowadays music that sales has no more creative, so, it's cheap in that regards also.
Oh, and by the way, music reproduction was born analog! 😉
I was a huge music consumer years ago and observed my appetite for music retract over time. It impacted my music playing too because if you don't listen to stuff, you can't get ideas of what to play next and I ended up playing the same 10 tracks in loop, every single day.
At some point I decided I needed better consumption hygiene. I use streaming services as a preview system, similar to going to a music store a few decades ago and you would listen to a few tracks on the headphones present there.
I don't skip tracks anymore, and if I like a couple tracks, I go listen to the whole album.
Because a whole album is usually an hour, it means I have to dedicate time for it. I gave back a spot of my free time to music.
Even if you still use streaming services, just trying to be more selective and choose albums instead of random tracks, and dig the artists a little more once you find an album you like is such an improvement in my opinion.
12:15 "Over the last year I've become a businessman. I used to think an artist had to separate himself from business matters, but now I realise you have more artistic freedom If you also keep an eye on business."
-David Bowie
'Melody Maker' Magazine
28 February 1976
I’m older than you, but I am reminded by your excellent video just how quickly/suddenly things change-things that seemed such a firm part of society itself. The music industry, television, radio, newspapers, and magazines come to mind. Where they still exist, they are niche products now, like oil paintings, sculptures, and etchings. All were as ubiquitous as cell phones and iPads are today.
It will be interesting to see what comes next.
The music industry is not burning down, but the artists. As a tiny piece of information: the big 3 (Sony, Universal, Warner) make more money than at the beginning of 2000.
What is getting lost the art of music being made together, I work as a part-time producer and vocalteacher, and in my area (Frankfurt) most singers tend to be more and more lone wolves.
The days when you had to work with others created a much larger network. Nowadays working on most stuff alone creates an absurd kind of stress and loneliness that comes with working alone.
I think collaboration is an essential key of success, even if a performance on a record isn't perfect by someone else, it can create more attraction towards a release if your collaborator shares the song with other people.
Alone that doesn't happen.
That Artists and Writers barely make their living today is f*ckup and no good thing. Due to loving music so much it's so easy to get pulled over the table instead of sitting there as an equal.
I agree, my favorite artist today is Gran for that reason, I'll post a link since I can't spell his last name for shit ua-cam.com/video/qJpGCoZ4dts/v-deo.htmlsi=dOrAqIHzxpw-Xg4q CC is English! Cheers!
_"the big 3 (Sony, Universal, Warner) make more money than at the beginning of 2000"_ Strictly from the music business branch? Do you have actual sources to back this? My feeling is that they collapsed down to ~2015 and then they recouped a bit, thanks to the streaming revenues. But never ever went they back to pre-2000 revenues.
_"most singers tend to be more and more lone wolves"_ So ironic when you consider we've never been that much connected.
I think you are absolutely correct here. I left my last band in 2020 and was dead nuts set on making an album by myself. I’ve made lots of songs since then, but… no album. Every time I sit down to write or play, I get exhausted of it in about 10 minutes, and all I wanna do is jam. I miss jamming with other people! It’s just not the same without them. My ideas don’t feel as fleshed out without that other brain to flesh them out with. I guess for me it wasn’t as much about what I was playing, but who I was collaborating with.
you literally pulled that "piece of information" outta your ass 😭😭😭😭😭
Your comment is perfect. That`s exactly it. And I also feel that part of the blame lies in a good thing: with so much access to music, the young people wanting to play something around me all want to play something _different_ than one another. Not that it's a bad thing, but it does support the rise of "bedroom producers", as we've been seeing a lot lately. I got tired of looking for people to play with (I still look, but I don't _expect_ to find anyone) and so I'm trying to expand my arsenal and get as many pieces done by myself to show work and competence in hopes of finding those people I can collaborate with.
Even 1 gigabyte screen less MP3 player has more musical and emotional intimacy than Spotify or UA-cam. I miss those days and am glad I went through that era of only having a few songs in rotation and really letting them grow on you
I still use a Zen Vision M mp3 player for a lot of my listening! Every once in a while I'll dig out my minidisc player a bunch of minidiscs and surprise myself with forgotten playlists I cobbled together from tunes recorded off the radio!
bro's out here about to fuck his ipod
Lately i have been going through my mom's old cassette collection and man let me say i have been having way more fun with that listening experience. Especially with mixed tapes that are unlabeled. To quote Forest Gump "It's like a box of chocolates, you never know what you're gonna get" and that reins so true with old tapes and CD's sure spotify playlist's are great and convenient but not even knowing what is about to be next is a whole new level of excitement in music listening, Has really pushed me to be more creative with my own works. So i 10/10 recommend giving it shot. Just might walk away with new retro fav's you never knew existed.
I used to love making mix tapes - as John Cusack alludes to in High Fidelity, it's a labour of love. Sending someone a playlist really isn't the same thing is it? You get a real snapshot of the person who made it in terms of their tastes, and what they're trying to say, if they put any effort in. It's definitely something that'll come back due to the human/emotional connection element of it.
@@garydiamond289 Could not agree more man.
To me it’s still crazy that this is even a thing that people are having to discover for the first time. But that’s just me being old now 😂
@@P.B.R._S._n_C. Nah it's not even discovery for me more just realizing my dude. I was born 91 so this ain't ancient alien tech to me like it is with Gen Z lmao. But i get it my little brother was mind blown at the mere concept of physical music.
@@tommykruesofficial I’m with you now haha I guess I just assumed you were way younger there! I was born in ‘88 so we aren’t far apart. Anyways I get what you mean in a way because my dad let me go through the attic years ago and I found a milk crate full of old records as well as a set of ‘87 AKAI speakers that somehow survived about 20 years of attic life. which started my vinyl hobby. Went and spent like $160 on a receiver with a phono input and the rest is history
What a video. This is easily the best one I've watched on this channel.
My gimmick is that I work alone. A one-man recording studio/music video productions channel. Say what you will about playing with others, but there is always an exception. I floundered until I was forty and finally stopped trying to play with others and bought an interface, and now . . . go look, or don't, but the content I do, speaks for itself.
For me, this is easily one of your three best Videos so far. Excellent!
Even during the cd era and before, music was still free on the radio.
Well. "Free" is relative. Yes, free for the end user to listen to a song but also not free because it is monetized, similar to youtube.
Yep, the five songs on endless rotation were free. I hope you liked em cause that was all you were getting. Bummer about the billions of songs I have access to now.
@@RustyKnorrHe's literally making the same point you are, lol.
TBH, I don't care if I get a following of 5 people, 50 people, or a hundred... I just think it's really cool that I can put in a little investment, make a little studio in my bedroom and record something cool to share even with just a few friends.
I'm immensely grateful that I get the chance to even do this as a hobby, 'cause even in 1990 when I was born that ability just did not exist.
If I ever do decide to push into making myself a brand to make more than 20 bucks a year off what I've created it's going to be because I want to, not because it's required to keep on doing this. That's pretty amazing.
I think one downside to the newer industry model is the loss of "Bands too dysfunctional to succeed in their own"
Appetite For Destruction could never be made under the current system, because a band fueled by heroin and bourbon would struggle to organise the business side of things, and if they could, the album would not have had the firecracker-passion it has.
I went back University and became a lawyer. Music is just a hobby for me now - an outlet.
Producing on Ableton etc became too much screen time so now I play classical guitar and piano.
I also bought an eight course Renaissance lute.
At least my life has structure now!
Like everything internet, there is also the effect it is having on people psychologically. As someone who is on that perfect cusp of having experienced records, cassettes, CDs, digital purchases, and now streaming, my relationship to music has changed vastly in the age of 'everything available and it's all of equal value' (aka your time and your subscription fee)
The death of the album is the greatest tragedy. People don't experience the beauty and art of a full album anymore, they just listen to the popular hits.
Yeah, today you can be your own investor, producer, engineer, bandmate, booker, market analyst, advertising agency, graphic designer, distributor, music video editor/director/producer, accountant.. it's amazing. If you're lucky (after your day job that it's "okay" to have, of course) you might even find some time to make music once in a while. Hell with all this AI hubbub your smart device will pretty much write and perform the songs for you, so you can get back to doing all the other stuff those damned gatekeeping record lables used to keep you from being able to do.
Not like the old days when you had to write a song, then go somewhere to play it for people. What a drag that was.
Yeah, and you don’t have to open your pockets to all those people stealing from you either. Go back to your porch old man, I see some kids crossing your lawn.
I don't know you but I think if we met in person we'd get along. You're absolutely right it's about playing the music first
I like that introverts were mentioned. I'm not just an introvert, I'm mentally ill. It's very difficult for me to go anywhere for any reason. It's difficult for me to deal with people (though, that doesn't mean I don't care about people.)
I was in a band in the late '80s and early '90s and we had performed at our first gig. The guitarist and the drummer were thrilled by the experience and I absolutely hated it. I just wanted to record music.
I hadn't played music in a very, very long time but recently, I've been re-learning guitar, bass and a little keyboards and there are so many more possibilities now.
Okay, so maybe I won't become a famous musician but once I've got things going and can record again, I can put music out into the world and if anyone happens to hear it and like it, that would make me happy.
Keep up the amazing work, Sammy G!
Loved that you talked about that so many things are better today. We need more videos like that. True people talking true things. That's what UA-cam was made for. To bring us together in real life, to share our thoughts in a positive way and maybe share some things that might help other people or make them happy. It's not the industry to blame, it's not the algorithm and it's not the past that "has been better" - it's you making a choice of what you want to consume, what you want to support and what you want to feel. No better or worse, just a "what you make it". There are thousands of amazing artists and true people out here and it's never been so easy to find them and connect with them like you said. It's up to us to take all the opportunities that the presence gives us, to support those true people that provide us with their art and also stay true to ourselves. And most of all to not fall for the high frequency content trap, but to create content that has emotional value and feeds the soul like this video. Much love to all of you from Austria, stay true :)
really great plug for tim pierce's master class. you are so correct about hearing a lead player explain what he was feeling, and
going for for each note of a solo, as opposed to simply watching from afar. Tim should be quite pleased samurai.
Pretty hyped for when "Jazz by Dolphin Noises" does hit the shelves. In a vinyl recording of playback of a vinyl recording.
Evolve or die. The record industry is just part of the greater music industry. They are not equivalents of each other.
Tim is the man. It’s insane to look at his resume and realize how much pop culture he’s actually been a part of. OG.
Man this was exactly what I needed to see, 20 years almost as a musician and about 8 albums worth of fully finished songs and I'm finally ready to get my stuff out there. This definitely motivates me to make some real moves and actually gave me a bit more direction. I had to subscribe. Thanks bro. 👍
Good luck with your albums. Hope you find your audience.
@@Mustafa-ou8qs Thank you for the kind words. I'll be happy even if only a few hundred people find something to like in my lyrics.
Good luck
People were making and playing music long before the industry existed and the existence of things like Soundcloud shows that people will keep making music long after the music industry exists.
Honestly prior to there being an industry for music the accessibility for both playing and hearing it was lower in a lot of ways. That doesn't mean the industry itself has been considerate and ethical, or that a lot of it even cared about the art beyond making a profit, but one outcome of it has been making music much more popular than it ever has been. There's a very long conversation we could have about it but before the modern era a lot of western history showed that art was often limited to the desires of those wealthy enough to be a patron for artists, like nobility or aristocrats or the church. This meant that there was far less variety than there is now.
And you're absolutely right that music obviously existed before the modern music industry, I just think its interesting to give an honest look at what these systems have done for art, despite their sometimes insidious goals. I'm also curious what music sharing will be like as artists outgrow what the industry has to offer
Before the music industry, that means before recording, so, there were only live music that was a business and certainly has been since the beginning of civilization.
Of course depending on when and where you were born, you could more or less live from that.
Thank you for making this video. I graduate college in 2 weeks and am aiming to work in the music industry, likely moving to LA this summer. You and Tim provided vital information that is not talked about enough, and served up many important reminders that people should have when seeking to enter this landscape. I'll be using this video as well as the countless others of yours that I've seen and learned from over the years to guide me. Kudos
Been wondering when we would get someone with a platform talking about this. THANK YOU
I love music, always have, and moved to Hollywood at 24 in 1992 to pursue music and music career. I knew I wasn't talented enough to single-mindedly pursue being "signed" or solely succeed on creating, so got entry level jobs at music studios and interned at record labels and slowly worked my way upward. It was the beginning of the industry shift then, the birth of digital music as a viable alternative or replacement to analogue (and the debates raged daily back then), as well as distribution entering the unknown. I eventually became the lead engineer on one of the first popular internet streaming radio shows, but it collapsed under it own weight of success due to the lack of clear revenue streams for streaming back then. I left the industry altogether after 13 years but those were interesting days. Now I gig in coffee houses in New England. I loved this video and conversation. Mad respect for your and Tim's understanding and perspective. This is a brilliant share.
What a great video. My wife and I are in our sixties. It’s hard to keep up with how much things have changed.
I admire your optimism about things getting better in the music industry but we'll have to fight for it for that to happen.
The Music Industry has two sides, The Majors & The Independents. If you’re a major artist, you work the template in place given to you by your label. If you’re independent - you create & work your own template because you are your own boss.
Yes, the Industry is brutal but most Indie artists get stuck because they don’t create their own path (or they get discouraged and give up).
You gotta fight your way thru by yourself. Money is generated by 1) Events 2) Music Retail and 3) Merchandise
So for me:
1) I use Zoom & Audiomovers to bring the digital experience of MomentHouse into physical venues such as movie theaters (I am the supporting act & the event organizer)
2) I got my start by looping my own music on Spotify for startup capital or for a return on the investment. Now i don’t have to do that given the audience I’ve played for over the course of completing many shows described in #1 (but I still do because Spotify is greedy :)
3) Start with digital goods via PayHip for example and work your way towards getting the shipping of physical merchandise automated (Threadless, Amazon Merch On Demand, etc).
It’s hard work but this wasn’t going to be easy anyway. Best of luck✌️
Very good topic to discuss with, I’ve been thinking about things related to these topics lately.
Thanks!
Wow great video and so honest. I struggle with old vs new school. I have my day job and my night job which is my channel and making music I love. Never could have done that years ago. Thanks again.
in my small city near Toronto,
there's nearly no live music, *a decade ago it was jumping* .
Guitarists just recording alone using programmed drums
has rarely produced much that anybody cares about, not often.
Music is best when people play together, in rooms for people.
Most artists putting music solely online or creating content will not make it.
No ears, no fans.
By the mid 90's we'd already had over 40 years of songs & every third song sounded like a song you'd heard before.
Desperately needed this video ❤
Dang, You get to hang out and pick Tim Pierces brain? All those hits, He could very well have been on every radio station at the same time, day in, day out. What happens at the grammys, does he just go up with everyband, lol. And If one of his songs wins, That means that one of his songs loses. Just give him My info in case he wants to get serious about playin lead guitar
I know I am a bit late to this, but I needed to add my input. I live in a relatively poor family, I cannot afford any real instruments and I have always had a talent for music. I love writing and listening to music and I really wished that I could someday write and play my own music. Back in the day, this wish would have never come true, but I have been born and raised in a digital era, and that possibility to make music is fulfilled by virtual instruments and free software. I believe music is for everybody, no matter their income or living condition, and without virtual instruments I would never been able to make my own music. I am still young (only 17) and I hope that someday I will be able to afford some real instruments and better software, but until then I will be using what I have.
Sammy, thanks for bring up the point that because of gatekeeping, a lot of really talented people never got a chance. I've been a musician in Minneapolis for 45 years and have been in bands with, played shows with and listened to a ton of top notch people who are unknown. It's a shame that they only got to a certain point because of how the business was structured at the time.
I'm celebrating the fact that we got another samurai video 🎉
This is a really good video! I'm someone who is on the verge of making music a full time gig, but sometimes getting songwriting clients can be volatile. I think we all suffer from the negative attitude from having a day job, and not being proud of it. I believe anyone in a similar boat agrees that we sometimes lie to each other about not having another job, because we fear that makes us come off as "not talented enough" to be considered for what we do best. I think it's time that we try to put an end to that self-perceived shame!
Awesome interview! 🔥🎸
Love your content lately keep it up dude!
Appreciate the message of this video
Always to look at both sides. Still dream of the Rockstar on a private jet stardom “What day is it”?
Cheers
What Tim has said is soo true, ("Doing stuff in the evening and on the weekends) but then again on the other hand, sometimes its better to do something that or which is your passion rather than to work an everyday job!
I remember being a kids & knowing a career in music was being in a band, writing, recording, & touring. Now though that's still the dream but it's not the career. The career now imo is you. Your personality, opinions, interests, your ability to teach, to entertain, to sell/be sold, and also be able to make music that is still you. There's no doors for anyone else to open, but you still gotta walk through them.
Reaching out to others is the hardest thing now. When the Algorithms on social medias, segregates your range, doing it in a legal way. 😕 People judges the music from the number of followers you already have, and very few adds on to what you already have if your only focus is music.
Yes, the inter-webs have given us a massive wealth of information at our fingertips. It's better now. You are right. I'm old. I remember scraping together $15 to buy the latest album and only two songs were good. It was super disappointing. Or, you had to spend $10 to buy sheet music to find out how to play a song and it would be in the wrong key or completely wrong. It's so much better now for the consumer.
I see this evolving into musical collectives, where like-minded musicians join together to organize musical projects. Such collectives could also share recording, administrative and marketing functions, freeing musicians to pursue their art. The hard part is profit sharing.
When the record industry embraced ITunes and single track, 99 cent MP3 downloads (including the piecemealing out of album tracks), they killed the album. Revenues began to drop. Then when streaming hit the big time, that wiped out even more revenues than MP3 sales did. The record industry makes 40% less revenue, accounting for inflation, than it made during its peak year in 1999 (the relative loss might even be greater than that with inflation lately). Napster was an issue, but it wasn't the problem. The industry's caving in to the new, 'kill the album' business model was the problem. The introduction of the MP3 sale as the standard could have been worked out differently. But instead, the record industry allowed the piecemealing of tracks, making albums unnecessary, and the number of "albums" today (Album Equivalent Units, 1500 plays) that come anywhere near to the level of a year 2000 top seller like Staind's Break the Cycle in 'sales' make much less money. A million CD sales in 1999 brought in somewhere around $18,000,000. A million AEU's today brings in maybe $5-$6 million. Most "albums" today don't really go anywhere. The upside is anyone can get heard. In theory. In reality, unless you're already known, your music gets lost in the vast, internet static.
Very important video, thank you.
What breaks my heart more than anything is that a great deal of music has lost its HUMANITY.
Everything locked to a flawless tempo grid, software emulations of real instruments, tuned-to-death vocals, endless post production plugins etc. Seriously...you put on an epic record from the 70s like Carole King's Tapestry, and it's a major EXPERIENCE. All the nuances of tempo fluctuations from PERFORMING, all the sharp and flat "imperfections" of her voice, all REAL instruments...all of it. THAT is what we've lost, and continue to lose more of every day.
i actively search recommended music for artists with sub 100k listeners per month. some of my favorites recently are sub 10k and a couple are sub 1k listeners. there is a saturation but I agree it's better for the artist but harder to make a living
If you think about it we were lucky to hear Van Halen considering how many labels turned their nose up at them before Warner signed them. Now we know about several virtuoso musicians through the internet.
I have been struggling with this for the last few years. To make my own music, i have to know software, become my own producer, edit videos, learn where to post, grind content creation
I just want friends to play music with, i want people to meet with and create, and have that naturally spread if it is meant to. It is a false image to think making music has gotten easier in my opinion. unless you dedicate all your time to it, its so hard to do
@samuraiguitarist please make a video on the cheap production equipment you mentioned using in this video. Another idea would be comparable equipment.
Daws allow for much more mistakes to be corrected on the fly.
Often playing is not so much about the skill but rather about repetition:
You have to play something a week+ to play it effortlessly without much thought. And when you can do that you're able to think of other stuff - how to add flavor and interesting moves in your playing.
But it takes a lot of time.
With Daw I have records that I played for just 1 day and they sound great. And now I don't even remember how to play them.
That allows me to speed up the production.
__
On the other hand I know that every time I record I will have to spend time to edit, and procrastination might kick in here.
Tim is my favorite session guitarist (I'm a Rick Springfield fan), so his presence on UA-cam is awesome for me.
There‘s a reason libraries are run by society, having record companies invested in streaming platforms disincentivizes progressing culture. Nothing is better than having loads of people subscribe to your service and never going beyond AC/DC/Abba/
Kanye. Keeps server count low and profits high.
I’m 24 years old. In my opinion, I’m one of the few that got to see the progression of technology in a short amount of time but still felt the impact from both sides of the spectrum. I have a CD collection. I’m making a vinyl collection, i prefer listening to albums over singles and EPs, and i can enjoy listening to songs that are longer than 10 minutes. I have patience with music. 2.5 minutes is not enough time to tell a story (most of the time). You can do it if you’re a good storyteller, but most of those people have faded from existence it seems. People are more interested in a quick dopamine rush than feeling the impact of a story. That’s why more people watch movies instead of reading books nowadays.
Business consultants use the term "disintermediation" to describe what happens when an industry cuts out the middlemen between those who produce (musicians in the case of the music industry) and those who consume (listeners). The irony of disintermediation is it doesn't get rid of gatekeepers and middlemen. It just reorganizes them in ways consumers and producers find most valuable for the moment. In the album era, record companies were the most valuable middlemen. In the streaming era, its streaming services and social media.
Up until recently, high quality music was only something humans could produce. So what happens when those who produce music are competing with musicians that aren't human (e.g., generative AI like Udio and Mubert)? The real test to middle--class musicians' ability to make a living is yet to come.
I know the focus of this video wasn't about playing music live, but that's where it's demonstrably worse than before. From musicians I know in cities all over, I hear the same refrain, local live music scenes are a shadow of what they were before. Young musicians in most cities now don't have the thriving club scenes to be a part of, to sharpen their skills and instincts the way that only tons of live playing can do. Even as a songwriter, there's this profound process that often happens with how your songs can evolve from playing them live a lot. And the few remaining clubs that still have live music pay less than clubs did 25 years ago, or nothing at all.
Of course, everything changes over time and pissing and moaning about it doesn't do any good. But I still hold out the hope that local live music scenes may rise again in the future.
"Musicians had to get it right all at once and that was kind of the beauty of it" - typical viewpoint of the employed who gets paid for working time, not for results.
Except Mendelssohn didn't have to get anything right all at once. He was sitting at a desk, organising black dots on paper which he could cross out and replace at will, adjusting, editing until he was happy the result. That was called "composition" and it yielded the high art of musical creation.
always exicted for a new samurai video!
I agree that things are better now, without question. The last 50 years have not been the norm but the exception. Prior to the explosion of popular music, there was no massive record industry and the vast majority of people who lived off music did so on a really really small scale. Or had second jobs. The idea of becoming a "star" was nonsense. The future set out here is how it was in the past - people make music for fun or friends or on a really small scale for a small audience.
This is better for music consumers and, with the exception of a very small number of musicians, better for musicians too.
Chaos and change are inevitable, embrace it! Michael Storms
As someone who used to work for Roadrunner Records. I can tell you that the music industry isn’t dead. It’s been reformatted. Rather than making money off music sales. It’s through Merchandise and Concerts/VIP packages.
Oh dear God
@@thephoenixhasflown what?
@@TheConcertCruizer nothing much I just realized why there are so many bands not available to purchase
@@TheConcertCruizer no tour no merch no VIP no Revenue
@@thephoenixhasflown it costs A LOT of money to tour. We’re talking easily five to six figures for even the smallest of bare bones tour.
I, for one, would love to hear what jazz by dolphin noises sounds like.
For the past 17 years or so I've been uploading videos on my UA-cam channel. And already after one year I guess I realised it's not going to blow up, and I've always been fine with that.
I guess it's one of the reasons why I kept making videos. The fact that I don't really have an audience to care about makes it a bit easier.
Breaking though as a UA-cam musician has changed quite a bit over the years. To be sucessful today you will most likely have to play covers in unusual ways and be ready to get into the (silly and sometimes stupid) UA-cam title game.
The downside of this is that when it all comes down to it, most of your audience doesn't really care about you or your original music (well, that was probably your idea in the first place and the reason behind why you started uploading covers)
Another downside of using UA-cam to pursue some sort of music career is the UA-cam studio app.
For the past two years I've been focusing on the #shorts format. And to be honest, when you have access to so much data about your viewers it will most likely put you off. Unless you're like me and don't care about making money.
However, I've never really cared about low views. I'd say I'm more concerned about the average view time. While you can't force people to stay and watch your videos it's the value of music, discussed in this video, that comes to mind.
Back when I grew up and went out to buy a vinyl or cd, I would go back home and actually listen to the full album, read the lyrics in the booklets and so on.
The same goes with MTV, music channel on TV.
UA-cam shorts kinda works the same way like when you zap though the TV channels.
Always trying to find something new instead of taking the time to watch the content.
The upside of being a musician today is that you can pretend to be a rockstar because some of your videos went viral.
You also have access to several video and audio tools that makes it possible to cheat and fake stuff. As long as you remember to plug in your instrument your're good to go.
Seriously though. Music shouldn't be about paying bills or a contest about playing the fastest stuff known to mankind (well, that one has been around forever).
However, the important part is to enjoy yourself.
If your're feeling stressed out then it probably means your're trying too hard to satisfy your audience instead of focusing on yourself and the stuff you actually want to create.
Alter Bridge Shinedown breaking Benjamin Killswitch engage sevendust just imagine all those talented people who are playing real instruments singing without auto-tune becoming less famous than people like katy Perry and Taylor swift who run behind auto-tune and use computer instrument it hurts a Lot 💔💔💔 even slash once said in interview i got guitar lesson from Myles Kennedy and also technically he know more than i do
I appreciate you trying to make lemonade. We have to adapt of course.
This lemonade is going to need an awful lot of sugar.
@@thephoenixhasflownsigh. We do what we must.
Thing is, while Napster did disrupt and destabilize the economic model of the music industry, it would built on a house of cards. Since the early 80's the record industry consolidated into just a few gatekeepers and operated as a cartel. They colluded to keep prices of CD's artificially high while delivering an inferior product. CD's had one or two good songs and the rest was just filler. Plus the radio space consolidated into just a few companies, Clear Channel being the largest. The lack of independent stations and small record labels meant that few new and original acts could make it. Napster simply pulled a card or two out and system collapsed. The only things that hasn't changed is the artist getting screwed over by the record label and the presence of gatekeepers. Those gatekeepers are the streaming services themselves with their "curated playlists".
I crave making music, singing and dancing with others. Honestly, the social aspect of music is more important than the quality of the musicianship or production value.
Sammy G youre scaring me. Im 15, almost 16, and really am dedicated at this point to a career in the music industry; but I don't think I will make it. I'm not being boastful or trying to brag when I say I have the skills, but I have played for 11 ish years now and know my way around the guitar. This video is pretty goddamn cool, (love seeing Tim featured on the channel) but it scares me because I dont know if its actually a viable career to want to be a session guitarist or performer of some description. It just seems like at this point you either have to gain a very significant following or you just arent able to support yourself, and then you end up having to work another job which takes time and energy away from music. What do you think about this? Are there still opportunities where you have lots of control over where you end up? Or will it always be who you know and if ya get lucky? By the way I really haven't been specific with the careers I'm looking at, I suppose I am interested in a lot of things; having a band would be cool, but doesnt seem possible, session work, working in tours for other musicians, even content creation.
Just to paraphrase as that is quite a horrible paragraph to read; music is cool. I want a job in the industry. Is there a way to achieve that kind of work, with a liveable income, and consistent work?
Sure, there are fewer distribution barriers today, but fewer customers are buying. I suspect it is still only major label artists making decent money from recordings.
Money from live shows and merch is there as it has always been, but unlike the past, this seems to be the only revenue stream still available.
So, things are like they always were in terms of revenue: get a label deal, and play live.
What if musicians could create their own platforms for streaming their music. Prop up their own servers. Process their own payments. What if there were an open source platform that could aggregate all your favorite artists under one standard format so users could create playlists by weaving multiple artist streams together. An artist collective. Allow users to buy access per month. Then at the end of each month each artist gets paid a slice of the total pie relative to the amount of time people listened to their music.
So much music being produced and still it's so hard finding a REALLY good synthwave song.
Synthwave is basically background videogame music. Hard to have a REALLY good song with that format.
Everything you said here gives the artists more control and makes music a cottage industry. The biggest problem though is promotion, since you're in an ever growing ocean of artists all shouting to get their voices heard. You may need be able to get by with a smaller audience, but building it and promoting yourself is a huge mountain to climb compared to the album era.
I'm curious to see what happens to the generation that only grows up with the instant gratification of addictive, short-form media. How will that influence the next generation artists? What I do see nowadays that I certainly didn't have growing up is that the young generation now have access to and consume so much more music from previous eras and that exposure is wonderful.
I don't want to get paid for my music. I wouldn't object, but really I just want people to listen to it, enjoy it and be excited for what I do next.
6:12 1000 fans who will spend $100 on you, so does that mean you're creating 10 albums a year? If they drop $100 buying 3 shirts, there's only a couple dollars profit per merch item, in which case that $100 would be $15 at best. The 1000x$100 math sounds nice, but you'll be lucky to get each fan to spend $9/year (still have to deduct overhead costs), taking the $100k down to $9k.
I'm not so sure. I think the concept of music...and, has always been around at some level. I'm reminded of a bumper sticker I saw once. It said "Real musicians have day jobs." About being a musician plus an entrepreneur is spot on. Not that many people can do that. I learned that about myself a few years ago to my dismay. But you know...I finally found my niche; and it's teaching. Best job I ever had.
I graduated from a top university, bought a van to sleep in, and drive from Michigan to Los Angeles, to break in the entertainment industry, complete nightmare.This world isn't for the innocent.
The music industry has changed tons since I started on my path. You used to hope for the big record deal in the sky to come whisk you away. Theses days there are other avenues. One thing that's remained consistent though... There's always a corporation doing it's best to shaft artists in order to maximize profits....
12:00 that's something I remember talking about when I was a teenager in about 2005+/-. My friends and I had a discussion about who was the best guitarist and or the greatest ever band and all of us where throwing around the usual subjects but then one of my mates said "probably some guy in small village in Africa or South America or so, who will never meet the right people to get a chance, because of where they are from".
20ish years later and I'm listening to a lot of music from exceptional musicians out of tiny places at the far end of the world, maybe not the greatest musicians of all time, but otherwise exactly the kind of people my mate, all those years ago, used as the example for people with no chance of making it, by default.
So that's a good thing in my book.
Hey Sammy G just wanna say this script was awesome and your presentation was A+
I can tell you from someone who actively seeks out obscure music from the ‘70’s, that there were a lot of artists that should have been bigger than they ever got.
If we leave movey aside for a sec, it's just better to be a musician now just for the sake of it:
- Easier, faster, more quality process;
- Amazing plugins - you don't need a whole lot of gear;
- People are getting much better - you can learn new stuff. I doubt some1 did trumping back in 2000s even.
etc etc
Also de-monopolizing music is good. We don't have the gatekeepers anymore.
Beautiful video!