Low Maintenance Gigging

I once asked a colleague I often work with if they'd be interested in being part of a project I was involved in at the request of another colleague.  My colleague declined stating they were not interested and only really wanted to take low maintenance gigs. This colleague gigs as often as, if not more …

When bands waste time…

I spend so much time reading others' thoughts about the music business that some folks might consider it a waste of time. That's neither what this post is about nor do I think I'm wasting my time doing this kind of reading. Neither is this about all the time not doing music in service of …

Musical Thoughts, Reflections, Questions, and other Ephemera…

As most of you know, I've not been blogging nearly as much as in the past--I go through periods like this. This doesn't mean I haven't been writing/thinking/analyzing things. I was just looking at all the recent drafts I've been working on and decided rather than trying to finish one I'll just post some of …

Pop Music Attrition

One of the long term research projects I've been working on is the attrition rates of local bands. Over the years I've had many discussions with local musicians about how often bands fold, or how a singer-songwriter will drop off the face of the earth, or how a musician decides to go back to school …

On Faux Musical Quality, Popularity, and Relevance

A few weeks ago I read a clickbait piece on mic.com, "How The Music Industry Is Brainwashing You to Like Bad Pop Songs." It linked to a study showing how the emotion centers of the brain light up in fMRIs when familiar tunes were played to the test subjects. This isn't a particularly surprising result.  …

Walking with Dinosaurs

In a recent Telegraph piece by Hannah Furness we're told that Peter Sellars has called for the end of Mass art forms In a speech about the importance of art, Sellars argued the changing world had left consumers wanting a different experience from simple, traditional mass market. Saying opera had an “irrational beauty” which is …

Casino Gigs, Classical Music, and Younger Audiences

Over the years I've had the opportunity to play a number of casino gigs.  These are often some of the best paying gigs for musicians of any stripe and the competition for getting into a roster of acts for them can be pretty fierce. Last night after filling in for Sweeney Todd at CenterStage here …

[Music] entrepreneurship will favor the very few and marginalize the vast majority

The title of this post is from a recent piece (EDIT: 8/5/22 See this archived version with comments that are mentioned in this post) by Andy Lee taking to task some things that Claire Chase (Artistic Director and CEO of the International Contemporary Ensemble) said at a convocation address at Bienen School of Music at …

Superstar Economy (reblog)

Michael Rushton's latest post is about the Superstar economy, something I've occasionally blogged about especially as it relates to the Survivorship Bias. This blurb below recalls some of the things I said in my Savior Demographic post as well as some discussions in the comments section of that post.

When Ticket Revenue Doesn’t Equal Attendance: What’s Opera Doc?

*THANKS TO AARON ANDERSEN FOR POINTING OUT A GLARING ERROR I MADE (see strikethrough texts below and my comment following Aaron's) I was reading a piece about the sharp decline of NASCAR ticket revenue and was intrigued. In NASCAR's three publicly traded companies, all have seen a sharp decline over the years. For example, at …

Jim Carrey, Steve Martin, Classical Music, and why you might not want to follow your passion…

I'm sure most of you have seen the recent Jim Carrey commencement speech (or at least the shortened clickbait version).  If not, here's the short one: Archived Video link https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ajMpfPYlHi4 While it is inspirational and uplifting if we put aside some of the issues of privilege in Carrey's situation which I've been having discussions about …

Covers vs. Originals: Why classical musicians might not want to think like rock bands

In the previous post in this series I mentioned that I would be exploring narrow ideas of “Success” in discussions from some Classical Music Crisis folks. I brought up the phenomenon known as Survivorship Bias and how our models for success can be skewed by survivors while missing possibly more relevant data that can be …

San Diego Opera, again…

In my piece "Opera: 'I'm Not Dead'" post, i mentioned a guest post at Bill Eddins Sticks and Drones guest blog by Viswa Subarraman, conductor and Artistic Director of the Skylight Music Theatre in Milwaukee and his thoughts about the San Diego Opera closing. This is just one several criticisms of the organizations decision to …

Creativity, Craftmanship, and Copying

Michael Rushton's recent post says some wonderful things about the problem of focusing on either Creativity or Quantification. Creativity is a wonderful thing, but successful songwriters, playwrights, poets, video game designers and chefs, know technique – they have to. It is great to encourage children to experiment and explore, to instill a love of creativity. …

Subsidizing Sports or Subsidizing the Arts

This! Fair treatment for writers and artists is an even more difficult matter, which will ultimately require a major change in how we think about support for the arts. Fortunately, however, we already have an excellent model, in our support of athletics. Despite our general preference for capitalism, our support for sports is essentially socialist, …

Decline of Classical Music recordings during the 1930s

So we're told that before the "Classical Music Crisis" that: Classical broadcasting was profitable. So was classical recording. In the 1930s, the leading American record company, RCA, made half its money from classical music. NBC, the parent company of RCA, created an orchestra for Arturo Toscanini to conduct — hyping him as the greatest musician …

Part-Time Musicians are the Historical Norm

In my previous post I questioned just what we mean by being a "full-time musician" and now turn to what seems to be the historical norm--being a part-time musician. In John H. Mueller's "The American Symphony Orchestra: A Social History of Musical Taste" we get some idea of what  "full-time" employment meant for most musicians …

Kaiser on the Royal Opera House Cinema Season

Michael Kaiser's latest blog post discusses the slowly growing trend for streaming to movie theaters as the Royal Opera House moves into that form of broadcast. The Royal Opera House recently announced it would soon begin beaming performances to American movie theaters, mimicking the broadcasts of the Metropolitan Opera. We have also seen several high …