NEA Receives Funding Increase In House Subcommittee
I want to share with you some good news for the arts amidst the gloom in the news. Last week the National Endowment For The Arts (NEA) received an initial $15 million increase in the House subcommittee for fiscal year 2010. This increase brings the agency’s current budget up from $155 million to $170 million! Woo hoo!
Now before I get too excited I also want to address this to naysayers who feel we’d be better off spending our nations public capital or stimulus money elsewhere.
While core disciplines in math, history, language arts, and science form the antiquated thinking of what education ought to be, the arts and humanities need to be contemplated as more than an appended accessory in academia. It should, for instance, no longer be branded as some afterschool (and therefore an afterthought) rescue activity, along with sports, to safeguard troubled youth.
Rather like any of its sister disciplines, its expressive field provides variety and added context with which the learner can relate; exercising multidimensional viewpoints facilitate the approach towards any given solution. Especially with the youth studies show music is the most expedient subject to which they reach out.
When President Obama stated that education cannot face setbacks and must be sustained to provide future generations any glimmer of hope, I’m sure the arts were included under its umbrella and not as some plugin.
Watch below for a couple examples what the East Wing has done to foster the arts! These featured clips are videos from the first ever White House Poetry Jam! How do they inspire you?
“An Evening Of Music, Poetry & The Spoken Word” The White House (Intro Speech)
“An Evening Of Poetry, Music & The Spoken Word” The White House (Opening Performance)
If ever there was a time in global civilization where economies are contracting, nations are turning towards protectionism, and the hunt for the world’s resources are increasingly vicious, now is the time to open or to invoke from within our creative dexterity to reverse the myopia and inertia; to explore beyond mere aesthetic qualities and expand ethical discourse; to stir archaic or dysfunctional systems into higher states of organization.
Though we may not have yet evolved our educational infrastructure to measure artistic aptitude as well as, let’s say, reading, writing, or arithmetic, we should not allow that to undermine the value of the arts as conduit and transducer of emotional communication. Zero’s and one’s require emotion to even begin the debate that you are human.
Abstract as it may for now seem access to artistic expression enables our connection with the diaspora of cultures sometimes separated by distinctions made from race, geography, and well…mis-education.
Congressman and Chairman Norm Dicks noted that “the endowments are vital for preserving and encouraging America’s arts and cultural heritage.” And as a reminder America is a heritage comprised of global, international ancestries and backgrounds.
Notable witnesses that provided testimonials to call for the significant increase in NEA funding include Artistic Director Of Jazz At Lincoln Center Wynton Marsalis, legendary singer Linda Rondstadt, renowned singer-songwriter Josh Groban, Reinvestment Fund CEO Jeremy Nowak, and Americans For The Arts President and CEO Robert Lynch.
Send letters to your member of Congress and let them know the arts are important and a vital discipline that stands shoulder-to-shoulder with the rest. You can also stand up for the arts by joining the Americans For The Arts Action Fund. Memberships range from free to annually pledged subscription contributions.
Matt Morris Live Versus The Recording
Last Wednesday I had the opportunity to sit in with some UMPG colleagues to listen in a new singer/songwriter by the name of Matt Morris. After playing about five songs, I must say I was blown away. His great storytelling, lyrical depth, vocal control, rhyme, and heavy use of Christian references and imagery all bring to mind what songs should be–relevant over entertainment; character over celebrity.
The first to be signed out of Justin Timberlake’s imprint, Matt is the son of country music star Gary Morris and was part of the cast of The Mickey Mouse Club where he’d met Justin. Per Justin:
“He’s kind of like Ray LaMontagne meets Elton John meets Stevie Wonder meets Rufus Wainwright.”
That pretty much sums up his acoustic set as I sat there watching him lay dominion over vocal chords and complex song structures strummed over his guitar. In a word, he was simply flawless. And never mind that he’s gay, sounds anti-pop and has worked with many top pop acts like Kelly Clarkson, Christina Aguilera, and Reba McEntire.
When I’d sat down to listen to his EP given to me after his performance, I have to say I was dissatisfied. It may be that the recording engineering profession had just laid over to the “standard” of how the pop sound ought to be dubbed. But coming from the backing of someone like Justin, one would think they would have found someone that more suitable for the recording. Or perhaps it just comes down to the individual engineer?
Either way the guy is extremely soulful and his recordings just don’t capture that. Hopefully by the time he releases his album he’ll have his sound straightened out.
Rank And File The Music
I love, love, love technology. The robots provide me hope whereas the humans seem to repeat their mistakes millenium after millenium. This past Monday’s conference at the SanFran MusicTech Summit seems to have displayed what could be the indies’ and underground artists’ best marketing tool to reach never-would-have-been-found audiences.
The speed and accuracy of the “semantic web” as previously mentioned in my recent blog about We Are Hunted, looks also to be used by a company called The Echo Nest and will power the European streaming site Spotify. According to GigaOm observations:
“The form of natural language processing that assigns positive or negative attributes to a statement–can prove useful to a record label, music marketer or consumer brand looking to gauge listeners’ interest or feelings about an artist. A late-afternoon panel suggested that traditional recommendation engines, which have typically been built by editorial experts or used collaborative filtering, can be improved by harvesting relevant data from a massive river of unstructured information, helping to prevent the engines from being gamed by hackers or misled by feedback loops. And while a game-changing company that turns the music industry on its ear may have yet to emerge, the appearance of startups using the Semantic Web points the way toward a smarter industry in the future, one that learns how to read the tea leaves hidden in web data for its benefit.”
Ping It Everywhere
I like most things new, and we’ll be sure to use software like Ping.fm. It supposedly allows you to send a single update to multiple networks simultaneously. Hence for our purposes it’d be cool to get the word out on all our artists and their music all with one click. But what if the web becomes oversaturated with publications in multiple sites but from one source? Isn’t that kind of like an oligopolistic use of media? Hmm, I’ll have to mull over this one but we’ll still have to do what we’ll have to do to achieve some balance.
Will The Web No Longer Be Free?
Who can we blame but ourselves for this music industry collapse? From misfired lawsuits against grandmothers to imprisonment of the creators of The Pirate Bay, I’d prefer to believe we are a people of ideas rather than a people who cave into fear and top-down, market controls.
I can sympathize with those who have held onto traditional business models, uncertain of the potentiality of e-commerce. However futurists who have looked beyond the “long tail” concept (free or not) have recognized an eventual filter would have to be instated to weed out premium content versus the kind not so urbane. This could apply to the big and emerging players like Facebook and YouTube who could install such controls similar to what we do (We handpick our music and choose only what we like.).
What’s interesting though is how desperate we may rely on finance for content creation and mobility. And our economic collapse only magnifies that. The consolidation–mergers and acquisitions–of the majors may be a signal to the oncoming times that people will no longer create content as freely as we once had in the late 90’s and early 2000’s when money and credit was let loose. And creativity would become a lot worse or monotonous until it gets out of that cycle to get any better.
I do wonder what the realities would be? Because there wouldn’t be as much financial incentive to create “free content” like personal blogs, podcasts, and videos would that mean only the majors would have the wherewithal to do what’s best only for their bottom-line?
But if we are to assume that content creativity is the initial layer that ever give business heads the idea to formulate bottom-line commercialization, then more creativity is what we need not less. APRA (the equivalent of our ASCAP/BMI/SESAC in Australia) seems to have the right mindset to bend their business models to the music and not the other way around.
We can dig forever to pinpoint the root of the current music industry crisis and set up sign posts where we can say “shoulda”, “coulda”, and “didn’t” but taxing product manufacturers or slapping a licensing fee on all electronic devices that could aide the transfer of music to and from the Internet would have been one of the better ways to transition into this digital marketplace while encouraging innovative business models and continuing the creation of good music (Read The Future Of The Music Business by Steve Gordon.). APRA has done this, while domestically we have only achieved the enactment of the Audio Home Recording Act. Under this Act, we’ve only able to collect licensing fees on recording equipment purchased and designed specifically for audio transfers for our songwriters. CD-R’s unfortunately got lost in the mix and so did the revenue.
If the web becomes no longer free, due to industry consolidation, that could have mixed meanings depending on who you talk to. To me it just means there are gaping “holes” in content to be filled that the majors would not and the indies could not. Hang on for the ride!
Performance Rights Bill Passes Through Judiciary Committee
Yay! What better day, than on Stevie Wonder’s birthday to hear that the House Judiciary Committee favorably reported the legislation yesterday by a vote of 21-9.
“Today the House Judiciary Committee approved the Performance Rights Act (H.R. 848). The Bill will close a loophole in copyright law that allows music radio stations to earn billions of dollars each year without compensating the artists, musicians and rights holders who bring music to life and listeners’ ears to the radio dial.”
This brings musicians everywhere one step closer to getting them paid for radio play. We all still need to continue our work to implement this change, and we should continue to spread this campaign to increase support of artists all over the country.
Thanks to all who had called into their Members of Congress during the past couple days! Great job! For that go check out our artists who’s “sound” no doubt were influenced by the Wonder Man himself:
Erik Rico
Tortured Soul
Rogiérs
Yolanda Johnson
Sy Smith
Peter Hadar
Carmen Rodgers
Choklate
Jonas
Wayna
Happy 59th Stevie!
Free Music On Facebook
So I might not be the most savvy Facebook member in their user database, but I have to give props to another one of the web 2.0 modes of getting out some good music. It was only recently that I’d noticed one of my friends to have set up an event on the social community site to put out the word on some music he and his buddies are promoting.
Doing some quick research on the site, I must be lagging on the “free music on Facebook train” because it seems like there are groups and events aplenty featuring access to their own free downloads. You’ve got some big corporate-types offering their music–from Starbucks to iTunes. But I’m also noticing a lot of small timers who’ve set up their own pages as well.
I’m not sure where we, at MobileUnderground, stand as far as indie labels/publishers/retailers who may have already or have plans to put out their own promotional music on Facebook, but I’m sure as hell inspired to get on it! Know that our music is already free for the streaming on our site but if any of you have any specific song/artist requests you’d like to download, please post a comment and we’ll work to make them available!
Call To Action Days - May 11 and May 12 - musicFIRST
As the world’s largest music market, don’t you find it odd that the US is the only country in the world that does not pay royalties to recording artists for terrestrial radio airplay? Let’s change that! Go to the musicFIRST website ( www.musicfirstcoalition.org ) to learn how to call up your local Members of Congress.
For over 80 years corporate radio has not paid artists when they play their songs over the air–the same songs that attract millions of listeners and millions of advertising dollars to their stations.
In December 2007, a bill was introduced in Congress which would close this loophole in the copyright and ensure that AM and FM radio fairly compensates artists when their music is played on the radio. Let your member of Congress know that you support a fair performance right on radio.
One phone call to your Member of Congress is all it takes to make a difference in the passage of this performance rights legislation, the Performance Rights Act (HR.848). The process has been streamlined so all the information you need, including direct phone numbers into your Member’s office and talking points, can be found on the musicFIRST website ( www.musicfirstcoalition.org ). See below for step-by-step instructions:
Step 1: On May 11 or May 12 go to www.musicfirstcoalition.org
Step 2: Click on the TAKE ACTION tab located on the homepage
Step 3: Enter your zip code in the box labeled CALL NOW
Step 4: Follow the prompts to locate your Member of Congress
Step 5: The program will provide the appropriate phone number, talking points, and a place for you to leave feedback. It will walk you through calling your Member of Congress.
The Price Is Wrong
Today I’d just thought to jump on the soapbox and share some goodie thoughts on oldie news that iTunes has raised prices on more popular track downloads to $1.29. I, for one, am not in favor of the arbitrary pricing of goods set by their distributors.
Though research statistics have shown that consumers would more likely listen to music they’d purchased against, let’s say, a free CD given away as promo at a concert, the payment attributed to a sale doesn’t address how music is valued financially.
Let me iterate that I am no economics or econometrics expert, but fixed pricing in and of itself,
and in its ideal form should be based on a consumer index of the average price of a product weighed against the wages of a given community. In this scenario, prices could vary per community but fixed in the context of that community’s perceived and reflected monetary value of the good/service after manufacturing, marketing, and distribution costs.
When price itself becomes a marketing tool however, to persuade the market that “x product” costs “x amount” because “you get what you pay for” and is accepted by society at large, this then turns into a culture where snobby elitism is fueled by their suggestions and of its flashy implications; Lord knows we have enough of those hip-hop videos that express our desire for or exaggerate an illusion of opulence and those who have “made it”.
If this is what distributors are perpetuating and what consumers are buying into, then manufacturing, marketing, and distribution costs/prices can take a backseat to whatever price the seller wants to hike it up to based on this belief and/or imagery. This has not always been profitable by producers but is a tool nonetheless, and kicks in a blotchy economic measure (I think it’s called “hedonic regression”.) to appraise a product which deters transparency and accountability in favor of guessing, betting, and assumed (as opposed to real perceived) value to reign.
Now I could go on and compare/contrast this to the likes of movie box offices ticket pricing to high school popularity contests, but the point is that across-the-board hiked pricing for the popular doesn’t necessarily equate to quality and is inequitable–a microcosmic form of gentrification. And perhaps the measure of music quality overall should adjudicate prices while popularity can serve itself by simply having folks purchase or download more of them.
What Could Have Been Cinco De Mayo
Even though the World Health Organization did a good job in keeping media outlets plugged in with information about the swine flu, the CDC (Centers For Disease Control And Prevention) is doing an even better job utilizing Twitter and Google providing real-time updates while monitoring the pestilence. Despite what’s being done to prevent the potential pandemic, I couldn’t help but reflect on how this has affected all the festivities planned here and in Mexico–how all the raucous music and dance events were shut down to a complete halt.
For instance, it would seem eerie to think the streets practically evacuated and human contact confined to webcams and online videos. To keep the music and movement alive, imagine that’s how we’d celebrate Cinco De Mayo! Now I know this is no replacement for Cinco De Mayo but maybe some pictures during my trip to Tijuana, Rosarito, and Ensenada last year may instill some hope: