MUSIC CULTURE AND THE INTERNET

A question for fellow musicians: Have you ever relied on advice from a new type of professional called a music industry/social media consultant?

I have. Several years ago, social media platforms were starting to gain some buzz, while record companies were either going bankrupt or slimming down. I felt I needed someone to help me determine how I could leverage new developments in the industry to my advantage. So, I hired a consultant, a title I’d never heard before in the music industry but one that sounded promising nonetheless. A year and tens of thousands of dollars worth of consulting fees later, my online presence had changed little, and I’d actually offended and even lost relationships with several colleagues due to a few decisions I’d made with the advice of my consultant.

I’d been tricked by a title. Unfortunately, it’s a title that more and more people with very little experience are adopting.

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When I recorded for Rounder Records as a teenager in the ‘70s, for Warner Bros. in the ‘80s, and for Sony Classical in the ‘90s, my “consultants” were the record producers, A&R executives, radio promoters, art department employees, and so on. These were people who had significant experience in the music industry, people who worked hard for years or, in many cases, decades to earn respect from their colleagues. I had my battles with some, but most were responsible for doing some great things in music.

Today, the Web is flooded with purported music industry consultants in social media, with scant experience in the old music industry. They often write well and have a good education. Their web pages look slick. In clean and clear English, they tell us musicians where we went wrong in the old industry, and how we have to change to fully adapt to the new one. But they’re usually people in their late 20s or 30s who lack performing careers, or lack careers in artist management, the record business and in radio as well. They have few, if any, strong connections in the music industry. And perhaps most alarming, with the help of some good writing and good web design, they convey to the public a sense of expertise and professionalism without having had to earn their authority. With this criteria, most anyone can be a consultant or “expert” in the new music industry.

Many of these music industry consultants have chips on their shoulders and don’t hesitate to use their new platforms to tear into artists they don’t work for. They’re perhaps too familiar with the world of YouTube and Spotify, in which music is devalued and consumed freely. They never stocked the shelves of Tower Records or played for the door at a club. They lack any conception of the value in music, since they don’t have experience in the system that best supported musicians, songwriters, publishers, talent developers, and so forth.

It follows that the field of music industry and social media consulting is swirling with negative energy. Music product is devalued, so the people who create that music are devalued as well.

I will point to an unpleasant blog entry by music industry consultant Drew McManus. A couple months ago, he wrote:

"It is frustrating…artists approaching the medium with as much subtlety and finesse as email spam peddling penis enlargement pills…[musician] has unfortunately become the benchmark for social media insincerity…It’s like an unsavory Pacific Rim sweatshop production line churning out impersonal promotional tweets."

This, after receiving eight tweets as a new follower – each with a unique video link or text entry – over a three-week period. Yes, he was writing about me.

I disagree with the point of the criticism, of course. The number of people following me on Facebook (and “talking about this”) as well as Twitter has grown significantly over the last year, both old fans and new fans have been liking what we are putting on the sites. I’ve received overwhelmingly positive feedback about the YouTube videos featured on my YouTube channel (the same ones that were being compared to annoying ads above) and these are shared by fans and retweeted around the world on a daily basis. All in all, I believe the internet has been a good experience for disseminating music. I have always maintained that it is never bad to spread good music around and we can do that with the internet. I was one of the first artists to have a website in the early 90s. I had a web site before my then label Sony Classical had a website! I was also the first artist to offer downloadable sheet music over a dozen years ago.

Negative and verbal attacks by some on the new social forums and blogs though is concerning for several reasons. It is the egotism in, and the destructive nature of, the criticism itself. For instance being compared to “an unsavory Pacific Rim sweatshop production line churning out impersonal promotional tweets”? This is utterly disrespectful and demeaning. As a person who wears many hats in the music scene, from directing camps to making recordings to authoring a string method, there is a lot of stuff I am responsible for getting the word out. Keep in mind that McManus is a “consultant.” His job description is to help musicians, not to damage their relationships with fans and employers.

I see this kind of negative commentary escalating in the new music/social media sphere, and it’s frightening to think that great musicians should not be allowed to have their own voice, and reach out to their fans in their own unique ways like they have always done, with the fear of hate language being thrown at them. Musicians must reach out and continue to find their fans without getting shouted off the page by antagonists. We need intelligent, experienced musicians and music professionals developing new business models for the music industry on the internet today.

There is perhaps no stronger bond in the music industry as there is between a musical artist and his/her fans. I want our best musicians to have more of a voice in social networking as words/text/status updates/tweets become a significant part of a musician’s presence in the new music industry. Perhaps great musicians can lead by talking about their music, their projects, their goals in music and what drives them to succeed, and can attempt to drown out some of the noise and senselessness that is permeating the music comment boxes and forum posts these days.

Great musicians led the music industry for the last 100 years as artists, writers, producers and record label heads, and so it must happen again on the internet for their to be a viable music industry going forward that supports fine music. Musician’s voices must be heard through the noise, so they can begin to steer the culture back to valuing music materials and great musicianship, otherwise it is a kind of musical anarchy – what is up is down, and what is left is right. The above blog quote is a good example of this musical anarchy. In all of my years, I have never seen that kind of reckless verbiage contained in a bad music review from the old-fashioned newspaper writer. The bottom line is that there are hardly no record stores left, and musicians must use social networking to reach their fans with their music in their individual ways.

While major media and social networking attempts to take over the music industry, I would hope that great musicians can continue to direct the musical culture and not have it hijacked and thrown under the bus. With a steep decline in record sales and with digital sales not making up the difference, is there a way to sustain the music industry on the internet given the current environment? The music industry for the last century has been largely about the music itself. Consumers purchased a turntable player in order to play a record album, or a cassette payer to play a tape. Now it has flipped somewhat. Today companies use music as a way to entice people to purchase their latest gadgets, or to subscribe to an online company. In this process music becomes more disposable, and therefore it is seen with less and less value.

The fact that the internet culture has placed less value on the whole album as a piece of art in order to make individual tracks available, is a part of this new environment. I view the long-play album or CD as the modern day masterpiece or masterwork and I believe that most artists felt similarly. The model of making every tune a single has not compensated the musicians, has not made up for the lack of album sales, and it has driven the art of music recordings back decades. To the point where I am not at all sure we will be seeing too many full-length albums by young artists in the future. We used to labor over what should be the single or 2nd single to be sold separately. Now it is the let's toss everything out there strategy and hope for the best. My last album 'An Appalachian Christmas' was not available for iTunes because I could not make available a couple of the leased tracks to be sold individually from other labels. So therefore, the entire album was disqualified from being sold on iTunes - no way around it! Luckily the sales from Amazon and B&N were big enough that it still made five Billboard charts! But not having the top distributor of music today on board of course was not good for the music and the musician. All good questions for our time in music.

I welcome your thoughts and questions!

-Mark O'Connor

THE VIOLIN IS SO COOL, IT HAS TWO NAMES

Welcome! It’s about time I ventured into the blogosphere with my first blog!

I’d like to focus my inaugural entry on a subject I know a little something about: the fiddle/violin dichotomy. As most of you hopefully know, the violin is a single instrument with two names. “Violin” is derived from “viol” (an older stringed instrument), which itself is derived from “vitula,” a Middle Latin word that is believed to have yielded the name “fiddle.” Those who are well-informed often use the two names to describe different styles of music performed on the same instrument. Unfortunately, however, many people mistakenly believe that the fiddle and violin are two separate instruments.

It’s not surprising that some people would be confused about this, but there are two intriguing aspects of this confusion that make the whole issue…well, even more confusing.

First, there isn’t just one physical “difference” people point to – there are many. One has different strings than the other. One has a flatter bridge. You wear a shoulder rest on one but not the other. One is amplified, while the other isn’t. One is dirtier. One is cheaper. One is carried in a sack (!). The list goes on. During my 40-year performing career, I’ve been approached by thousands of people with a hilariously wide range of explanations for the “difference” between the fiddle and the violin.

Second, and perhaps more troubling, many people seem emotionally invested in the fiddle/violin dichotomy. More specifically, people seem disappointed that there is no difference. People often speak of one or the other as a “lesser” instrument. “Violin” fans associate the fiddle with the lower class, with bars and clubs, with a lack of refinement or talent. “Fiddle” fans associate the violin with elitism, with the 1%, with a sense of rigidity and a lack of musical and/or improvisational creativity.

So, for many people, the fiddle/violin dichotomy is about differences in class (and, to some degree, race, but that’s for another blog entry) and the different types of music people of different “classes” play. These perceived class differences reinforce the notion that the fiddle and violin should be different instruments, for why would the same instrument be used by both the upper and lower classes? (Certainly, in this case, the lower class is not seeking to imitate the upper class.) Thus, people invent physical distinctions between the two.

And some of the invented distinctions reflect a focus on class. Which one do you think is supposedly dirtier, cheaper, and carried in a sack: the fiddle or the violin?

Let’s face it: we’re essentially talking about the age-old classical music (i.e., “art music”) vs. folk music debate. As I have said for decades, I believe that music transcends what people perceive to be class boundaries. Both classical music and folk music – or what some would call violin music and fiddle music – are incredibly rich, engaging, challenging, and inspiring.

Rather than emphasize the differences between these “classes” of music, I believe we should recognize the similarities between them, and we should incorporate both into our string pedagogy as well as our iPod playlists.

If nothing else, such a development would reduce the amount of time I have to spend explaining to people that, yes, you can technically carry either the violin OR the fiddle in a sack…

- Mark O'Connor