…making better bass players with Kris Rodgers A.K.A Dmanlamius
…enhance the opportunities for musicians. At least thats what we thought when it first reared it’s head.
An opportunity for a much larger network. Being able to have your music reach a lot more people.
But has it worked out for you?
It has for me. But it has it’s negatives.
I’ve been weighing it all up. Now, I’m just talking about yourself as a musician here, having your music heard by other, potential fans.
I have a real problem at the moment. My bass lessons are doing well, but I’ve only ever sold two albums, online! But the interesting thing is that i’ve reached hundreds of thousands of people with this music, and all in all, they all like it. The comments on youtube prove that.
But here’s the kick. There are loads and loads of comments within those songs where people metion they love this song, and they have it on their I-pod. I’m thinking, ‘how? I haven’t sold one copy of the song!’ There are loads of these comments…
So I pulled one guy up about it. I wanted to know. I told him I wouldn’t be angry, I just needed to know what was going on, so I could try and stop it a bit, and try and get people to buy songs to support us as independent artists.
Eventually, he came clean. He’s used a bit of software to rip the audio from songs. I know about software like this, and it’s literally just clicking a button, and its there. One click. He said although, like him, people love the songs, i’d be lucky if anyone actually purchased any.
An independent artist with no money?! Have people got no values anymore? Huge artists were kicking off when Napster was allowing people to download their music for free. It all went to court etc, but what chance does the little guy have? People like my music enough to steal it. Doesn’t that seem really odd to you?
It pretty much puts me in a position of stalemate. There are a few opportunities I have, but none I’m really happy with. One, I’ll have to use with the Towers. That being, using snippets of music, rather than whole songs…
/rant over.
Zach
July 12th, 2010 at 10:56 pm
I recomend making you music more available (to purchase) it hadn’t even occured to me that I could buy your music by simply looking on iTunes but I probably would have by now if there were some links or advertisements
Sergio
August 23rd, 2010 at 7:30 pm
I don’ think it’s the fault of the Internet that these problems have arisen, it’s the mentality that has evolved because of the way that data (of any form) has become so easily accessible because of the Internet.
And because of how easy it is, people are used to having what they want within seconds of wanting it. For example, someone can remember a song, but not who it’s by – they know a few words though… Bish, bash, bosh, a few seconds later thanks to the wonders of search engines, they know the life story of the band and what colour their favourite socks were… 10 minutes later they have their back catalogue, and just for 1 song that was mentioned after a few beers while having a few mates round watching the footy.
Thing is, the record industry will now say that food has been taken from the mouths of the artist, but they don’t care. It’s been taken from their pockets, and I’d guess 80%+ of the time, those footy fans will never listen to any of the songs until the next time they get drunk and think of it again.
There are loads of other factors I’m sure, one is that people now value cost vs worth a lot more. I remember buying Terence Trent D’arby’s album on vinyl many moons ago because I liked ‘Wishing Well’ – the rest of the album was so bad I wanted to (and still do) cut his balls off for such atrocious rubbish, and I paid money for that !
Radiohead said they made more money from ‘In Rainbows’ than all of their other albums put together, and they offered thats for what the buyer thought it was worth. Maybe that’s the way forward ? I don’t know, but people also hate the big music companies… Sony will infect your PC with malware that opens it up to all kinds of nasty stuff if you dare play it on your computer, and we were all promised the prices of CDs would drop once the technology matured… but they never did !
Oh, and the fact they’ll flit between license to own, and license to listen to as they please… If I own it on CD, I can rip it to MP3′s (unless you’re Sony, then you get 5 chances, and then they trash your computer…), but if I own it on vinyl, I have to ALSO buy the CD to rip it to MP3…
Personally, I think whoever was behind the idea for iTunes spotted the future. Pay for a track you like, with a discount for the album.
I know this doesn’t help Dman, but as I live on the Internet (both as my job, and my own time), this is how it is. Life online also evolves pretty fast, so you have to keep up or fall way behind. Blimey, my old man knows how to download music FFS… though to be fair, my mum will then make him buy it if he listens to it more than once.
I’ve just listened to your HBM album on Reverb – I love it, and I love what you are doing with Learnbass, but $15 is expensive for a CD. I said on YT I’d post a comment on your funk bassline once I’d had a go. My thumb hurts like a mofo though atm hence why I haven’t. My main knuckle joint is a bit weird and flexi so not sure if it was practising, or if I landed on when I was drunk and don’t remember. But when I’ve had a proper go, I will comment.
And when I get past ‘crap at bass’ and on to some advanced lessons, I will happily pay for your premium stuff. What you’re doing for us noobies is appreciated, by me anyway, and I’m sure I’m not alone.
Cheers & beers, Russ
Kris
August 23rd, 2010 at 7:49 pm
Awesome post, Sergio. I really appreciated it.
I’m glad the lessons are helping! Keep on keeping on, have a destination in your head (say, five years time), and aim at it!
Yea, i agree the price of the downloads is probably a bit much. I’ll drop it down once I get on reverb.
Again, thanks for the input.
Sergio
August 23rd, 2010 at 9:48 pm
We could back slap all night, but TBH, I’m thanking you for what you’re doing for the bass as a beloved instrument of mine. I’ve just picked up my bass for the first time in 20 years (and I was goddamn awful back then, but in my defence, there was no Inet so I didnt even have tabs to practice to, so I just twatted around and annoyed the neighbours).
The first thing I did when I did drag it out the cupboard was, of course, look for free bass lessons online… and I’m here.
Like I said, I don’t think it’s as much economy, but what people expect, and if they don’t find what they want immediately, they will will actually expend more time & effort finding it for free, than they would paying for it. It’s like it becomes a challenge…
Just an observation