Making it in electronic music, despite democratization ....

CvA Comment: :

In today's Changed, correction, Overhauled/flipped out/inside-out/twisted/chaotic Market....music production, creation, selection, has changed. According to this article - music may lose something in translation this time around, perhaps it has already.

In my opinion, music has an energy, a life-force all its own....with that said - if it its moving you, then it is flowing thru you. There is no substitution to quench the fires raging in an Artists spirit, except the very Art that procures him - drives him, makes him, rules him. May the fires driving the creativity and introspection of our DJs/Artists/Musicians never go out.....when it burns .....it burns for a lifetime, and can be felt throughout the span of the universe in waves.

Support your LOCAL Musicians, DJS and Bands, buy their Music, go to their SHOWS....encourage a viable Market - for they create for us as well as through us.

The music it... IS US. ~CvA fin

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Stefan Goldmann is an electronic music artist, DJ and owner of the Macro label. This article, which first ran in Silo magazine, is translated from the German
Postscript:

The following is just an exerpt of a full article that can be found here: http://www.littlewhiteearbuds.com/feature/everything-popular-is-wrong-making-it-in-electronic-music-despite-democratization/

"..., it still takes a huge amount of time and dedication for an artist to develop a standout profile. This raises the issue of financing a career in music. Since the indies mostly lost their capacity to fund musicians, the artist’s required initial investment has become higher again. Usually people argue there will have to be some sort of day job then. As aforementioned, that would be perfectly fine if being occupied all day with something not relevant to music didn’t actively hinder you from devoting yourself to developing your artistic edge. Your mind will be occupied with other stuff instead of exploring the areas of sound where it gets deep. To be able to create stuff that outlasts two weeks, you’ll need to go full time at some point."

"Even after tolerable initial periods of day job-cross-finance, those who succeed are never safe. Since the available funds (those remaining after the Nasdaqs sucked out what they could) get distributed to more and more people, even electronic music’s top and near-top level artists’ income drops rapidly. Periods of sufficient remuneration are followed by periods of economic frustration. Therefore there is a need to have sources of income that are independent from your own music’s direct returns. That is, any income that can be obtained with spending very little time on it — no day jobs allowed unless you are a grossly overpaid consultant for a few hours a month, like I am occasionally. One may consider the pros and cons (there are such) of grants and fellowships, commissions from the industry or institutions, as well as sources of passive income. The latter means that once set up, a scheme generates income without investing further time — interest, the concepts of arbitrage and leverage, or exploiting details of copyright law may serve as rather abstract examples here. How to make them work for you would be a topic of it’s own. Separating income and music in your head can be deeply rewarding. The freedom experienced in creating music to your own criteria first and even “against the market” if necessary is way more elegant than trying to squeeze as much as possible out of music that has to produce your paycheck. That is another factor contributing to an artist’s longevity in the market — having guts and principles. Get your head around it, do your homework and you’ll quickly see solutions that work for you."