The Music Industry is Dead (here's how musicians survive)

What you're hearing now is one of the most significant pieces of recorded

music

, even though most people have never heard it. In 1948, Columbia Records first made one of these 12-inch long-playing vinyl records and on this first edition was what We are listening to right now Mendelson's conero and emirate violin and with that the

music

industry

entered what We call it the album era, more than half a century defined by the purchase of first vinyl, then cassettes, then CDs, but I remember the day the album

industry

practically died. It was the summer of 1999, one of my friends told me: Hey, you have to check out this new Napster program w

here

you can get any music you want completely free and I didn't know that I and millions of other people downloaded a terrible quality MP3 labeled My -Limp Biscuit. would lead to the collapse of this monolithic Beast known as the music business, the music industry as we knew is

dead

and ultimately that is a good thing, let me ask you a question: what did my Jackson Bon have in common Joy and Miley Cyrus?

The music is among the vast ocean of music that legendary session guitarist Tim Pierce has played and unlike many of his peers, Tim Pierce has found a way to thrive in this new musical landscape we find ourselves in today, So who better to talk to about it? death of the old and birth of the new t

here

were no computers so everything was analog so the

musicians

had to play together and do it well at the same time and that was the beautiful thing about it, I mean, the new way is great, uh, en It's great to be able to work on a digital workstation and get everything done.

Yeah, I think one of the things now is that you have to make an effort to be in the room with someone. I think a lot of times if you're working on something there's no face to face interaction and that has its benefits but it also has its drawbacks and this is something interesting that I'm not sure I really thought about before face to face interaction is something so deeply intertwined with music in its Primal Core Music is a community driven art that is meant to be danced together, performed together, enjoyed together, it sure is cool to be able to record a full song in my basement here and release it tomorrow, but altering that DNA certainly has an impact, I mean.

Look no further than the fact that I no longer need to hire anyone else to complete something and that completely disrupts economics. There was so much money in the system and the record companies were spending the money they made on their big artists and putting it back to all these other artists, the last form of music you really had to pay for was the CD, it quickly became free or almost free, if we're talking about things that changed drastically, the end of people buying music, yeah, it took all the Basically, there are jobs away, so it's easy to say you know there's great things today, great things in the other was, but that's really the storm cloud hanging over the new.

The composer was paid much better. Check out this chart I found online. You can see that for a long time people were buying vinyl, Cass CDs, even digital downloads, however you can see that in 2005 the first streaming service emerges and then in 2023 the vast majority of music is consumed through streaming service and as a guy whose income is deeply tied to a streaming service, I can tell you that trying to pay your bills solely through the income that streaming provides is nearly impossible, however, there is a creativity that is born from necessity and with that comes new things so let's say you're an introvert and if you were talented there were other people who could make it for you today you have to do it yourself so it's a different type of person who really makes it today in day, in some ways, anyone who's doing that isn't just a musician, I think before.

You could just be a guitarist and have a modest life and be successful now it's music and I tell everyone that it's okay to make music and something else, it really is and if that means you work a job where you can only make music in nights and weekends that's fine that's how it has to move forward if it means you can make it without signing that record deal that's not fair that's a good thing and isn't that just a story as old as time itself? Artists get screwed by the record company and the advice you'll get so often now is don't sign that record deal because for many of us you're just handing over a slice of the pie and getting nothing in return that you couldn't.

Do it on your own and in this modern era the power of technology has freed artists from the need for a record label to create their art and you should chalk it up as a big win, however when you used to have this big machine yeah created A lot of work for a certain type of musician in the past, each day of work led to a bigger career, like if you played a Michael Jackson song that I mentioned to a couple of people and it starts to drag on until you're done. Get credits that people talk about and that get you more work today.

The good thing is that there are so many systems in place where you can do it on your own. Yes, I would agree with the control you can have. I call it permission. Nobody gives me permission. to make money or do my art and in the past you had to get permission because a studio was too expensive, someone had to fund it, you know, you had to get permission or someone had to call you and invite you in and pay you to do it. the work, yeah, and you know, what I find most interesting nowadays is the fact that if you do something that's really good, there's a way to find your audience, just you for them in the album era, Everyone had a boss whom they had to direct. things before they put their thing into the world the artist you're working for the producer the record label the executive at one time you had someone you answered to, whereas now there's the opportunity to have complete control of your ship , which can be scary, but it can also be cool, and in the old days, if you had a record deal and you sold 100,000 copies, you might get kicked out, but nowadays, if you have 100,000 people buying your art or your product, you're You're doing exceptionally well because you don't have the overhead, you don't have the system that you have to feed.

There's this book called One Thousand True Fans and it's a relatively new concept if you can build an audience of a thousand people who If you're willing to spend $100 on what you do annually then you can build yourself a pretty decent life and when I started in everything This YouTube path, that was my business plan and having achieved that goal, I will tell you that it is difficult to do it. but it is possible, it is no longer necessary to make big numbers and earn huge amounts of money because there are not many hands reaching into the pot of gold and this book is worth reading; right now it's like $4 for the Kindle version if you want to read it, I'll put a link in the description and I should point out that one of the main reasons Tim has been so successful in the second half of his career is because he imparts an incredible masterclass on their website and The first 50 of you to use my link in the description will get over 30% off an annual subscription.

Here's what Tim has to say about it. What I've tried to do is create sort of a giant collection of videos and tutorials so you can actually. I can't find where it ends. I think I have over 1,800 videos and 150 hours of you know, lessons and content. Yes, it's amazing. I spent some time reviewing it, so a few months ago I joined the masterclass because I saw this video where he. He was playing some crazy blues and I thought I needed to learn from him in episode 131. The modern blues lead rhythm was perfect for what I was looking for.

Learning a lick of a song is one thing, but having the guy who played it explain it to you. He explains what he was thinking, what he felt, why he took those notes, where it came from, it gives you a deeper understanding. Tim's personality really comes through in these lessons, it is clearly a passion of his and there is so much there that there is something for everyone. so be one of the first 50 to use my link in the description and get over 30% off anyway, back to that now, we have to talk about the endless scrolling that is real Tik Tok Instagram short form content YouTube shorts I've posted I've consumed a lot I'm as guilty as anyone.

You have to remember that this sort of thing is pretty new and I don't think we fully understand the impact this has on the way we enjoy other things. It's addictive and it takes you away from a lot of the best things in life, which are things that happen very slowly and you work for it and it's an acquired taste and yes, yes, yes, like learning to play an instrument, learning to cook, having a relationship watching a movie these are all things that take time. I'll give you a perfect example of this. I remember when I was 14 we were at my grandparents' house and my dad brought out a record player, set it up, and then played it. this same album here and I remember listening to Stairway to Heaven and I think it was that moment that really solidified my path in this musician's journey.

Here was this beautiful elongated song that became the most rewarding musical climax I had ever heard and I'm not sure I would have had that moment if consuming short content was a regular part of my life back then, when you had all the songs recorded in front of you. to you if you didn't like them in the first 15 seconds. You moved on to the next thing and I think that has a huge underlying impact on a lot of the music industry. There's too much stuff and it's too easy to access, so sometimes it's worth less in your mind.

Music was valuable because there was nothing. competing with MH and it was this relatively new art form that was still really growing and expanding and all these new things were happening and maybe it was never intended to continually expand, maybe it was meant to stabilize at a certain point, well it's like anything, it's a really complicated topic and there are a lot of gray areas here. Turning it over, I can say that it is really amazing that we can listen to any music. I can go and find bands that are making music in this strange, specific style and since I can access it. anything, I can go find them and they may have a following that they would never have been able to develop before and I think that's why it's great to have this conversation with you because you've seen both and you've had success in both of you know I keep coming back to what's best today. if you didn't fit into that system or maybe you couldn't talk the right way, didn't look the right way or were somehow too quirky to fit in with everyone.

Otherwise, today you can do it on your own. What you just heard is the result of a little experiment. I wanted to see how cheaply I could record something and still sound somewhat decent and the price of owning everything I used in the recording. It's under $500. I made it in less than an hour and you'll hear it a couple days later. Think about what it would have cost me to show you that piece of music in the 7s. The home studio didn't exist. So I'm going to need to go to a professional place that won't be cheap.

I'll probably need a record label to finance it. I'm going to need a record deal and there's a lot of legislation to make that happen. and that's just recording, forget about people listening to the music. There were two radio consultants who controlled all the rock radio airplay in the country and you had to pay those people to play your record and they actually had a stake. in bands where they made money managing some of the bands, so they favored certain bands and certain styles of music that are like mafia things, things that can't be helped, you forget how to have Gatekeepers and have this system closed. it creates a lot of injustice and I think an interesting note is that there were probably many who could have been great but they could never avoid that no matter what they did, and I think they had everything it took to be successful.

If you have those things now you can do something with them while we talk about this. I would say today is better, it's just harder to make a living in the medium and you know what I think maybe exists now that didn't exist before, now there are creative ways to solve that problem and today, frankly, you have to be an artist. and an entrepreneur, you have to be driven in all areas before you can be a piece of the puzzle now. the puzzle doesn't exist, make your own puzzle, some people will thrive in one of those, some will thrive in the other, so in conclusion, I think we are better off with what we have now than what we used to have, even if this new thing It is still far from perfect.

We have the ability to share our music instantly. We have the ability to directly support the artists we love. We have the ability to create freely and we also have this enormous amount of information at our fingertips. There will be some casualties, there will be some people for whom this will not work as well.okay, but you have to remember that this new thing is, in fact, new, we are still feeling the growing pains and I like to be optimistic and imagine that eventually what we will achieve. what we have now will be better for all of us than what we had before, ladies and gentlemen, there you have it, remember the first 50 of you to use the link in the description for Tim's masterclass will get over 30% off again.

Can't. I recommend it highly enough, it's a great resource for guitarists of all levels and I'll also let you know if you like any of the products I've used forever. All the old stuff is coming out of the merch store, if you want to get the Transformer guitar that plays a samurai or whatever else we have there, now is the time to get it, let's take everything out and make room for a whole. There's a lot of new stuff there for you to check out at Shops samai guitarist.com. I also have links for that in the description.

Thank you all for watching and thank you all for getting involved in my journey and the new musical landscape that I really could. I can not do this. I couldn't make these videos without you, so until next time take care of yourselves, take care of each other, take care of the planet. I'm the samurai guitarist and I'll see you soon.