The Smiley Smile Message Board

Back in the 90's I knew a lot of musicians. Some made a living working as session musicians and playing in clubs; a few were successful enough to sign with major labels and record albums and tour with good profits. Most gave up after a few years and pursued other jobs. I haven't known anyone trying to make it in music since the internet took over the world.
In another thread, adamghost said this:

To all the musicians, tell me more...
Are you working? Are you recording your own stuff and self-distributing? Do you have any hope of making a living or is it a labor of love?
Do you play in local clubs? In US and West European cities, has the local live music market changed significantly in the last few decades?
Are major labels even relevant?
Because of digitization, is there a much smaller demand for skilled session musicians?
What are all the new Berklee graduates doing? What can they hope to do? What can they expect to do?
Have the classical and jazz markets changed significantly?
And what does adamghost mean when s/he refers to "any bar in Southeast Asia?"
Inquiring minds want to know.

More questions:
Is your music on hosted streaming services with monthly user fees/advertising, or is it self-hosted or on upload sites like soundcloud?
How does one get one's music on a hosted service? And what's the pay structure like?
Do you pay out-of-pocket for all production costs? Without a label, does one rely solely on social media for promotion?

I'm not asking anyone to sit and answer all these questions, but if you can contribute any information that answers any, I'd appreciate it.

Hi Emily...I actually have a session coming up but I'll try to get the ball rolling here, though my answers will probably not be typical.

To all the musicians, tell me more...
Are you working?

I'm making a healthy living, in fact the best I ever have done, but my situation isn't typical and to some extent benefits from others' misfortune, in that I'm self-contained and I can do what would have taken four or five people to do.  

Are you recording your own stuff and self-distributing? Do you have any hope of making a living or is it a labor of love?

I have my own label and can record and distribute whatever and whenever I want, and I can even make records and tour profitably (barely), but my motivation to do my own music is limited because it is, by leagues, the most stressful and least lucrative thing I could be doing.  I will probably put out an album in 2016 but I don't seem to ever get 'round to starting it and I wonder if there will be enough sales to ever justify making another one.

Do you play in local clubs? In US and West European cities, has the local live music market changed significantly in the last few decades?

I played fewer than 20 gigs in 2015, the least I have done since, I think, 1991.  Prior to that, I did two major (in terms of ground cover) tours in 2014 and in 2013.  I had been touring off and on since 1995.  In general, interest in live music is less, respect for musicians (which translates into attention and enjoyment of gigs) has diminished, and the number of venues one can play at has shrunk.  CD sales have plummeted although interestingly this happened much later than I would have expected, within the last couple of years.  It is somewhat better in Europe than here, however.  Though this is subjective, the quality of the bands overall has dropped quite a bit as well (though there were always plenty of bad ones, of course...just not as many good ones).

Are major labels even relevant?

They are in the sense that only a major player can scratch together enough of an audience to have a large-scale success, but that world is largely inaccessible in a way that it wasn't before (even though it was always difficult to get signed to a deal), so I would say no.

Because of digitization, is there a much smaller demand for skilled session musicians?

Yes, although I find a lot of the reason personally I work a lot is there is an entire skill set that's been lost in terms of how records used to be made - not just the playing but the recording end of it.  So there's not just a loss of musicianship but with a recording system that is, to some extent, automated (e.g. some facsimile of the sounds are easily available with plug-ins or some other short cut, so you don't necessarily have to play the instrument or dial in the sound, or possess "deep" skills like arranging or playing an instrument to call oneself a producer), there's a whole level of detail and thought that's less and less a part of the recording process.  Also, since records are mostly layered from the ground up now, the skills of ensemble playing are not called on much anymore, and that's a useful thing to know even if you are overdubbing (i.e. having a sense of making something sound "like a band").  

What are all the new Berklee graduates doing? What can they hope to do? What can they expect to do?

I have no idea.  Teach?  I don't know how employable those cats ever were in the first place, but that's a rock bias showing.

Have the classical and jazz markets changed significantly?

I can't speak to that.

And what does adamghost mean when s/he refers to "any bar in Southeast Asia?"

Well, I have spent a lot of time in Bali and the Philippines in the last few years and I've noted that most of the musicians in any given club exhibit a level of skill that I would have associated with seeing any given band in any given club in the U.S. 20 years ago.  I'm speaking of cover bands, mostly, but I've also seem some gobsmackingly good original bands playing in train stations in Japan.  Where I think the difference lies is simply that in those places there is still a point to making the effort - which has always been a quixotic one - of getting a really good band together and playing out.  I think in the U.S. there's a sense that there's no one who's going to listen anyway and there's no money in it, so a lot of the really skilled musicians who might dedicate themselves find something else to do.  People who might be dilettante-ish or more overtly attention-driven are going to tend to dominate in that situation just by default.

BTW, I'm not saying there is no good music being made out there and no good musicians.  But I would say the system is broken in a lot of different ways that reinforce each other.  There used to be an infrastructure by which a band could conceivably make it big, and a lesser one by which a smaller band could have a fulfilling little career building a fan base and making music on a small scale.  This has to a large degree broken down.  There are still remnants but people who still ply their trade will have to play more often to fewer and less appreciative audiences for less money for a longer time, which affects morale which in turn translates to less excitement and "buzz" which is part of what attracts audiences to see a live band in the first place.

There are so many factors.  Downloading is just one of them.  Peoples' relationship to music has fundamentally changed from something that Carl Wilson once called being "a people connector" to something that is by and large an individual experience, and lessening the communal nature of music drastically shrinks its impact, which translates into fewer people bonding over music and bands and going to shows to be part of a social circle.  That excitement is also what has historically drawn a lot of people to be musicians.  

To draw a fairly stark dumbed down contrast to explain what I'm saying - imagine the stereotypical scene (like in a commercial) where a guy is up onstage wailing away to a throng of screaming fans.  That did happen from time to time, in real life, and occasionally still does.  Now imagine a self-involved semi-pro player up there with a limited sense of how to connect his music to the audience, and then imagine a disinterested audience playing with their phones, yelling requests in the middle of a song, talking, etc.  That is much more typical of what a gig is like now.  There were always gigs like that in the old days, too but there wasn't the sense that it was the acceptable norm.  Any given person in the audience can go to a karaoke machine or play with an M-Box and be a star themselves; they don't need to listen nor necessarily distinguish between themselves and the guy onstage. Conversely, the guy onstage hasn't had the opportunity to spend years honing their skills and learning how to go beyond their own ego needs to make the performance transformative for the audience.  There are parallels in the recording process too but I've rattled on long enough.

I need to stress:  I, personally, am doing fine.  I'm not bitching about my lack of success with this or that; 2015 financially was the best year I've ever had as a musician.  But I don't believe I'm in any way typical...it is a bummer because you used to feel like you were part of this big, amazing, vibrant party.  That's what playing rock 'n' roll used to be like.

I've made so little money from downloading vs. CDs (even at this late date) that most of my music isn't online.  At some point I will get around to it but I've been convinced from the beginning that it's a ripoff and that conviction has only grown, so I don't want to do it until I know the angles.

As for streaming and such, I get a check at the end of the year for around $20.  I'm not even clear on what it's for.

I used to pay out of pocket for promotion, now I run my own promotion service as part of my label, which has been far more effective than what I used to pay for, and in fact people now pay me to do it for them.  (E-mail me for details!  lol)

Social media is problematic.  Facebook absolutely sucks for musicians, and they have also made themselves indispensible by being so ubiquitous.  I don't know a single musician who doesn't loathe Facebook and yet has to use it.  This is worthy of a whole post but I know others could chime in here and explain exactly why.  Twitter is not bad, but I admit I'm not as adept at that form of communication.

But you do put your finger on a big part of the problem.  It is nearly impossible these days to break through the static and get music heard; and there is such a glut of it, most of it bad, that you are competing not just with a hundred other bands but fatigue on the listener's part from having to wade through so much mediocre music to get to the good stuff. I find more and more the only way to get through to people is to reach out to them one at a time (which to be fair always was the best way, but promotion has gotten so one-touch that most can't be bothered).  The good thing about things like Kickstarter is it forces engagement between fan and musician, which is all to the good, but people are starting to weary of having to cough up for so many things, I think.

OK, I'm done.  :)  Hope this gets the ball rolling.

Copy/paste from the other thread, along with some modifications.

Are you working? Are you recording your own stuff and self-distributing? Do you have any hope of making a living or is it a labor of love? - I AM working...for Comcast, full-time. Not possible for me to make a living at music as we are self-distributed/recorded, and quite frankly it's a dead market.

Do you play in local clubs? In US and West European cities, has the local live music market changed significantly in the last few decades? - We don't play live yet , so can't answer this.

Are major labels even relevant?- I wouldn't know personally, but for touring bands, I would imagine 'not really', and becoming less so every day.

Because of digitization, is there a much smaller demand for skilled session musicians?- I'd imagine so.

What are all the new Berklee graduates doing? What can they hope to do? What can they expect to do?- Dunno.

Have the classical and jazz markets changed significantly? Probably...we do electro, though, so it's a different genre entirely.

Our music IS  on ReverbNation, yes, but mainly demos. The 'professional' stuff (pro in the sense that it is out for sale...still home recorded, though) is available on Amazon, iTunes, Spotify, and Google Play. Spotify though is streaming only, and pays fractions of a penny per stream. How small? Well, I'd have to have over a million streams to earn around $1000.  With the other options, I get paid per purchase (currently only available as a online download...no physical copies currently). The messed up part is I wish I could just have a few songs available to stream and the rest to sell, but it's all or nothing. No label, so all promotion is done by myself and the others in the group. Well, right now it's just down to me and my wife; one member is currently in this hospital undergoing dialysis (as a result of complications due to cancer treatment) and the other has all but left.

Thanks for engaging in this. I have a few motives for asking. One is my own curiosity - music has been so important to my life, not just in the joy of listening and dancing, but also in exposing me to different cultures, subcultures and streams of thought; by helping me to explore my own feelings and how they connect to others; and by giving me a social life. Adamghost makes reference above to the personal connection between musician and audience, but on a local level there was also a connection among audience members. When I moved to the city (Boston) after high school, I didn't make most of my friends at college but at clubs and record stores (they were selling CDs but we still called them that). There was a really thriving local music scene that produced Throwing Muses and the Pixies and a lot of other "alternative" as well as "hard core" bands. At the time, a number of these groups made a good living recording, playing locally, and touring. And they provided a connected society for people who didn't fit comfortably in the mainstream.

Second, I have a nine-year-old who has an unusual, for her age, interest in the creation of music. When we listen, she picks apart the instrumentation, comments on unusual sounds, can discuss intelligently the choices in the arrangements. She also just digs a wide variety of stuff. She plays piano and writes and transcribes her own melodies and chords.

As I said in my introductory post in the Welcome board, I've been completely out of touch for 15 years or so. I have no idea how one even finds good new music unless one spends hours a day streaming random stuff in hopes of stumbling across something. I'm OK with that for me... but I'm thinking about my daughter. How will she find good, interesting music that is not from the main, highly promoted sellers? How will she find a community? She's only 9, so what she wants "to do when she grows up" will change 47 times between now and the time she actually has to make a choice, but if she wants to work in music, where will she go? Is it just a world of individuals making stuff at home and uploading it and hoping someone out there finds it?

So, these are my motives for asking.

So is most of your income from producing and playing on other people's recordings, and distributing and marketing the same? Do you find them or do they find you?
People obviously still buy and listen to recordings that were made with "live" instrumentation. Do you think that the sound is distinct and interesting enough to people that there will continue to be a limited market in rock/pop for skilled instrumentalists, or do you see that wafting away altogether with time?

A lot used to get work as session musicians. Berklee also has (had?) engineering and production departments, so graduates could get work in studios. There used to be an interesting complement in Boston between the technically trained Berklee grads and the bootstrap bands. They fed off each other and helped develop a community of musicians that had a nice combination of trained skill and cutting edge creativity.

Any idea why that is? I spent several years in poorer places than these, and local music was someone singing with homemade acoustic instruments, or the local disco with a glorified CD player. So is it that Bali and the Philippines are kind of half way? They don't have a fully digitized economy, but can afford to go out and spend money to see a band? Or is it tourists/expats who are populating the bars?

Thanks for your responses.

Yeah, it seems that the streams by which musician and audience found each other have split into so many tiny little rivulets that it's nearly impossible.

This is pretty devastating. Do you imagine scenarios in which there will be a correction? In which the market will figure something to direct music to the right audience which will in turn support the musician to continue, while music that can't really grab an audience will ultimately be filtered away? Or do you think we've kind of devolved long-term into a situation where millions of musicians are putting out their own stuff, each to a handful of more-or-less interested listeners? Which sounds to me like no one's really getting a good deal - neither audience nor musician.
I expect Disney and other massive corporations will keep choosing a handful of people to sell to the kids, but beyond that... what?

Thanks.

My daughter is a year younger than yours, and she's the same way! She taught herself to play piano as well. Also has a very eclectic music taste. She does listen to *some* current music, but mainly listens to late 60s-90s music, and a decent amount of indie stuff.

Hell, this is a playlist she made on my YouTube account
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL9Z1yVDDKrY0amcr30b2Whio80NucTMPS

If I had an answer to that question, I'd have a lot more money in my account :lol

Cool! My daughter's off visiting her dad's family, but when she gets back, we'll check that out jointly. How does your daughter find the indie stuff? How do you find indie stuff? Other than wading through piles and piles of uploads by everyone and their grandma?

Basically she goes through  the various music channels through our cable service, and switches genres depending on her mood. Most of the time she'll check out 3-4 songs per station and studies, I guess. She's turned me on to some stuff that *I'd* never heard before, and that's saying something! Some of the songs in the playlist were things she heard me playing and liked, a few songs that EVERYONE would know just about, and some stuff that was new to me.

It seems I need to get cable and/or a streaming service.
I stream everything I watch on demand and buy music that I've heard of through word-of-mouth.
So new question: recommended streaming service?

There is a broader point, though.

It has always been incredibly difficult to make a living as an artist. A musician, a painter, a writer, you name it. These are vocations to which many people aspire, yet which few ever develop the facility or originality to attract a following at all.

But it is easier now to reach a broader audience than ever before. In the book world, a healthy batch of authors support themselves by self publishing. YouTube has created stars left and right. Joe Schmoe's podcast can go on iTunes every week. And yes, a bunch of these books and stars and podcasts are atrocious. No doubt. But a sizable amount of art from the beginning of time has been atrocious, too.

We are entering a different era, one in which fewer people, ultimately, will likely be able to solely provide for themselves through their creative work. But a much wider group of people have access to a much broader audience, and are able to express themselves.

I have a difficult time believing that's a bad thing.

And listen, I do sympathize with the grumpy side of the discussion. I work in the news media, for god's sake, which has been incredibly disrupted by all of these changes.

In case I wasn't clear... I was definitely referring to exactly this sense of community being absent or reduced - I wasn't just talking about the musician-audience connection but the connections fostered between audience members.  

I hear this said a lot - and please remember, I am speaking as someone who is benefiting from the current state of affairs - but in the big picture, the idea that it's easier than ever to reach a wider audience - while it's true in theory, it simply isn't true in practice - the examples you cited, while they do happen, are flukey and tend not to build communities that can sustain artists.  I'm doing a session now so I'll let someone else chime in on this topic, because I'm probably not the only one who can speak to that reality.

That is a silver lining. And yes, there have always been many more people wanting to work as artists than were able to make a living at it. That's nothing new. I guess, as an appreciator/consumer who has never enjoyed trolling around through a lot of uninteresting stuff to find the interesting, I'm concerned with the lack of filter. There are now a million blogs talking about music, but there used to be maybe 300 magazines (and lots more "zines"). One could find a half dozen of those magazines that would be discussing music that fit your interests. So there was a filter that would curate a fairly reliable selection of new music. Also the contacts made in person through a local music scene would point the way to interesting stuff (though I guess internet contacts work that way too). It's nice in some respects that labels and publishers aren't controlling the market, but I think it makes it harder for a an audience to find the right musician and vice-versa.  
The same goes with books. I haven't found a reliable (for me) guide for new music or books. I feel like I have to digest so much material just to find one thing I like that it's almost not worth it.
I'm guessing some of my trouble is to do with age, though it seems that from the reporting I've read, some of the difficulty is experienced by younger people as well.

That's exactly it.  Wirestone is referring to access, and he's exactly right, it's easier to potentially reach a wide audience, but it's much harder to find a platform to gain exposure and create interest to a critical mass of people.  The ability to reach people is useless without some driver of people to it - formerly (and still) handled by major media, but also through a smaller infrastructure of tight-knit fan groups, writers, indie radio stations, etc., that have been largely (though not completely) dismantled.  So the ability to access large groups of people in itself is pretty useless without the gatekeeper functioning to filter (often imperfectly) and then to generate interest.  

It's also worth nothing that many of the artists who are thriving in this environment built up large fan bases through the old system.  It is great for them because they are operating without the downsides of the old system, but still have enough people built-in that they can support themselves at a smaller scale.  But it's not good for developing and sustaining new artists, and even for old ones, there's a diminishing return built in.

Forgot that - yeah - there used to be a number of great little radio stations.

I guess a few kind of hit the sweet spot.

Just finished a session, cycling back to finish answering questions and then shut up to let others speak...


They find me, I'm not exactly sure how.  I don't advertise a whole lot, but word of mouth is always going to be the best means of driving business.  (Insert business card here, heh!)  I do do my best to make sure stuff that gets done here gets some kind of exposure one way or another, which helps, if people keep hearing your work and it's consistently (hopefully) good.  Repetition still is effective.

I think there actually is a huge demand, a hunger, for that sound.  You hear it in younger listeners reaching back decades for the music of the Beatles, Led Zep, etc., and sensing a spontaneity and humanity that's missing from the way most recordings are made now.  Granted, a lot of listeners weaned on hip hop are geared to electronic instrumentation, but I think the sterile, processed sound most records have today is a function of the process (and media powers dictating that as the prevailing style of the moment, just as they always have), not the tastes of the listeners or even the technology (since I record digitally like most everyone else, my relationship to the technology is just different).


I think it's simply that there aren't a lot of good paying jobs coupled with a better sense of community and having the time and motivation to put into making it your main focus.  The calculus is that putting in the time to get really good to make a few bucks playing for tourists is worth the effort there, where it might not be here.

Adam's comments about platforms and communities are well put, but they're only important if the point of being a creator is making a living at it.

We are transitioning to a time when -- because many more people are creating content of all kinds --- the absolute value of any one creator will likely be low enough that there's no economic reason to reward them financially. There will always be exceptions, given that there will continue to be some type of mass media, but its influence and financial power will be less.

And yes, that may mean that many people won't pursue arts careers. But others may find the lack of barriers enticing on their own and not mind the lack of financial reward.

One good thing, for me anyway...not having any commercial concerns or possibilities means I'm free to record whatever the hell I want. Since it costs next to nothing to record for us (it cost us more to copyright and register with Soundscan), even though nothing is selling, there are still going to be Fear 2 Stop releases until I'm unable to write any longer. Even then, considering we have over 500 songs recorded since 2001, there will still be archival releases.

My daughter admitted to me that she looks at today's mainstream music as guilty pleasures for the most part, mainly because 'the new stuff sounds like mush' and compared  modern production with a little kid 'flinging mashed potatoes at the wall at a Chili's'. :lol

I can address this. As far as "new", meaning class of 2015 or '16? Probably the same as other college graduates - Pursuing a career in their chosen field. As far as "recent", go back maybe two decades and I can give some examples of people I know, people I went to school with, or just Berklee people in general who are doing some cool things.

A recent grad, class of 2013 is a favorite to win quite a few awards for the song "See You Again", which he wrote and performed and was contracted for recent Fast & Furious soundtrack. As of now, the YouTube video has over a billion views. He got his break by posting a video to YouTube which he shot in the Berklee area around Mass Ave, it generated a buzz and went viral, Ellen DeGeneres got involved, and next thing he was one of the most seen and heard writers and singers in the music biz.

The band Imagine Dragons are Berklee guys, except for the lead singer. When they were working their way up as recent grads, they'd post news to the alumni notes that they had just recorded a demo, or had just made a new CD...now they're selling out arenas around the world.

Natalie Maines from the Dixie Chicks left Berklee when I was a student there too, to move to Nashville and do a project that turned out to be the Dixie Chicks. Others did that too, like John Mayer, who a close friend had classes with and has a cool story to go along with Mayer's short stint in Boston where he ended up writing a lot of his first album instead of going to classes. Same with Natalie, but none of the other two besides me can confirm it was her due to cloudy memories...we were 19 or 20, so we think we remember it was her. Anyway... :)

Other Berklee musicians who found success via YouTube were the duo Karmin, after getting a YouTube buzz with viral videos they got signed to a major label.

Another recent grad is one of the hottest producers having worked with fun., scored massive sales, and is in demand from the Stones to any number of hip-hop and R&B acts. One of his early breaks was getting a gig playing keys and then doing more musical director work for Kanye West's touring band.

If you watch Stephen Colbert, a few Berklee people are in the house band. Same with Jimmy Fallon, the Roots' bassist is a Berklee musician, and he replaced another Berklee bassist who was there when I was there. prior to that, Jay Leno's band had Berklee players featured too.

American Idol had quite a few as well, including some of the vocal coaches and mentors, the house band members, and behind the scenes arrangers/engineers/techs/producers/etc. They also had key roles in the various Idol live tours, including one of the musical directors.

Check the Grammy nominations and awards, a lot of Berklee-schooled engineers are nominated and win each year. One of my classmates operates one of the best post-production studios in LA, and one of his gigs was to do post work on the first Idol finale. Every major studio, pretty much, most likely has someone who came from the Berklee MP&E program (music production and engineering major).

When I was there, one of the hottest student engineers, a guy who had ears made of gold for mixing, was doing some pretty amazing mixes and productions that people were talking about. After Berklee, he went in a more business direction, went to law school, and got his law degree. He went on to work for labels like Capitol and Warner Bros, and I believe he is still working at a big firm in LA. Quite a distance from mixing and recording!

Another fellow student who I played in a jazz trio with and several other combos after college got into composing and recording music for TV. He became very successful, and regularly won (and wins) BMI awards for most airplay/broadcasts and the like. If you've seen Survivor, The Apprentice, American Chopper, and a number of others...you heard his compositions during those shows. He was a terrific musician even in his early 20's, and he got into the TV/Film music business and hit a home run with his talent.

Another fellow student - a drummer with perfect pitch who I once asked during a break before class at a piano 'what do you see when you hear a note, and he replied "colors, i see each pitch as a color..." - He got the gig drumming for Prince and held it for a good number of years, and if anyone saw the recent Stevie Wonder tour behind "Songs In The Key Of Life", that was him too. He used to have a pretty unusual setup where he'd have a splash cymbal set up on an angle on a high stand behind his back, and when the grooves started to get really funky, he'd reach up and back to give that thing a "CRASH"...a neat stage move. Great drummer.

Another drummer - friend of a friend who I saw play recitals at school - became Paul McCartney's drummer and right-hand man almost two decades ago and is still there with him playing. Amazing musician, he was a legacy as his father was one of the best session bassists of all time and a Berklee guy from the old days.

Some people I knew and know did get into teaching, getting a Masters degree and working in schools. Others play gigs, and teach as most musicians do on the side. It's some of the most rewarding work a musician can do, passing on knowledge and nurturing the talents and skills of young musicians...I wouldn't trade it for the world.

Another field that Berklee was actually at the forefront of developing as a degreed course of study when I was there was the field of music therapy. Hardly any schools at that time offered such a course and curriculum, and the field of music therapy whether treating mental illness, developmentally disabled individuals, recovering addicts, Alzheimer's and dementia patients, or even as a form of physical therapy became a major focus in the past two decades. Chances are, some of those original Berklee majors were involved in setting up and developing some of the music therapy programs at various institutions and hospitals, or clinics, which some here may know in their areas.

Music business - The people who started CD Baby were Berklee students, and some of the bigger international booking agencies have Berklee alums working for them, or even heading up the agencies.

There was a very quiet but very nice student from japan in one of my arranging classes, he didn't say much but always showed up and worked. Years later, i found out he actually was famous in Japan for his music compositions which were featured in video games, and other media like anime. Who knew who we were sitting next to? pretty cool. A lot of tech-minded composers got into the video game music industry, composing and working with the game developers on the soundtracks. It's a huge field for writers and producers.

Film scoring - same deal. There are production companies who used to post internships in the Film Scoring department for Berklee students in that major, and some of those that pursued it are now making the music we hear on everything from soap operas to the big screen films. Engineers and sound designers too. Lot of MP&E grads on the soundstages of Hollywood.

Broadway too, in all capacities, especially musicians who can read and adapt on the fly during a gig. And sound mixers, engineers, techs, etc.

Studios, hospitals, schools, arenas, TV, film, arenas, clubs, video game companies...it's up to the Berklee students what they choose to do, and if they happen to get one of the winning lottery tickets and score really big on the Imagine Dragons or "See You Again" level...what they learned in even one class may have went into making that success. They worked and hustled gigs and opportunities just like graduates and students at any school in any field, whatever happens in their life later can sometimes be completely opposite what the plans were, or it might be exactly what they were dreaming of doing since they were a kid. Or sometimes they find a niche, whether it's regular gigging, teaching, composing, or whatever else comes along to change their life at a given moment.

Lot of stuff out there, lot of good things waiting to happen.

I see what you're saying but I also think there are three benefits lost:
1. How will masters develop?  It's hard to imagine real virtuosos developing when they're spending 50 hours a week in a cubicle or driving a cab. Will there be no virtuosos, just a multitude of hobbyists? I think the value of some people making a living at an art is that those people can develop proficiency beyond ordinary talent and part-time skills. I'm not saying only experts are worth-while, but I do think they are important.
2. I think working in a full-time corporate job stifles creativity and is brain-washing. I think it's important to have artists that are independent of those structures and can think in ways that challenge existing norms because they are not living entirely within the system that perpetuates those norms.
3. How will people be able to efficiently find the work that interests them, and how will artists be able to efficiently expose their work to the audience that might be interested? A lot of people put their random musings and videos of themselves baking cookies on the internet. How do I get through all that junk to find stuff that does the higher work of art?

So, I don't think it's only important if the point is to make a living. It's important to me that we have artists that are able to focus on their art, as creators and as crafts-people, without having their minds killed in a corporate job. It's also important to me that I can find the work of those artists.

I'm not unhappy with things changing, but I'm concerned that the baby will be thrown out with the bathwater. Do you suppose within the new marketplace, systems will arise that will address the above concerns?

Awesome. I know a few guys who worked at (I think opened(?)) the studio in Somerville that Mike Love mentioned when talking about the Christmas single. I know a few others who are producing in Brooklyn. I'm glad so many are thriving.
I'll have to track down that video. I worked at Tower at Mass. Ave. and Newbury St. for a few years.
So do you find that the market is essentially unchanged? Or is it changed, but for neither better nor worse, just different?

eta - It seems, from Guitarfool's post, that there's a thriving market for music technicians and performers - which if you think about it makes sense, every movie and TV show features music. And there are lots of other fields for musicians.
I guess, upon reflection, my questions are more driven by concerns about support for people who create original music. Is there as much, less, more support for them in today's market?

Emily, you've asked exactly the right questions which limits my need to really say anything more.

You worked at Tower! How cool. When I lived at the 150 building, I was more than a regular there, I was always there. Great store - miss it quite a bit. Three floors of goodness. Were you there in the 90's? If so I was definitely a customer and knew some of your co-workers. Spent a lot of time and money at Mass ave and Newbury, and if Tower didn't have the best price, Newbury Comics was about 50 yards away. And even though it was what it was...Little Stevie's pizza was cheap, and tasted very good at 2AM. Scary place.

Before I started school, I heard about a legendary prank that was pulled at Berklee by Berklee students involving Steve Vai and Tower. Wish i could have seen that... :)

Times change. Whether we like it or not, we will all eventually find the answers to Emily's questions.

My instinct is that people will find the time and resources to do the things they love. Or art may become something only done by the wealthy. In many cases, that's already happening.

Yeah. I miss Tower too. We have a facebook group for former employees. I was there in the early nineties. Tower was a great place to work, if you're fine with minimum wage, which I was at that time.  We still had the vinyl 45s when I started. I used to work til midnight on Sunday and the place would be dead for the last hour. They'd let me ransack the 45s and DJ with whatever I wanted. We'd dance around in the aisles. It was so much fun. My best friend worked at Newbury Comics and we'd hit up John Fleuvog's and Betsy Johnson every lunch break. Usually just to drool, but sometimes we had some money.
When I return to Boston I drift around Newbury St. and I feel old and sad for a minute, but it still has such an active pedestrian community that my interest gets perked pretty quickly.
What was the prank? Steve Vai.  A lot of great musicians showed up at Tower over the years.

incidentally, didn't our friend David Marks go to Berklee?

Yes, he did. And yes, it was the early 90's for me too. I'll get to the Vai story...

On Sunday nights at Tower, at least this was in 93 if I remember, maybe 94 too...they used to do an Oldies 103 trivia giveaway. Read the question over the mic on the 2nd floor, then the shoppers had so much time to write the answer, and the winner would get a free CD of their choice. I've been a trivia geek for a long time, so I would try if I could to make it to Tower Sunday nights. I won a Beach Boys two-fer there one Sunday night, I still have the receipt inside the CD case. But what I also did was...if I didn't know the answer, I'd take the escalator down to the 1st floor book section, and find any number of music reference books which had it. Take escalator back to the 2nd floor...win the CD.

I kind of felt bad about winning that many, so what I did was to start inviting friends there too. I'd feed them the answer, they'd drop it in the box, if they got picked (and there usually weren't too many people entering from what I could tell, or people just didn't figure out the answers were usually available in the book section), they started scoring free CD's too.

That was a fun scam. Hope the statute of limitations on exploiting radio promotions has expired...

Steve Vai: I heard this from a friend who claims he knew who was behind it, but I take no responsibility if it turns out to be urban legend instead of something that happened.

Berklee also became known for a time for attracting guitarists who were into shred, pyrotechnics, Steve Vai and Yngwie Malmsteen devotees...all of that. The late 80's, early 90's era of metal guitars and shredding. That was like a niche of students, I got to know a few too. So Steve Vai was an alum, and among those guitarists at Berklee he basically walked on water. He scored himself the Frank Zappa band's guitar chair right out of Berklee and went on tour with Zappa.

All that in mind, apparently Vai was coming to town for a gig or something. These Berklee guys made up these signs advertising a last-minute, In-Store appearance at Tower, scheduled for the next morning...last minute, no advance notice. So I think they went to Copy Cop or somewhere, and got dozens of flyers copied, and that night hung them around the Berklee 150 building and 1140 Boylston, all of them advertising this appearance by Vai at Tower the next morning.

Sure enough...there was a line already formed at Tower before they were opening that morning, all of these dudes carrying guitars, with the metal hair, the boots and leather jackets, the whole bit, and there was a line of them waiting for this exclusive Vai in-store promotion.

Only there was no Steve Vai.

Again, take that as how it was told to me - I didn't see it, but only heard the story. pretty funny to have that image of all these dudes lined up stretching past the Green Line and Au Bon Pain over the Pike, with guitars waiting to meet Vai.

Did it happen? Who knows.  ;D

PS...Did one of your Tower coworkers (a manager I think) at that time resemble Jesus, with beard and long straight hair...and first name started with "N"? If so, one of my best friends at the time shared a house with him. They had a blowout party at that house one time and a lot of his Tower co-workers were hanging out. i was there.

That contest thing started a few months before I left. I don't know about the statute of limitations, but I'm gonna report you anyway.  :p


It sounds familiar. I'm going to check with a friend from Tower that I actually stayed with for a few days this last summer. We did some reminiscing. She could remember names, places, times... not me. I remember impressions more. Like Berklee students had a ton of hair.
She can also help me remember exactly what years I was there. I think end of '90-mid '93.

I'm going to check with her on this too. I remember a couple of Jesus guys. One named Nick with a kind of fullish-goatee and sort of dirty blond hair. Kind of a Jerry Cantrell look. Did he work on the rock floor? I didn't know anyone in Jazz or Classical and only a few people in video.
On the Facebook group there are some pictures of me at parties that I have absolutely NO recollection of. Good times!

I guess the Jesus look was popular at the time! If "N" had worn a robe and sandals, he'd look exactly like Jesus. I saw him most on the 2nd floor, behind the counter, and the party had to be '92 or winter '93. He was a Berklee guy too. Lot of hair in that area at that time. I had a bad version of Help-era Lennon hair hanging over my ears, and always wore open flannels with a vintage or some ironic brand T-shirt underneath. AKA: The grunge looking normal guy who was always there scamming free CD's from Oldies 103... ;D

I also knew very well someone who worked in the video section, and used that access to get one of those magnetic anti-shoplifting strips they'd put in the video cases to play a prank on another good friend. I stashed that little strip deep in his wallet, so whenever he walked through the video section the alarms would go off even though he didn't have any items. A few of us were there one time, one in the books and one in the videos, and we'd call him back and forth through the gates so the alarms went off each time he'd go through. They finally stopped him to see what was happening, we were almost crying laughing and had to bail out but we saw his arms go up, like he was saying "but i dont have anything!!!" to the Tower workers that stopped him. One of us went back and got him out of the jam and fessed up so he could get him out of there without getting searched. I'm proud of that prank...

Those were good times, what a great city and area to be in. Some of the in-store appearances were really cool, I think it was Rusted Root played there one time when their CD was coming out among others, another time for some reason Tower hired a Sinatra impersonator to perform karaoke just outside the front door, wearing a full three piece suit with flower in lapel and the works. That was kind of surreal. he did a good Sinatra, though.

Any info you can find out, especially about the Vai incident, please update! I'm hoping all these years later that it did actually happen. :)

If any of these links are helpful --   :)
http://www.projectmusic.co/
http://www.entrepreneur.com/slideshow/253389
http://www.billboard.com/articles/business/6708211/dart-music-distribution-service-classical-musicians-metadata

Also:  http://www.npr.org/2015/12/30/460030376/in-the-podcast-world-some-music-students-seek-a-career-gateway