Tag Archives: Future of Music Coalition

pre-New Music Gathering 2016

I’m very much looking forward to attending the 2nd New Music Gathering in Baltimore later this week. Over the past year I’ve spent time getting to know a few of the attendees via my involvement with Musochat (speaking of, you can get the archives here and also hear a great interview of Shaya and two of the other co-conspirators here). It’ll be great fun to put faces to avatars. I’ve also done some thinking on community and marketplaces as a result.

Since last I did an update post I’ve added a bunch of great videos of  Frantisek Vyrostko playing some works for double bass by Carter, Scodanibbio, and Gajdos.

I wrote a little bit on revenue streams and pivoting based on a Future of Music Coalition post. I still need to write something based on my notes from their excellent conference this fall. Ah well.

New bass stuff out there on the interwebs

A couple of great new developments in past couple months as well. First, one of the inspirations for this site is Jason Heath’s blog. He’s fired it back up again as a podcast and it’s great. Very excited he’s back at it!

Also, I’m psyched that my friends Lauren Pierce and Geoff Chalmers have teamed up to do some youtubey goodness!

Tons of great info is likely to come from that duo.

 

Revenue Streams

The Future of Music Coalition has an article which lists the different revenue streams available to musicians. I highly recommend reading this list (hat tip to I Care if You Listen‘s article on taking charge of your finances) and seeing how many of them we can apply to our work.

Not all of the streams will make sense for everyone. But it would still be useful to try hard to figure out if there is any possibility of opening up one of the streams for yourself.

If necessary, perhaps imagine a Bizarro World version of yourself in which all of them must apply. Bend the rules of physics/taste and come up with how each one might apply to the Bizarro World version.

Then see if it maybe it would work in the real world after all.

Revenue streams and pivoting

The reason this is important to do, from an entrepreneurial standpoint is something referred to as “the pivot.”

Entrepreneurs don’t often end up doing what they started out doing. Somewhere along the line they realize they need to change their plans, sometimes drastically. Drastic changes of plans sometimes require changes in the way money is generated.

Having a firm grasp of different ways to generate money can be the difference between life and death of an entrepreneurial idea.

If we accept that the only way we can make money is by playing in an orchestra or teaching or waiting for a label to promote our music etc, then we are ceding our own agency in advancing our art and our careers.