Saw via twitter (follow me @beatsnpieces!) that Maria Schneider has announced another opportunity to participate in the creation of her latest commission – if you’ve $125-$2500 burning a hole in your pocket then click here for details.
I know that this type of deal (and ArtistShare in particular) was groundbreaking at first, and the model has since been adopted by countless other artists, but I’ve always been a bit uncomfortable with it. I think that this is because of the other ‘benefits’ you get if you sign up to donate money – for example, if you sign up for the $2500 Maria Schneider package she’ll phone you up 3 times to chat and update you on the commission’s progress. Fair enough as you’ve paid $2500 for the privilege, but it feels a bit to me like she’s just offering up just a bit too much of herself… Similarly for another one of the albums (I think it was Sky Blue) the top package included the chance to go birdwatching with her in Central Park.
I know that this ‘rewarding’ of investors probably goes in internally behind closed doors inside record companies all the time, and Maria probably does enjoy spending time with her fans, but still aren’t you kind of selling yourself rather than your music? I should stress that its by no means just Maria Schneider following this kind of model – there’s been plenty of other examples that I unfortunately can’t think of at the moment (I definitely read about an American metal band offering cookery lessons or a game of golf or something, thought it was Nine Inch Nails but can’t find it on Google so if you have any ideas as to who it was then let me know!).
While we’re talking about Nine Inch Nails, I think that they manage to do a similar thing without over-selling themselves. For example, you could buy their ‘Ghosts I-IV‘ album in a $300 package that included a hardback book, included the multi-track session files on data DVD and was signed by Trent Reznor himself. Limited to 2500 pieces at $300 each = lots of money. I do recognise though that Maria Schneider’s target market is probably somewhat smaller than NIN’s so this may not be possible for her.
At the same time, other jazz artists have also been funding their albums through donations from fans but in a slightly different way. Darcy James Argue’s Secret Society album was funded by donations, and indeed everything we do at Efpi Records is entirely down to donations from you (cheers!). I think that the difference is that people are donating to/investing in you rather than ‘buying’ you though. Whilst I am certainly very grateful for donations through the Efpi site (indeed transporting a band of 14 people to gigs without financial suicide would be impossible without income from donations), I imagine I would feel a bit uncomfortable about offering myself to someone in return for a few grand. And thats not because I’m miserable and don’t want to spend time talking to people about me or our music, indeed its quite the opposite and thats one of the things that I love doing! Its just the feeling of being paid to do it that I think would be a bit weird (to me).
Again I want to reiterate that this is in no way an attack on Maria Schneider, her music or her business model. Her music is amazing, and I had the good fortune to meet her briefly after her gig at the Barbican in 2008 when she was lovely. I’ve also bought at least 4 of her albums through ArtistShare (as well as the new Chris Potter Underground album) and much enjoyed the extra videos and content that I got through the site. I just thought I’d write a little bit about my feelings about giving people the opportunity to buy access to YOU (important to note that I’m talking about something different than paying for teaching) rather than your music in the hope that it would stimulate some discussion… Go!
Posted by on 24/02/2010 at 15:13 in misc and tagged artistshare, chris potter, darcy james argue, efpi, maria schneider, nine inch nails, secret society.
Hi Ben,
Nice insightful article. I think you may be missing the point a little though. Anything you sell as a creative artist is “you”. From what I am hearing you would be uncomfortable offering the things that Maria is comfortable offering. That is totally fine but I encourage you to think about the industry as it is evolving. Pretty soon, it is a very real possibility that people will not be paying for recorded music at all. It is just going to get too easy to access it all for free. What is the product then? The creative process. That’s all you have left and luckily it is your most valuable asset. ArtistShare is about sharing the creative process and building strong relationships with fans. Take a closer look at what we are doing at ArtistShare and I think you will see that the mission is to share the creative process of great artists and hopefully change the music industry from a ‘retail’ industry to a ‘service’ industry where the artist gets paid for providing artistic experiences directly to the fans. With technology heading in the direction it has been for the past 10 years it is by far the safest bet. Best of luck to you and wishing you a long, creative and prosperous career in music.
Best,
Brian Camelio
ArtistShare
Hi Brian, thanks for reading and for your thoughts!
I totally agree that musicians in todays market have to find ways of making their product desirable in new and different ways – thats one of the reasons why we decided to make the Efpi releases (at least for now) 100% handmade and numbered so that there is an attractive physical product for people to enjoy. And as I mentioned in the article, I have greatly enjoyed the way that ArtistShare has shared Maria’s and Chris Potter’s creative processes, and I have learnt a lot from the extra content that was made available. I think I still feel though that there is a difference between selling ‘you’ through your art and its creation, and selling ‘you’ as yourself, although I acknowledge that drawing the line between the two is very difficult (especially when teaching etc). I also realise that more mainstream rock and pop artists are forever meeting competition winners and sponsors, which I suppose is no different – it could even be said that this is more extreme than what is on offer through ArtistShare and similar models, as at least through the site the artists and their work are open to all fans rather than a selected few.
I suppose this leads on to a wider debate about whether artists nowadays are making themselves too accessible in general – I remember reading British pop musician La Roux saying a few months ago that she felt that through social networking tools such as Twitter, artists are giving their fans far too much information about themselves and losing the air of intrigue and mystery that people like Prince and David Bowie enjoyed (and encouraged) in the past (Google throws up the original source here). This is maybe straying a bit too far from my original point – and I recognise that the industry today is very different from when Bowie and Prince were in their prime so to expect the same treatment would be unfair and unrealistic – but I think I can see the point she was trying to make.
Obviously in your position you will have vastly more insight and knowledge of the music industry than me, so it has been valuable for me thinking about what you said. For example your comment about people not paying for recorded music at all got me thinking about the wider implications of services such as Spotify that I had not really considered whilst at this early stage of my career. Fortunately, at the moment (and admittedly I’m working on a much smaller scale than ArtistShare) I am lucky that many people have chosen to either purchase a physical copy of the EP or make a donation when downloading the MP3 package rather than download for free, but I recognise that as my position (and indeed the wider industry) changes in the future then my feelings may also change – by choice or necessity!