Listening:
bcmeikle@shaw.ca
Apple's iTunes program should allow independent artists to sell their
tunes on the web.
Now that iTunes is out for windows users this is important.
People are finding that it's easier to just pay a buck for a tune using
iTunes than to rip it off on the web.
This is good. Everybody is happy. People get their tunes, artists get
a bit of money... Apple sells ipods, even
if they lose giving away the great free iTunes software....
But Apple is only supporting musicians owned by old record companies....
They need to become the voice of the independent artist too.
I put together this page to inform your opinion. iTunes should support
the independent artist.
Let's listen to some music together.
When I went to music school I was taught
that john coltrane used to practice 9 hours a day and he'd spend 3 hours
just listening to other players.
Over the years I've had a very bad
relationship with listening. For the most part all the music I absorb is
from the environment. Birds, running water, a car horn. A radio jingle,
a track at a restaurant, I haven't systematically sat down and listened to
music for years.
Of course I used to. And I used to get paid to write
down solos. That was '80 and I was young and hot(17)
scholarshiped to music school out east... the tricks of transcription
were still a pain. Good musicians in toronto gave me money to transcribe
a solo or two by a great...
I was known as a good listener. Almost perfect relative pitch... or maybe
that's not listening it's hearing.
Anyways this is about itunes, and the fact they are only selling music
from artists on labels...(I digress...)
Has apple become part of the problem or the solution?
Since I haven't listened in a while, I spent some hours and listened
to the underground music archives
where no-one has a label. I was impressed.
After listening to about 120 tunes I chose these 20 as my favorites.
I am indulging in music criticims here.
Check my
tunes
to see how bad my own stuff can be!
but these guys are playing well....and should be allowed to sell their
stuff.
Become an editor!
I am sure that an editorial layer is needed to make independent music
work.
People just don't have time to weed through 1000 tunes to find the one
they want.
They need recommendations. I guess itunes needs recommendations too.
I can collect your lists of favorites from
iuma
here if you want. email me bcmeikle@shaw.ca
My taste isn't very normal, but I think my choices below
all have 'quality'....something steve jobs
thinks equates with corporate management. Amazingly, there are a number
of excellent artists who don't
even WANT corporate management.
...eclectic is what
the underground music archive does best...
I would call these 20 tunes 'suprisingly commercial'
Dysrhythmia
a rocking instrumental with some compositional edge.
Teenage Frenzy
if someone mixed the vocals forward this very poppy tune would
probably work commercially...
Another rock band I like. The
champs
The
Medieval Astronauts
caught me ear..
There are a lot of christian musicians lurking around the underground
archive.
Not really me, but I really like
Abunohill
I only listen to a few seconds of a lot of the tunes. This one pays
off for waiting....
alu
reminds me
of Kate Bush...
Grammatical Era
nice weird theatre in audio.
Nasty rap.
Gypsies
.
Bluegrass rocks.
JUST_OVER_YONDER_BLUEGRASS_GOSPEL_BAND
Some
harp and flute
to zen out for a minute...
There are a ton of mutant
rappers
on there...
and
metal
acts...
hook-filled
tunes like
this pop-mania.
Is this
anthem
a cover or will it be soon?
but realistically, if indie music got on itunes, the real market would
be funny songs that people pay for and send to each other in the morning
email. I would like a world where I can get up in the morning, read the
paper,
write a funny tune about something I read, and be getting paid for it
by the end of the week.
A really
funny
song could get 10,000 hits in a week no problem.. I know, I've been
putting up demo quicktime movies for years, showing new techniques, 1000
hits a day is easy. As to the buck a tune? I think a guy might
get a funny tune link in his email, check it out, and buy 3 or 4 copies
for 3 or 4 bucks to share the joke with friends.
I mean tunes
like this
are really rude and funny.
...and what if artists could actually get paid for
bold statements
?
Garry Tucker
is a hero of the medium.
the stockometers play
nice jazz
...
but of course there is quite a lot of awful stuff on iuma too, so
some kind of filtering is necessary. But really, that filtering should
be as
minimal as possible.
I can't help noticing
that my bookmarks have split in two:
-Most Likely to Succeed
and
-Interesting music.
I mean, is the spirit of music in the latest pop tune or is it in
this
great tenor man,
or this
composer
....?
Who should decide?
I don't think it should be apple,
or the record companies.
How does one decide?
I think that's up to the individual, not some lame geek parameterization
of 'quality'.
I don't see why anyone who has an album on their page shouldn't
be
allowed to sell it on itunes. Definitely a middleman could make recommendations
, but free and open is the only way it should work.