selling music in the digital age / spotify

It's been a while , and this is a long post ...

I grew up in an age of recorded music . My parents realized how much I loved music and for my third birthday I got a very basic turntable and a Beatles LP . I can remember dancing around the room listening to that thing . It's probably my earliest memory . I also remember convincing one of my sisters friends to dance with me to it ( my sister was jealous but it was hard for her to compete with the fab four ) . I also remember hearing Michael Jackson's " Don't stop till you get enough " at a friend's 8 year birthday party . We all danced to "off the wall" at that party with great relish until one kid danced through a glass window and had to go get himself stitched up by a doctor . He's fine now but probably still has the scars on his butt proving how funky MJ is . He literally danced his butt off . Much later after hearing a fender rhodes being played by Ray Charles , Herbie Hancock , Steely Dan and Pink Floyd I knew that I had to become a musician . Since then I have devoured most of the albums by many great artists like Miles Davis , Allan Holdsworth , XTC , Stevie Wonder , John Coltrane etc etc . Most of those albums I either paid for a second hand LP or purchased a CD . A made a few cassettes of friends LPs when I lived in share houses , I have burned a few CDs and even downloaded a few hard to find albums off the internet . Itunes was pretty cool and I have spent a great deal of money there too .

I love to go see live music in NY like Dr Lonnie Smith or Wayne Krantz or Roy Haynes or whoever is playing at smalls or the 55 bar .. That's an important part of life . Today I went to Lincoln Centre to see a free jazz music concert. Unfortunately Barry Harris didn't show as advertised but Eric Reed and Christian Sands played some great jazz piano ....

Even though I love to perform live , I am still a big believer in "studio " music . To me this is a seperate artform to live playing which really came into it's own with the advent of overdubbing ...

In my opinion Allan Holdsworth is the supreme master of this method of communication which probably started with the Beatles Sgt Pepper . Steely Dan , XTC , Weather Report , Miles Davis have made pretty significant contributions to the ART of recorded music , designed to be listened to through a good pair of speakers or headphones .

Roy Haynes is probably best heard with a drink a few feet away from the drums , but some of those other artists mentioned are just as good driving in your car ... I can't afford to spend my money on concerts every day but for $30 a month on itunes I can listen to plenty of great music all the time ...

Part of me thinks flying around the world to make a living is a bit crazy and I always liked the idea of recording music and selling it . My experiences of touring have been pretty poor from a musical perspective . Usually the piano , keyboards , PA system are less than adequate . Often the bass player is playing a borrowed bass , or you are dealing with musicians that are playing your music for the first time because you can't afford to bring a band around the world .

At least in the studio a lot of those problems can be solved . You can choose your piano , have it tuned , find a great sounding room to play in , pay the musicians you want who have been playing with you often . You can bring a whole house of keyboards with you if you want and even spend hours editing and overdubbing and mixing afterwards getting the music just right .

I still think live performance has it's place in fact I think it is equally as valid as performing " in the studio " . It's just a different medium . I play regularly in New York and occasionally overseas and it's always a pleasure . I think the pressure and communal nature of live music essential .

I also believe the renaissance that improvisation has had since the jazz age is in part a result of the fact that it can be recorded . For me it's a game changer that music doesn't need to be notated for it to live forever .

For that reason since I started playing and composing I have gone to great efforts to document my music . The process has been my greatest teacher . Making a CD that anyone would bother to listen too is a pretty huge challenge considering the amount of recorded music already out there . More recently with the help of some of the world's best musicians like Keith Carlock , James Muller etc I have managed to turn my recordings into something that generates a small but regular income . The income doesn't offset the dollars I have spent on musicians and studio fees , but if I stopped making any more CDs at the current income eventually I would start to get a small return on my investment . I haven't lost a great deal of money at this stage but it has been worth it to have my music documented as I would like it to be heard . I have always considered myself a better composer than performer and I would much rather people could LISTEN to my compositions than just look at dots on a page and try and figure out how it is supposed to go . I have been lucky that the tunes I have written have resonated and some of them have been recorded and other's are performed by other musicians fairly regularly , mostly in Australia by jazz musicians . I think Australia needs a body of original jazz compositions which can be reinterpreted so I am proud to be able to make a small contribution to the growing body of music written by folks like Mike Nock , Dale Barlow , Bernie Mcgann and Paul Grabowsky . The Australian general public is not greatly aware of this resource but I believe in the future it will be cherished as part of the Australian identity and soul ( perhaps when those who think Alcohol alone is entertainment enough are in the minority ) .

Why have I written so many words on this blog . Because I believe recorded music HAS VALUE .

The digital age and the internet have changed the way that music can be delivered . It is now no longer necessary to have a collection of your own music . It's possible for a central database to have all the music and we can listen to whatever we wish to whenever we wish . I think this is a great thing and I am all for it . Unfortunately at the time that the internet was created most of the music recorded at a time was owned by non-musicians . Sadly at this point the interests of musicians and the "value" of recorded music has been ERODED to the point where in the USA on Spotify you can listen to 10 hours of music FREE of CHARGE and for $5 you can listen to any music you like at any time ...

It is my opinion that $5 a month for as much recorded music as you can listen too (including most of the great music recorded in the last 100 years) is a DISGRACE and quite frankly and offence to music and musicians . It is so far below the minimum wage it is a joke .

http://www.informationisbeautiful.net/2010/how-much-do-music-artists-earn-online/

At this point I ask my fellow musicians to take control of their own destiny . We need to set up our own distribution systems for music owned by musicians , with fair pricing and PROPER ACCOUNTABILITY . I believe that this will happen in the future and that the sooner the better ...

I am convinced there are a lot of people in the world who want to continue to support new music to be created and recorded and that they would be prepared to pay a lot more than $5 a month in order to support the latest product being produced . It is my sincere hope that musicians worldwide wake up at this moment and realise that we must take the "business" into our own hands . Let's hope that "Spotify" is actually the beginning of a new age of recorded music where the next Allan Holdsworth can record his/her compositions and be paid properly by the world's music lovers to listen to it . It could be a beautiful future where the creativity and talent of musicians can shine without being told what to play by "businessmen" and anyone with a decent idea can hope to get fair renumeration for it by music lovers .

Let's hope !

Letter to Peter Garrett . MP

The Hon Peter Garrett AM, MPThank you for your time. Your comments have been successfully submitted via http://www.aph.gov.au You have sent the following details: Name: Sean Wayland Address: 571 6th ave apartment 1 City: Brooklyn State or Territory: N.S.W Postcode: 11215 Country: United States Telephone Number: +1 347 5231455 Email Address: seanwayland@gmail.com Comments: Hi Peter, I am an Australian musician living in New York. I studied jazz piano at the Sydney Conservatorium of music in 1992. I am well known amongst the jazz community in Sydney. I was a founding member of the Jazzgroove Association in Sydney. I left for New York and a bigger pool of musicians and opportunities about 5 years ago. I live in Brooklyn with my wife. I am a big midnight oil fan. Jim Moginie is an online acquaintance. One time I had a lengthy conversation with Rob Hirst when we got stuck in a performers van together en-route to the Wangaratta jazz festival. I am writing to ask for your political not musical help. Australia's recorded jazz history is disappearing fast. Most recordings that still exist on LP are fading. Older musicians and independent record company owner's are dying before their copyright can be passed on. If something isn't done this valuable history will be lost for good. A solution would be to create an online database of titles with reference to their locations in various libraries. I have contacted the National Film and Sound archive about this. They are willing to give some help but jazz is a small part of their large program and the law limits what they can do. A legal solution needs to be sought that would allow out of print music to be rereleased. Perhaps if an album was out of print for 20 years the copyright in the masters would automatically refer back to the musicians or their families. If it was legal and encouraged for musicians to digitize their collections and leave them at the music school libraries (like the one at the Sydney Con) this music could be saved. With the internet an online wikipedia style database of recordings could be set up cheaply. The Australian people could edit it and take care of their own history so to speak. I also believe that a valuable business could be created if the law would allow it. My piano teacher at the Conservatorium Roger Frampton died in 2000 aged 52. He created music in the 1970's which I have never been able to hear despite quite a lot of searching. I am told it is very good. I believe that his music should be heard by Australian's and the world. It should be taught in schools. The producer of some of those old Frampton LP's is approaching 90 years of age. It is time for action. I have set up a facebook group in an attempt to gain some momentum on this issue. http://www.facebook.com/home.php?sk=group_188182267891758&ap=1 Please email me thank you. I hope all is well and that you still get a chance to get into the ocean in the 2035 postcode. Yours Sincerely Sean Wayland

synths/samplers

What makes Synthesizers and sample based instruments sound " thin " up in the high registers ? For really low notes I think sometimes they are better than real instruments if you have a decent sized speaker . Not so for for synths and especially samplers . I wonder if the sampling rates wen't up really high would that help ? I also wonder that when a person tunes a real instrument that something happens when they go higher . My synths sound more out of tune up high too to my ears . It would be an interesting project to build a synth or sampler with a really high sampling rate and then to tune every note and see if it would then compare to a "real" instrument . With "real" instruments the "string tension" or "embouchure" pressure gets much higher is you get really high which changes the sound and makes it "scream" . How would you imitate that with a synthesizer ?

questions from richard savery , Australian saxophonist

Recently in my own composing I’ve started to feel that allowing the soloist/improviser freedom reduces the freedom of the composer and imposes it's own limitations.

Do you have any advice or thoughts on this?

That's an interesting question which I think about often . Sometimes I write separate solo sections to the "head" of the tune so that complexity in the written music does not get in the way of the soloist .

These days when I write the soloing section I like it to be easily memorizable .

I prefer soloing over 4/4 and 4 bar phrases so usually my solo sections adhere to that .

When improvising I prefer the musicians to be able to add complexity if they wish rather than it being forced on them .

I like to look at the music from the point of reference for a non-musician . I wonder if non-musicians can tell the difference between " 4/4 and 4 bar phrases being adeptly disguised " and a tune with sections written in different time signatures .. I also wonder how aware the casual listener is of the harmonic complexity of the solo section . Most of my beginning students are surprised to find that "so what" only has 2 chords ... they may have listened to it countless times already without noticing that aspect .

Complexity in the written music is fine with me as long as it is not too hard to learn . Often I perform music with no rehearsal due to time/financial constraints ..

There are exceptions of course like "giant steps" or my tune " fried chicken modulation " where complexity is inherent in the concept of the tune and can't be simplified . In those instances the soloist needs to be well prepared . Even "Giant Steps" is structurally simple in that it only has 3 key centers , and four lots of 4 bar phrases which can be memorized fairly easily .

Tunes written within the confines of traditional structures like "blues" or "rhythm changes" can make the task of "keeping the form during the solo " easier for the band . It can be nice to reference the "cliches of american jazz harmony" like a " 2-5-1" in the solo changes which allows the soloist to use techniques he/she may have already devised for dealing with those structures .

In the recording studio sometimes it is fun to have something more challenging and " composed " to work on as the ability to have a few goes at it can take the pressure off .

I sometimes think that it can be too easy to force a soloist in one direction. To this point do you think this is a good/bad thing?

In some ways a good tune is "fun to play" . Perhaps in some ways it has the "imprint of the composer" on it but still allows room for the improviser to do their own thing .

It seems from the a big band composers perspective that improvisation is merely a structural tool within the music. I also know (perhaps as a result?) that many horn players hate having solos - particulary over swing charts - in a big band context because they find it very hard to come across well in such a ‘artificial environment’. Thoughts?

One of the problems of the big band is everyone is separated by larger distances than usual in a small group and maybe be shuffling through lots of paper ... Having very clearly written charts with easy to an easy to navigate " road-map" can make a huge difference . Sometimes that's more important the the music itself . Also having too many cued sections can make life more difficult . Some of the most successful pieces of big band writing have very little soloing at all . Duke Ellington's "Koko" comes to mind as a personal favorite . Personally I like to "solo" over horns playing soft backgrounds that I have written myself. As a pianist in a big band I enjoy playing through someone else's written backgrounds if the chords are pretty . In that situation I want to reiterate the point that its fun as long as I have the liberty of " getting a bit lost" and know that the chart is going to continue even if I can't hear the bass player underneath the horns and lose the downbeat ... What is a nightmare is powering through overly rhythmic backgrounds played too loud and when the band gets lost in doing so ...

Further to that question Darcy James Argue creates highly organised sections for the band members to solo over. In Zeno (not sure if you’ve heard it) it almost comes across as if the whole shape of the solo is already defined - not that I’m against that, I’m really into Darcy’s music.. What do you think of that as an improviser/composer

Thanks for hipping me to that track it's pretty cool . I have checked out Darcy's music before . I met him through Aussie bassist Matt Clohesy who is playing on that Cd . I thought the section before the trombone solo ( 2.10-2.30 ) was particularly interesting and pretty writing . As far as being difficult for the soloist I expect the trombone solo section wasn't too difficult from the point of view of "negotiating the music " . It was pretty easy to follow the beginning being in 6/4 and repeating between 2 chords and then another 2 ( all centered around Ab minor ) . I felt like the soloist had plenty of room to stretch at that point . After some time things got more complicated as the solo finished up , but he had already had plenty of room to move around and " blow " . Sometimes if EVERYTHING is written out then complexity is easier to negotiate . What can be hard is if the drummer or bass player is improvising within a complicated structure and the soloist needs to figure out what they are doing as well as play and get over the backgrounds .

In the end you have to ask yourself whether you liked the results . I am certainly no connoisseur of big band music but I enjoyed hearing that piece . There is something great about humans attempting to play challenging music at this point in history . Thumbs up to them for having the energy to put all of that together ... It's hard to get a trio together in New York these days let alone a big-band with innovative music so hats off to all of them . I wish you had told me in advance that the song was freely downloadable from all about jazz before I gave .99 to the itunes barons .

“Composing, I could reach conceptions that I could never reach in a limited, defined, performing time. I couldn’t reach an equal conceptual excellence in improvisation as in composing. The inadequacy may have been in myself.

Gavin Bryars

Do you have any thoughts about that quote?

Tell him to keep trying not to give up improvising so quickly . I have been at it for 25 years now .. still trying to get it together . Improvising is a useful musical tool perhaps similar to studying Palestrina or Bach . John Lennon learnt to sing and play a bucket load of old rock n roll tunes before he wrote " I am the Walrus " . In the end it's the quality of the music that matters , not the disciplines used to getting there . Once you get into areas of rhythm that are specific to jazz , blues and funk music (eg accents , "groove" , placement , rhythms that "go-against" the pulse etc ) it gets pretty hard to notate and sometimes improvisation allows you to achieve things easily that are very difficult to notate . It's also hard to get very specific about sound/timbre with notated music . Some of Miles Davis' most famous solos are made great by the specific placement of one-note rhythmically with a very specific "sound" .

The advent of recorded music makes recording an improvised event live as long as a piece of written music . That changes the impact of improvised music .... It doesn't however make composed music "less valid " just as inventing a car doesn't make walking useless . If Gavin Bryars doesn't know how to drive a car I would tell him to keep trying and give it a shot as it can really get you to interesting places which could be hard to reach otherwise .

Best regards

Sean

letter to NY times

I read this article today with interest

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/17/arts/music/17jazz.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1&ref=homepage&src=me

I felt compelled to write a letter about it after reading many of the readers comments hoping that " the copyright issue could be put aside so that people could hear the music " . I also hoped reading that someday Australian people will develop a similar attitude to our own jazz history . There must be hours of unheard recordings of deceased Australian musicians like Roger Frampton , Frank Smith , Joe Lane etc that are an invaluable part of our culture .

Here's the letter :

"

I am a 41 year old jazz musician , record label owner and composer .
I sensed a general tone among the comments left by your readers best
surmised by this comment :
"I am so pleased to read my fellow music lovers comments. In
particular regarding the legal issues which should not hamper the
process of these rare recordings reaching the ears of the public."
In the age of youtube , google etc , streaming mp3 sites like
rhapsody I have sadly watched copyright owners rights to compensation
from royalties "watered down" .
Perhaps the proceeds from the distribution of these historic
recordings can be used to set up an amendment to laws to better
protect the rights of musicians ( and filmakers etc ) still fortunate
to be alive today .
I believe it is what Goodman, Basie , Hawkins et al would have wanted .
Yours Sincerely
Sean Wayland "

robert mwamba

I get to perform a variety of music here in New York city with a whole range of folks from all over the world . Robert Mwamba is a guitarist from Zambia , Africa who lives in NYC . This video is of us performing one of his original compositions at the sugar bar on 72nd st owned by Ashford and Simpson .

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ashford_%26_Simpson

The guitar solo starts 3 minutes in . Robert is so generous I even got to do 2 solos on this one !!!!

At the last gig with Robert his regular bass player Lonnie Plaxico remarked that " we would let an Australian play piano with us but we wouldn't let an Australian play a "groove" instrument like bass or drums in the rhythm section " . To my surprise he was unavailable for this gig and I got my shot at it .

When the sound person took a line out of my amplifier it stopped working . Fortunately radio shack next door was open and had a 2 channel - 1 Channel plug . I managed to get close to my usual "sound" using the house bass amplifier .

My wife lost her job this week so we really need the money that this gig pays ... I will have to do about 5 to 10 of these gigs to pay for my broken amplifier . Luckily the music is reward enough in this situation .

fried chicken chaser august 2010

Completefriedchicken2010 by seanwayland

if you click on the "complete.." link you can listen . soundcloud seems to be having a moment at the moment