Read the accompanying resource guide "Getting
Started in Online Music" by Jeffrey Pepper Rodgers.
Welcome to the World Wide Open Mic—no emcee, no time limits, no qualifications
necessary, and no beginning or end. If you’ve got a decent computer,
a phone line, and some means for turning your music into digital code,
you’re ready to step onto this new cyber stage, whether you’re in Boston
or Bangladesh, a pro or a three-chord beginner. And as a listener, you
no longer need to be limited by what labels, clubs, radio, and record
stores deem worthy to distribute; you have direct, free access to hordes
of aspiring musicians and their creations.
Like so many things in today’s frenzied Web environment, the WWOM tends
to make you feel simultaneously giddy with the possibilities and overwhelmed
by the options. This virtual venue has developed so fast (and continues
to do so even as I type) because music is such a natural match for the
Web revolution. Courtesy of the CD, music was already translated into
digital files that could be loaded right onto our computers through
CD-ROM drives; all that was needed was a way to make these sound files
smaller--audio on a regular CD takes up about 10 MB per minute, which
makes a typical song too hefty for downloading over current Internet
connections. To greatly simplify the story, along came a compression
scheme called MP3, which squashes those 10 MB into 1 by getting rid
of frequencies that theoretically won’t be missed by the listener, and
a new vista opened up: near–CD-quality audio ready for Internet distribution.
From there, it was just a short step to today’s exploding world of online
music, in which a slew of music clearinghouses are hotly competing for
the attention and presence of unknown artists (!), and there’s an abundance
of promotional and distribution opportunities for pros and wannabes
alike—many of them free.
Participating in the WWOM is surprisingly easy to do. Little or no
cash is required—what you mostly need is time and patience. In my own
case, since I had a sufficient computer/Internet rig and my music was
already on CD, it took only a matter of a few weeks to go from "What’s
this MP3 thing all about, anyway?" to a functioning Web page on
MP3.com with downloads and previews of my songs.
There are many sites out there offering musicians free Web pages with
download capabilities; check out the "Getting
Started with Online Music" resource guide for a starter list.
And many of them make the process of creating a page for your music
quite straightforward, requiring only a little software acquisition
and education. If you’re working with audio from a CD, you’ll need a
CD ripper, which translates a track into a WAV file on a PC or an AIFF
on a Mac; you’ll also need an encoder, which turns the WAV/AIFF files
into MP3 files. (Often these two functions are combined in programs
that can be downloaded free or for a small fee; MusicMatch is a common
example for the PC, Audio Catalyst for the Mac.) Plus you have to have
some way to handle image scanning and prep for the Web, so that your
new audience can gaze at your beautiful mug as they listen to your beautiful
music (they’ll also be able to read your credits, lyrics, and thought-provoking
comments about the songs, if you wish).
In my own case, what iced the decision to go with MP3.com was that
I could set up my page so that if anyone wanted to buy the whole CD,
MP3.com would actually manufacture it from my uploaded audio (and even
cover art!), mail it, and send me half the proceeds. Global distribution,
with no need to duplicate boxes of CDs that would gather dust in the
closet! For someone who recorded, mixed, mastered, and manufactured
a CD at home (as described in "From Your Guitar to CD for under
$3,000," July ’99), this deal seemed like manna from heaven.
The first days after my page on MP3.com went live, and a little graph
showed that several people had actually downloaded my songs, were pretty
heady. The rush only intensified in the coming weeks, as one of my freebie
songs actually cracked the top ten in the acoustic category. I checked
my stats page (which shows page views and downloads, etc.) every day
like a stock market junkie, looking for trends and ways to work the
system. But eventually the graph lines started shrinking and the column
of zeroes in the CD sales category grew long, and I stopped keeping
such close tabs. During this time MP3.com announced the uploading of
song number 100,000, and the reality of the World Wide Open Mic began
to sink in: It’s amazing that anyone using the Internet can check
out my music, but that certainly doesn’t mean that they will.
More exposure and marketing would sure help, and it sure would be nice
if acoustic music wasn’t buried in hard-to-find, illogical subcategories—hmm,
sounds suspiciously like the old music business. This needle-in-a-haystack
situation grows more pronounced all the time, as countless musicians
keep arriving and major labels assert themselves (and their star power
and marketing muscle) in the online world. It’s worth keeping in mind
that most music Web sites are driven by popularity charts, which support
the artists who get the most mouse clicks and bury the rest. Think of
it from the surfer’s point of view: given the choice, would you rather
browse an unfiltered list of a thousand singer-songwriters, or sample
some of the top ten?
So the whole phenomenon of the WWOM cuts many ways, and its future
for musicians is still very much up for grabs. Let’s hear about the
experiences (dateline late ’99) of some acoustic artists—some well known,
some just getting established—who are tangled in the Web in various
ways.
CHART TOPPERS
Let’s start with some success stories, identified by (guilty as charged)
reading the online music charts. Trolling the folk categories on these
sites quickly turns up one very familiar name—Byrd man and 12-string
master Roger McGuinn (his home page is at www.mcguinn.com). It turns
out that the Web is basically his only "label" these days.
"I don’t have any CDs on the brick-and-mortar market," he
says, "except the Byrds reissues, and people who buy those will
want the liner notes and artwork." The Web, he feels, offers "a
great opportunity to distribute music without the usual obstacles presented
by traditional record companies. As an artist I have total control of
my product from recording to selling." And the Web keeps him connected
with fans old and new. "A lot of people under 20 are tuned to the
MP3 revolution," he offers. "I get lots of positive email
from them."
On the other end of the name-recognition scale is Robin Hackett, a
New York–based singer-songwriter whose music can be found on MP3.com
as well as Playhere.com, Multientertainment.com radio, Rollingstone.com
and Liverecords.com. In all these places, she wisely makes the most
of being a finalist in the Lilith Fair talent search by treating it
as part of her name—so that in every artist list it says "Robin
Hackett 1999 Lilith Fair Finalist." Not only are her songs popular
downloads, but Hackett is, as they say, moving some product (actually,
in this age the proper phrase would be moving some content).
"MP3 was the first place I went to with my CD," she says.
"I’ve never done a pressing myself. The D.A.M. CD sale money [D.A.M.
is MP3.com’s CD format] will finance my pressing of CDs that I will
sell when I start touring more." And how many sales are we really
talking about? "I have sold over 300 in five months," she
says. "I consider it successful because people are buying my music
from Maine to California to Europe, Japan, the Fiji Islands, Hong Kong,
Iceland, and Brazil. I would have never gotten to these people had it
not been for the Internet. I have received tons of fan mail--very enthusiastic
people wanting me to perform where they live."
Hackett’s success extends to other mediums. "I have gotten on
80 radio stations across the U.S., I have been contacted by record labels,
and I’ve been in four magazines [now five!], gotten on national television,
and gotten gigs through the Internet. It’s more than I expected. I would
advise anyone to do it.
"The Internet has caused me to rethink my career goals,"
she adds. "I feel as though it is almost possible to be my own
label or be able to strike up a different type of deal with a label
that doesn’t involve me, the artist, ending up with two percent profit."
An even more impressive case study is provided by Slainte, a Celtic
band based in Tacoma, Washington. Slainte got onto MP3.com early on
(in Internet time, that’s the end of ’98), the tracks got popular, and
when I checked in with mandolin and bouzouki player Jean Huskamp, the
band had been averaging 1,000 free downloads a day on MP3.com for nine
months; during this period they sold more than 600 D.A.M. CDs to, he
says, "essentially every industrialized country." (Note that
because the artists have no product cost for D.A.M. CDs, they are priced
from $5.99 to $15—the artist picks the price.)
So how did this happen to a good but not highly unusual Celtic band
that does no national touring? "Well, I’ve thought a lot about
this," says Huskamp, "and I think, although it sounds paradoxical,
it’s because we put out such a large quantity of cuts for free download
that we’ve sold so many D.A.M. CDs. My thought at the beginning ran
something like this: we’ve had this self-published CD out for more than
a year, we’ve sold about a thousand copies at gigs and through personal
contacts, we don’t tour and have no distribution--why not put our music
out for people who otherwise would never hear us? Because we had so
many tracks out there early in MP3.com’s history, we had a proportionately
large number of downloads which, I expect, were noticed by the MP3.com
folks, who started featuring our songs on first- and second-level pages
as well as including ‘Star of the County Down’ on the first 103 Best
Songs You’ve Never Heard compilation. Our music was included, as
one of only 16 cuts, on the CD that accompanied the July 1999 Macworld
magazine and is on the CD of the Complete Idiot’s Guide to MP3 book.
"I went down to the MP3 summit in June and heard two anecdotes
in keynote addresses that confirmed my feeling about giving it away.
They’re both from John Perry Barlow, the sometime Grateful Dead lyricist.
He was consulting with a band in Australia who wanted to Make It. He
suggested making their music available as free downloads, and they said,
‘But folks will rip us off!’ ‘Your problem,’ he replied, ‘is that you’re
not being ripped off enough!’
"The second story concerns the Grateful Dead. They really did
not like the bootleg tape business at the beginning. They actually discussed
trying to stop it but realized how bad it would look if they were busting
their fans. So they actively supported taping and tape trading through
newsletters, bulletin boards, announcements, etc. Before they supported
tape trading, Barlow said, they were performing in American Legion halls;
afterwards, they became second only possibly to the Rolling Stones as
the most popular touring band in the world. They became huge by giving
it away."
Banjo and slide wizard Tony Furtado, whose music is often featured
on Liquidaudio.com and other sites, also extols the virtues of Web-traded
bootlegs. "I think discussion groups and tape trading are a huge
benefit to touring musicians right now--possibly the best thing,"
he says. "It may be free distribution of live shows that the artist
should receive royalties for, but so what? These people tend to buy
the real CDs anyway, and [taping] has helped me and my band gain a bigger
fan base around the whole country. Two other examples of this working
great for (Boulder) bands: String Cheese Incident and Leftover
Salmon."
THE PRICE OF FREEDOM
Other musicians hold a more skeptical view of what it means—or potentially
means—to give recorded music away. Matthew Montfort, guitarist for the
veteran world-fusion band Ancient Future, is very active on the Web.
The band has a popular presence on www.MP3.com,
www.Riffage.com,
and other sites, as well as an extensive, well-traveled site at www.ancient-future.com
that includes not just band promo but educational pages on such things
as African, Balinese, and Indian rhythms, plus a world-music links page
and message board.
As for audio downloads, Montfort says, "We offer MP3 (I call MP3
better than cassette, but not CD quality) and Real Audio 3.0 (very poor
quality sound but more compatible and with a smaller file size than
Real Media). Some songs are 30-second clips, some are full length, and
some are edited shorter versions for Internet distribution. We have
both a free MP3 page and an MP3 donation page with more files available
that people choose a donation amount for access to. The current ratio
of paid orders to free downloads (including both CD sales and pay-for-access
downloads) is one paid order per 600 free downloads. I’m told that this
is actually a very high sales ratio compared to the normal one sale
per 2,000 free downloads that MP3.com artists are quoting. It appears
that most people just want free music and don’t care about supporting
the music."
Still, Montfort adds, total Web sales do slightly more than cover the
costs of running his site. "I look at it as the only form of advertising
I’ve found in 20 years of Ancient Future history that actually pays
for itself. I don’t look at it as a viable retail store at present,
although I have hopes for the future provided that the public
can be educated to buy direct from the artists instead of from middleman
sites like Amazon.com. If that battle is lost, then musicians will be
no better off after the changes brought about by the Internet than they
were before."
Montfort sounds a similar note of caution about the Web free-for-all.
"What I am concerned about is the amount of free music available
on the Net. The effect of the MP3.com charts is to encourage artists
to send out emails begging their fans to download their music for free
so that it will rise in the charts. This is having the effect of making
music worth nothing. Music is already too inexpensive, with CD prices
based on the costs of manufacturing, distribution, and advertising but
not considering the effort of the artists who must pay all production
costs out of a very small royalty percentage."
BACK IN REAL TIME
It’s very seductive to believe in the Web as a vehicle for instant
fame and fortune, clicked into existence out of thin air, and indeed
the experiences of a musician like Robin Hackett prove that the Web
can put an unknown artist on the map. But for most musicians,
the mileage they get from this new medium directly correlates with their
activities down here on Mother Earth—playing music for people in real
time. That’s certainly the case for Joel Mabus, a versatile guitarist
and singer-songwriter based in Michigan who maintains a limited but
effective Web presence supporting his CDs and gigs. "I have a Web
site at Songs.com where people can read my bio, sample my music, and
order if they wish," he says. "I think Songs.com is wonderful
for the acoustic songwriter, which is sort of its niche. Also Waterbug.com
handles my CDs, and Elderly Instruments [www.elderly.com] sells a lot
of my product. The Internet sales are way behind my mail-order sales
and way behind off-the-stage sales, but it has been picking up over
the last two years.
"I have one song at the MP3 site," he adds. "What I
have heard in MP3 is still a long way from CD quality. Maybe someday
downloading individual tracks will be a viable system for critical listeners.
But my audience in the folk music world are not ‘early adopters,’ and
I don’t see the clamor for this technology yet.
"I have had work come my way via the Internet, but only as a channel
of communication. It is rare that someone first hears me on the Internet—I
can think of only one instance. However, folks who hear me on
the radio or saw me at a festival have then found me on
the Web and then have ordered CDs--that is fairly common. The Web is
the Yellow Pages these days. It’s where people let their fingers
do the walking. It is where you need to be if you want to be taken seriously."
When I ask Mabus what role he thinks the Web will play in his
music career in five years, he provides a bit of futuristic vision along
with a decidedly human perspective, which is often lost among all the
breathless hype about the virtual frontier. "Five years is an eternity
in cyberspace," he says. "Who knows what the next technology
will be? Digital radio is on the horizon. Solid-state delivery systems
would solve a lot of problems, especially in car audio. Twenty-five
years ago my prediction was that someday you would walk up to a vending
machine, stick in a dollar, and get a little capsule. Break the capsule
in two, stick half in each ear, and get to hear a song exactly five
times, when the capsule would self destruct. We’re getting close to
that now.
"I still believe that most people are thirsting for simplicity
and the humanity they find missing in their everyday lives. More than
ever there is a place for a simple human voice and a wooden guitar speaking
truth. A technology that makes itself invisible--that reveals the ‘goods’
without becoming the focus of attention itself--that is the technology
that will succeed."
Excerpted from Acoustic Guitar magazine,
June 2000, No. 90.
