A quick one: We’re in one of those phases of doomerism about the future— not of liberal democracy in the face of an ascendant techno-fascist kleptocracy, or of the planet as a livable place for […]
Category: music business
Best books: The Drummer’s/Musician’s Lifeline
Looking at two little books co-authored by Peter Erskine and Dave Black— The Drummer’s Lifeline, and The Musician’s Lifeline, subtitled, respectively, as Quick Fixes, Hacks, And Tips Of The Trade, and Advice For All Musicians, […]
A worthless waste of time, so give it to me free
Vacancy Something sure to irritate and offend you, I’m afraid: an article written by someone named Joakim Book, Music Has No Economic Value. It’s all about how music has no economic value, because Spotify devalued […]
Very occasional quote of the day: getting fired
“There’s been times when I was fired from gigs because, lets say I had the ability to get my foot in the door, but wasn’t living up to the expectations that people had. In that […]
Buy records: a screed
Go to places like this and buy things. I was half an hour early for an appointment with Tim at Cymbal & Gong— picking out a career ride cymbal for one of my students— so […]
Ordinary
“Oh! How ordinawy.” A little bit of an business/economics side track here: In the USA the word ordinary is rarely a compliment. It’s usually taken to mean unexceptional, uninteresting, not that good. It’s not a […]
Protecting your business
Maybe not. This is a situation I had recently, which is common for teachers working with music stores, teaching studios, or other services. Many of those businesses require teachers to sign contracts to keep them […]
Jazz RUINED MY LIFE and other red-blooded tales
this is what jazz does to you Apparently there is a blog called JAZZ RUINED MY LIFE that is not written by the Napoleon Dynamite guy. It’s about [cue mournful saxophone]: The long drives; the […]
Hackwork
Apropos of no particular part of this post, these are remarkably similar to many drum teachers I’ve encountered. A short beef about the nature of teaching. Maybe I should’ve included this in my recent post, […]
Negotiating for prostitutes
Not to hire one, to be one— good not to have too many illusions about our economic place in society, as musicians. From the Quartz web site, an excellent piece on business negotiation as practiced […]
Laughable myth, or laughable math?
Click here if youcan’t enlarge this So here we have a piece called The 17 Most Laughable Myths Of The Music Industry, by blogger Ari Herstand. It’s mostly OK, except for laughable myth number 3, […]
Your bio sucks. My bio sucks.
OBLIGATORY TENUOUSLY-RELATED IMAGE AND CAPTION: Boilerplate should never be anything but a creepy, late-Victorian, steampunkish, fictional robot in your life— it has NO PLACE in your bio! Via Ted Gioia on Twitter, here’s a good piece […]