[Fmpro] art vs. craft

[info]

I find the line between art and craft a little less distinct and the division of music into the categories from "more valuable" to "less valuable" a little less obvious. Art is not something that can be defined apart from it's relationship to culture. And value cannot be decided in the vacuum apart from market. 

I personally prefer music by intelligent, educated, creative composers like ourselves over music by those dirty rotten stupid scoundrel low-life loopers. I have the right to make that kind of judgment for myself, but neither you nor I can legitimately say for the remaining individuals in our culture that the music made by you and I is valuable art and that music made by loopers is invaluable crap (Ooops, I mean craft). Part of the definition of Art is that it touches humanity. We don't get to speak for humanity. We only get to raise our own individual voice as to whether a particular piece touches us or not. 

It's a bitter pill, but there is some level on which repetitive hip-hopping loopers are touching humanity that we are not, regardless of how little they had to work at it or how little they had to learn in order to do it. 

Now, brothers and sisters, it's time for you to raise your voices and confess with me, "Yes, Doug, I once worked for months on a piece of music bringing all my efforts and background and education and sensitivity to the project, and, dang it, no matter what I did, that piece just wound up as garbage. Then oddly enough, I remember another piece that I just threw together in an hour and for some reason that piece just sparked with everyone who heard it." C'mon, confess, you know you've all been there! 

Regarding value, value from who's perspective? The purchasing individual or the music provider? If choosing to vacation at a resort in Cancun or at the Ramada down the street, I would choose the resort. Oh, wait. You mean the resort is going to be much more expensive?!?!? Well, maybe the Ramada down the street doesn't look so bad then. In order to make that decision, I'll need to convert some of the sweat off my brow into greenbacks, then balance that expenditure of sweat against other things I could buy, whether rent, groceries or leisure. As an individual, I'll measure the value of each of my vacation choices against the value of all other things I might value. 

Here's the deal. Like most music buyers, my brow only produces so much sweat. Even if I decide that the resort in Cancun is "better" or "preferable", I may decide that I get more "value" at the Ramada up the street. As it turns out, the percentage of humanity that "values" the Ramada more is much larger than the percentage that "values" the resort more, even though we would probably all still agree that the resort is "better". Even the owner of the Ramada and the owner of the resort would probably agree that, from their perspective as vacation providers, it takes much more sweat to provide an individual with the resort experience than it does to provide the Ramada experience. 

Like the Ramada owner, the loopers serve a very large market that is very easy to find. Like the resort owners, we thoughtful, creative composers serve a very tiny niche which is very difficult to find. In a perfect world, composers would be like the doctors and plumbers mentioned earlier, we would offer great expensive value that the masses could not ignore. Unfortunately, we don't. We may argue until the cows come home that we "deserve" more pay than the loopers (i.e. we are more valuable from our provider perspective). But we will not be paid more because of the niche we have chosen and because of the difficulty of identifying the small segment of humanity that values us more than loopers.  

Through a pretty simple mechanism like the yellow pages, the plumber can form a direct relationship with the person whose brow sweats. Through that one customer he can pay for his time expended and even recoup a little of the previously unrecompensed sweat that brought about his experience (where to put the hole). Because our little market niche is tiny and scattered, we are doomed to the folderol that comprises many of the topics on this list: PROs, unions, copyright law, tip lists, etc. We simply cannot exchange sweat one-for-one with our customers the way the plumber can and our brand of thoughtful art is too expensive for the masses.    

Of course, having said all this is not to minimize the very real problems that all these income gathering layers cause for us. 

I definitely haven't found my market yet, but I'll keep looking!

Later, 

Doug Gallob