April 20, 2009

Why am I here? Naïve foreword.

For me there are many reasons to think about the subject they call “music economy” or “economics of music”. The first two of them (the reasons) are very personal: I’ve always been in love with music of some kind and I do economics for living, so the blend of words “music” and “economics” seems very natural for me. But there are other, non-personal reasons for thinking about the subject.

First is – music is a rare kind of good you can’t escape unless you’re deaf. You might like it or not, but while you are shopping or passing an open window of somebody’s car and you hear a song, or sometimes even a symphony, you are consuming some of that precious music. Fortunately for you, and maybe unfortunately for the record-bosses, one has to catch you listening to that copyrighted material to make you pay, especially if you hate what you hear. Now unfortunately for you, and maybe fortunately for record-guys, they make you pay anyway by listening the ads. Yet it doesn’t change my point – there is only one other “good” that would catch you even if you don’t want it too, and it’s a smell, good or bad.

Second – music is one of good indicators of cultural life as a whole. If you listen to the “music-through-time” you can notice dramatic changes. The Dumas-Musketryan time French music is hard to enjoy and hard to understand for a modern ear, while Bach is already ok. And I really don’t think that Bach would understand what all the modern compositions are about even if we’d give him some “new classics”. The other side of this “cultural” approach is the pattern of social roles taken by average musician\composer: servant – intellectual – pop-star.

Third, and I’d like to stop here for now, is the fact that music is one of the industries undergoing a rapid change right now. It’s being shaped by new media and new philosophy at the same time. 

Why it came to the point of change and what’s going to happen next. That’s what I want to understand. I don’t know much on the subject (yet) and want to fix my steps in learning it here. And I hope to get some help through discussing the subject with anyone who’s interested.

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