Is there a Miss Manners for jazz artist etiquette?
Last night, one of the New Orleans scene regulars told me that she had been listening to my CD recently and enjoying it. I said, “thank you.” She continued, telling me that she had burned a copy for her father in Vancouver and he loved it too.
What instinctively came out of my mouth was, “thanks, I’m glad he digs it.” I wanted to say, “you know I only charge $10 for them at the gigs, and this stuff doesn’t just appear for free, you could have bought him a copy, or hit iTunes, or even eMusic, and I would have gotten a little something to go towards paying this one off, or making the next one.” The rant continued much longer in my brain.
I have lots of free stuff on jeffalbert.com. I get the free thing, I understand that it is good to have people hear you. Is it too much to expect people to actually pay for the stuff that is for sale, or at least not tell you to your face that they are burning it and giving it away?
If it’s her dad, leave it alone. Really, any one-to-one thing like that, leave it alone.
One-to-many, that’s another story. See my comments at moneydown about that (google it).
Or also, I found this interesting.
(no preview, crossing fingers that link will work)
I feel the pain. I knew the whole sticking it to the Big Labels argument when people would be confronted with the independent direct compensation musician. I agree that they could learn some etiquette and just say “My dad digs it too!”
Like the site.