The Open Ears gig last night was quite successful, for two reasons. The first reason was that the music was REALLY GREAT! And secondly the artists did a really good job of getting their fans to know about the show, and to show up. They did well at the door, and he sold a reasonable number of CDs.

My question of “are we entitled to make a living from our art” is really asking, why some people think they should be paid well for doing something that creates no monetary value? The real estate brokers get their 6% because they provide a service that we value. When we contract a real estate agent, we agree to pay them 6%.

Similarly, when someone hires me to provide the service of playing trombone, we agree beforehand what I will be paid. If I do not like the terms, I don’t do the gig.

When I am trying to sell my art, it is a different scene than when I am selling my services as a trombonist. As an artist, it is up to me (or my team) to create the value. The most important part of that equation is to make art that is good. Then we must find and connect with an audience that will dig what we do. For those of us who make niche art, we need to be prepared to deal with that fact that sometimes that audience is small.

I’m not saying we shouldn’t try to grow our audience, but I am saying that we shouldn’t go to a city where we are barely known, play for 20 people, then complain that we didn’t make $500.

I think this question really breaks down into two unrelated questions:
“if my work is making money for other people, should they be required to share the revenue with me, and how much?”
“what kind of artists do we want to have as a society?”

The first question suggests that, like various other professions, perhaps there should be legal minimum requirements for any performance. Or not: most regulated professions require official licenses, and since any licensing scheme would raise freedom of speech issues, and bad music is unlikely to meet the standard of a compelling public interest, it’s hard to see the gov’t getting involved. It is also untenable from the union angle, since there is no penalty for hiring non-union. Maybe there is a workable way to have a “musicians’ minimum wage”, I don’t know. We could consider that any sales occurring while a musician is playing are subject to a legally mandated commission, set at statutory rates for food, drink, and cover charges. This may be possible (at the state/local level), but of course whether it would be wise is another matter. One thing I don’t understand is the Musicians’ Union’s failure to have solidarity agreements in place with other Unions.

The second is something we answer collectively as individuals vote with their dollars. It seems that the music industry is currently echoing society at large in that the erosion of the middle class in favor of the rich and poor is similar to the division between music “stars” and nobodies. People have in general decided to treat musicians as if we are all looking for our “big break”, so we should do everything for free until some tipping point when we will be rich and famous—it’s a winner-take-all mentality that treats musicians not as professionals but like people who decided to play some idiotic lottery. The idea of being a working musician, that all the day in, day out work is our work and should be paid—this has lost currency in the popular understanding of what we do. A TV show recently asked me to provide a weekly house band, with no budget. That they even ask that is indicative of the poisoned mentality I am talking about.

I don’t have any answers, either, but thanks for asking the questions and starting the conversation!