Posted by Andrew Wasson
Wednesday, November 4, 2015
by Bobby Borg
No one can know for sure what awaits the music industry in the near future – especially after witnessing how quickly new technology has changed the traditional music business in just the past five years.
But with that being said, you'll probably still find the following predictions by various leading music industry professionals interesting, and at least somewhat accurate.
So, what can we expect in the year 2020? Let’s see what this group of attorneys, music publishers, managers, and music industry entrepreneurs had to say.
1. Copyright laws will catch up with new trends and technologies
"Several trends have emerged and will continue to emerge as the music business evolves into a service-based business. More and more people are tuning in to all-you-can-listen streaming programs like Spotify and Rdio.
"In this same vein, younger fans want all of their content to be accessible on all of their devices, but do not care whether they own the content or not. They also want the opportunity to interact with the music they listen to, be it through remixes, mash-ups, or fan videos on YouTube. Unfortunately, our copyright laws are antiquated and do not allow these trends to develop.
"Over the next five to 10 years, I think we will see an overhaul of the United States' copyright system. I also expect to see artists further expanding their brands into nontraditional revenue streams. Soon, fans will be able to surround themselves almost entirely with their favorite artists through branded products, multi-media projects, and other avenues we have not even begun to explore yet." – Dina LaPolt, LaPolt Law, P.C.
2. Focus will shift to exciting music – not the latest technical trends
"Good music will always be the future, whether it be 2015, 2020, or 2025. When jazz arrived on the scene, it was controversial, exciting, and real – as was rock, rap, and EDM. It propelled the business forward and gave it life. But what's next?
"The year 2020 must be marked by a new direction in music that shakes up the world and puts the focus back on the art and the creators – not on the latest technical trend. Who cares about downloads, streaming, or whatever new technology is invented? In 2020, music will shine again! Those who create something unique will thrive." – Mike Gormley, LA Personal Management; former manager of the Bangles, Oingo Boingo, and Danny Elfman 3. Success will be earned on your own, DIY style "By the year 2020, the world will be saturated with music. There will still be superstars whose music has reached the masses through the efforts of a support team, but the vast majority of musicians will have to achieve success on their own.
"The good news is that technology is making that possible. Successful DIY musicians will be skilled in using social media and analytics to connect with their fans and fund their projects; partnering with products and services companies for branding and advertising campaigns; licensing their music for film, television, games, ads, etc.; leveraging relationships with electronic media as part of their marketing strategy; and booking and promoting their tours and concerts, all with an ultimate goal of getting their music into the ears of the curators of the outlets for consumption, which will exist in business models that are still emerging.
"Cutting through the clutter will be a challenge, but great music combined with an entrepreneurial spirit and a lot of hard work will be the winning formula." – Don Gorder, Chair and Founder, Music Business/Management Department, Berklee College of Music
4. Affordable DIY services that capture new revenue streams will emerge
"Many recent music industry trends have not been favorable toward artists and songwriters: we’ve gone from selling CDs for $10 to downloads for 99 cents to streams for under half a penny. This has made it more difficult for artists to monetize their music.
"As a consequence, independent artists and songwriters will become more conscious of how to leverage their intellectual property into alternate revenue streams. You will see many more companies offering affordable services to DIY artists to capture performance royalties, internet royalties, mechanical royalties, YouTube royalties, sync licensing for film, TV, games, and commercials. Each of these incremental revenue streams will be small, but in the aggregate they will become a needle-moving part of the artist’s revenue mix." – Tony van Veen, CEO, AVL Digital Group, CD Baby, Disc Makers
5. Success will be driven by touring and merch
"As the record business is further eroded by 'free music,' it will reach its decline and the postmodern record industry will be cut to its knees.
"In 2020, instead of record sales determining the success of an artist, live performance will dictate the value of an act. Merchandising will also become a high art form. Only those with a great live act and a memorable and distinct brand will survive." – John Hartmann, former manager of Peter, Paul and Mary; Crosby, Stills and Nash; America; Poco; the Eagles What do you think the music industry will look like in 2020? Post in the comments!
Bobby Borg is the author of Business Basics for Musicians: The Complete Handbook From Start to Success
Welcome to... "Micro-Lesson 224" This Micro Lesson works through a fast paced, "Neo-Classical," style guitar lick from the key of, "F Minor."
The lick begins with an ascending and descending, "Fm7," arpeggio. This arpeggio leads to another with an immediate shift up the neck into a "Gm7(b5)" arpeggio that plays through up to the 2nd guitar string.
Once up at the upper string, we get a portion of the key signatures scale with, "F Natural Minor," scale entering to promote a collection of tones from the key.
However, the next phrase resolves into the, "E Natural," tone on 3rd string ninth fret, (borrowed from the, "F Harmonic Minor," scale). This scale promotes an effect which is the corner-stone of the Neo-Classical sound.
In the harmony we find a recurring theme of the tonic chord, "Fm," played against the Major or Dominant 7th V-chord. This works out to being either the, "C Major," (as seen in measure one). Or, the V-chord also showing as, "C7," (as seen in measure two).
Play the phrase slower at first. Memorize the ideas and build the phase around accuracy and clean execution. Use a metronome to build speed. Enjoy!
You love guitars... That's why you're on this blog!
But sometimes love and hate are two sides of the same coin. And when it comes to life as a guitarist, there are many, many annoyances and petty grievances that can ruin our day.
As we all know, keeping these sorts of things bottled up is never good. In fact, if you don't vent your frustrations, there's every chance you'll garrotte your way into the record books with a set of Super Slinkys.
And so, with that in mind, here are some thoughts on the 10 worst things about being a guitarist. This is a safe place. Give in to your anger. You'll feel better for it, honest…
1. The cost
Do you like money? Then don't bother learning the guitar. Like high-performance cars or "class A" drugs, guitars are an addiction that is practically impossible to shake.
G.A.S.* is a very real, very troubling part of being a guitarist. It dictates that no matter how many guitars, amps, pedals and assorted straps, picks, and God only knows what else you have, there is always the itch to buy more.
It is frighteningly easy to sink thousands upon thousands of your currency of choice into guitars. It's never-ending, it's expensive, and we absolutely bloody love it. Our wallets, on the other hand, aren't so keen…
*G.A.S. - Gear Acquisition Syndrome. It's a real thing.
2. The constant feeling of inferiority
Are you the best guitarist on your street? You might think you are, but that dentist that lives at house number 42... He'll shred your face off. And the little girl you see dragging a case to school that's bigger that she is? An actual classical genius who has been playing since she was three weeks old.
You see, no matter how much you practice, or how good you think you are, there's always someone faster, flashier or simply more talented. It's bloody infuriating, and enough to make you go all Return Of The Jedi and burn your gear on a pyre while Ewoks dance around chanting.
3. Being asked to play the same songs all. The. Damn. Time.
Do you know Wonderwall? Of course you do. Everybody does. People who accidentally rubbed up against a guitar once and then never saw one again know how to play Wonderwall. And yet, people at parties, at jam sessions, at gigs, even in your own damn home, will ask you to play it for the rest of your life.
The repeated requests of the same dozen songs are a burden that all guitarists must carry, and boy if it doesn't make our blood boil away until we're nothing but a screaming skin-bag of bone clutching a G chord capoed at the second fret.
4. Practicing until you are nothing but HATE
It's drilled into every guitarist that the only way to get good is practice, practice, practice. And that's fine - really, it is - because you learn all sorts of valuable life lessons from applying yourself to something. But in reality, there's no quicker way to obliterate your favorite solo that to listen to it for weeks, in .005 second increments, until you've learned it.
You'll encounter frustration, boredom, anger, and finally a deep and burning hatred. The thing you love will destroy you, leaving you nothing but a shell of the guitarist you were - albeit a guitarist that can play Little Wing absolutely flawlessly.
5. Everybody thinks they're a guitarist
If you've ever bought a guitar along to any sort of social gathering, you'll be familiar with the three-chord wonder. They're the other guitarist at the party, and they cannot wait to get their weirdly sweaty hands on your guitar. They learned two songs 15 years ago and cannot wait to show them off.
And because it's a party and you don't want to be a total dick, you'll let them have a go on your guitar, and they'll get the same amount of applause that you got - you, an actual guitarist who plays every day and is in bands and everything, and they'll give your guitar back and it feels all clammy and wrong and somehow evil, and oh God, why does everybody think they're a guitarist?
6. The endless competition
Secretly, every guitarist is in a fight to the death with every other guitarist. It may only go on in our minds, but the struggle is real and it is violent.
You'll recognize this affliction: every time you see another guitarist play, you look for flaws: you ridicule their gear (in your head only, of course - you're not an animal); you mock their musical taste; you find faults with their technique, their tone, their style.
Go on, admit it. You'll feel better. And it's okay, because every other guitarist you know goes through the exact same thing when they watch you play. It's exhausting, it really is.
7. Awful guitar shops
There's nothing quite as infuriating as being patronized by "Guitar Shop Man." If you're over 30 and gainfully employed, you are basically dead to these shark-eyed examples of anti-customer service.
Do they care that you've been playing guitar longer than they've been alive? That you know more about pre-war Gibson archtops than anyone else on the planet? That you were into the bands they think are cool the first time that was the case? ...They do not.
Throw in crippling anxiety about playing in a shop full of people very obviously judging you, and the complete lack of accurate information about gear and pricing, and you've got a perfectly hellish experience. Thanks, terrible guitar shops.
8. Forming a band
Where on God's green earth are all the drummers? Because we are swimming in guitarists. They're everywhere, and they are trying to form bands, just like you.
Getting a band together is a torturous process at the best of times, but for a guitarist it means endlessly telling other similarly frustrated guitarists that no, you don't need a third six-stringer in your band.
And even if, by some miracle, you do end up assembling a ragtag bunch of musical desperado's, you will spend most rehearsals arguing with the other guitarist about who plays the solos, while surreptitiously turning yourself up in a volume war that can only end in tinnitus for all.
9. The need for speed
Over the years, the ability to play flurries of notes at blinding speed has become a defining measurement of a guitarist's ability. We're not sure why - BB King could do more with one note than most of us can do with a thousand - but still, the myth that speed equals excellence persists.
We can admit that shredding is impressive, in the same way that, say, a ridiculously over-powered car is impressive. But like the super-car, shredding is rarely of any practical use in the real world - and yet the tyranny of uber-fast fretting remains. When will the madness stop?
10. Bad guitars For anyone who has invested a decent amount of their life lusting after, buying and then lovingly maintaining guitars, an encounter with an "odd-shaped /el-cheap-o /weird guitar," (that you don't like immediately upon seeing), is like a slap in the face. There's the badly finished frets, the dodgy electrics, a neck shaped like a question mark - these are but a fraction of the issues that will invoke biblical anger in any guitar aficionado.
We're not sure what's worse: the cheap, poorly built guitar doomed from birth, or the decent-but-abused instrument with its ancient rusty strings, buzzing frets and thick layer of finger-sludge on the fret-board. Either way, it's the stuff of actual nightmares.
Welcome to... "Micro-Lesson 223" This Micro Lesson works across a quick Double-Picking Guitar Riff in the key of "E Minor."
The riff is applying the common sound of "Double-Picking." This involves performing almost every note found within the structure of the riff twice. With each note getting played two times we really pump up the feel of the part and generate a very driving feel at the same time.
The riff in our example is from the key of, "E Minor." It begins upon the low open 6th guitar string and moves across several tones of the "E" Minor Pentatonic Scale.
The idea for this riff focuses on the center area of the fingerboard with frets 5th through 9th being our range up to the 4th string. Watch for the hold of the 7th fret "E" tone over the bar line into second measure.
Take your time developing speed as this type of playing requires a very concise picking hand to be able to track the notes when double-picking the part. Enjoy!
Being able to recognize intervals is paramount. To any trained instrumentalist, it means you can hear a melody once and immediately translate it to your instrument without too much trial and error. If you're a composer or a songwriter, it means you can hear a song in your head and put it down on paper without even having an instrument in front of you.
Basically, recognizing intervals is a key part of gaining fluency as a musician. For those lucky devils with perfect pitch, it's a cakewalk. For everyone else, it's one of the most difficult things to learn. Which is why you need to start remembering intervals by associating them with popular melodies that you already have memorized.
Below is a list of common intervals and some of the recognizable melodies you can associate them with. (By the way, all of these are ascending intervals).
Minor Second: Theme from Jaws The minor second is your quintessential evil villain approach sound Рmostly because John Williams made it so. This interval will now forever be enshrined as the two bassy notes that signify a shark's about to get you. Major Second: "Happy Birthday" The major second is all over the place, but I like to use the second and third notes of "Happy Birthday" The first note and second notes are the same, so it's really that difference between "py" and "bir" that you're looking for. Other examples include the first two notes of "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer" and "Fr̬re Jacques."
Minor Third: "Greensleeves" Christmas songs always end up being popular examples of these intervals because so many of us know them. The first two notes of "Greensleeves" provide all your minor third needs (and yes, the rhyme will help you remember).
Major Third: "When the Saints Go Marching In" The major third is a common happy-song sound, so you hear it in a lot of feel-good songs. I like to use the first two notes of "When the Saints Go Marching In," but the first two notes of "Kumbaya" are another good example. Perfect Fourth: "Here Comes the Bride" "Here Comes the Bride" reminds me of my days in the orchestra trying to find where third position is (shout-out to my orchestra nerds). That first leap in the melody is so recognizable – it's a really easy one to remember. Other examples include "O, Christmas Tree" and "Amazing Grace." Tritone: "The Simpson's TV Show Theme" The tritone is one of those nutty intervals that people used to believe was spawned by the devil because it's so uncommon and dissonant. Naturally, Leonard Bernstein used it as the basis for almost every theme in West Side Story. (Take Soundfly's companion course created with Carnegie Hall to learn more on the topic). You can hear the tritone most obviously in the song "Maria" in the first two syllables of her name ("Mar-i"). Another easy one is the opening notes of The Simpsons' theme. In both cases, it leads right into the next note because it's such an unstable interval.
Perfect Fifth: "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star"
It's hard to forget a perfect fifth when you think of the opening notes of "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star."
Minor Sixth: "The Entertainer"
The main melody of "The Entertainer" starts with two pick-up notes that are minor seconds, and then bounces on three minor sixth intervals in a row that are super memorable.
Major Sixth: NBC theme The first two notes of this iconic theme give you a major sixth in about as explicit fashion as you could ask for. The other one I sometimes use is "My Bonnie Lies Over the Ocean."
Minor Seventh: "Somewhere"
Not surprisingly, we're stuck on West Side Story. The classic song "Somewhere" is built around the leap of a minor seventh in the first two notes of the melody. That reaching feeling the interval creates helps establish the dreamy, aspirational quality that's at the heart of the piece.
Major Seventh: "Take On Me"
The major seventh is another slightly dissonant interval that asks for resolution. The chorus of the '80s classic "Take On Me" by A-ha starts with a soaring major seventh interval ("Take-on") before resolving to the octave ("me").
Octave: "Somewhere Over the Rainbow"
Octaves are one of the easier intervals to pinpoint – you sing the same note, but higher. Nevertheless, it can be easier said than done, so here are the first two notes of "Somewhere Over the Rainbow" to help you remember.
Welcome to... "Micro-Lesson 222" This Micro Lesson works through a "Soul R&B" style rhythm guitar riff in the key of "A Minor."
The riff starts out from the 5th position using a fifth-string root, "Dm7" chord, (the IV-chord from the key of "A" Minor). The initial attack upon this chord applies a hammer-on idea using the 3rd and 2nd fingers on the 4th and 2nd guitar strings. After these embellishments we find a Pentatonic Scale run going across the 4th through 2nd strings with embellishments using hammer-on, pull-off and slide concepts.
In measure two, the Tonal Center chord of "Am7" enters and uses another Pentatonic Scale line to connect it back into the "Dm7" IV-chord. The final measure after the repeat takes us into the turnaround phrase which uses an "Fmaj7" chord into an "Em7."
These are the "VI-chord and the "V-chord" of this key. The V-chord creates a popular sounding turnaround back into the top of the riff. Take your time if these chords are new for you. the fingerings can be somewhat challenging.
Use a metronome or drum machine to build the time and the feel. Enjoy!
This week's GuitarBlog covers a collection of ideas and exercises for improving your overall Guitar Technique.
Playing single-notes on the guitar requires excellent left and right hand coordination. The pick attack has to be well placed and the left-hand needs to be well developed for where each finger has to go. If either hand has technique issues, there are going to be problems with accuracy, note clarity and it will be difficult to build speed.
In this lesson I will run through a series of concepts and on-the-neck technique exercises that guitar players can work on to start getting better left and right hand control, better coordination and ideas for how to increase speed. Enjoy!
