Week 8 – on Steve Gordon’s The Future of the Music Business, chapters 11 – 13
Last semester’s course, Information Architecture, was a true eye-opener in the midst of a program that has otherwise been useful but predictable; to put it simply, academic libraries have been my life for the past six years (and continue to be), so although I’ve certainly learned from my coursework, nothing was remarkably new – until Information Architecture. Sure, I had a vague sense of the value of good web design, and I knew the frustration (as a user) that came from attempting to navigate poorly constructed, badly indexed, and unsearchable sites, but I had neither the language to describe the problems nor an appreciation for the complexity that underpins the most elegant and usable web presence. Information Architecture gave me those things—the language and the understanding of the breadth and depth of IA—and ever since, I’ve looked at the web environment through a completely different lens. It is interesting to see, then, the applicability once again of so many of the basic principles covered in Information Architecture referenced in chapters 11 through 13 of The Future of Music Business (especially chapter 11). Based on that background, much of what Gordon writes—and much of what those he interviews say—makes perfect sense. A few notions I found tremendously interesting is an apparent shift in perception of the internet; whereas internet sources have long suffered from a snobbish reduction to ‘invalid’ or ‘questionable’ by virtue of simply being available through the web rather than in a print form, Gordon (2008) comes out of the gates strong in defense of the internet, even going so far as to say that “a strong Web presence can lend credibility to a new artist’s profile” (p. 207). Apparently, in other words, sometimes the internet can actually provide credibility rather than its opposite, (depending on how professional the presence, I suppose). Also of tremendous use to the novice, I assume, is the list of what Gordon terms ‘jargon’ as well as the links to other relevant terms for any web presence. Much as we might read Girsberger’s Manual for the Performance Library as a manual, a quick-start guide to becoming a performance librarian, these later chapters of Gordon’s work have moved beyond explanation of the legal complexities and have actually taken the form of a how-to manual for musicians attempting to create, market and distribute their own product (their music and themselves). The range of options presented by Gordon—through his writing and interviews—provide choices for the lowest to highest budget (the range mapping neatly to how professionally outsourced a musician wants to make any or all components of music production, publicity, promotion, product manufacturing, sales, booking, and more), including a few do-it-for-you types of DIY options, (like the combination of services that might even be referred to as a suite through CD Baby/HostBaby).
References
Gordon, S. (2008). The future of the music business: How to succeed with the new digital technologies (2nd ed.). New York: Hal Leonard.
Week 8 – on Wikipedia’s Improvisation article, Musicovery site
Wikipedia – article on improvisation, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Improvisation : the most significant result from visiting this Wikipedia article was thinking of different forms of improvisation as fundamentally related, and often being premised on not only technical skill but also on a knowledge of the ‘idiom’ – whether this is applied to comedy, music, or other forms of production, it still suggests a baseline knowledge of both how to do something as well as a knowledge about something (knowledge of the common language, whatever form that may take).
Musicovery – http://musicover.com : although the selection of music played through Musicovery is severely limited, I have to admit that this is a dream product, (at least the ‘Mood Radio’ feature is). I’ve always considered music to be deeply tied to my feelings and moods – though I’ve never known if music was reflecting my own moods or influencing them, (perhaps both), I really love the simplicity of marking axes of happy/gloomy mood and energentic/calmness, and allowing some determination of coordinates to tie into the appropriate music. It may be telling that I played most with the ‘Dark’ side of the coordinate system, and was delighted (though in slight disagreement about the ‘darkness’) of the first pick being Soft Cell’s ‘Tainted Love,’ followed by many of my own (I thought) gloomiest picks, (Screamin’ Jay Hawkins, Nick Cave, Bryan Ferry, Nina Simone – this is my own miserable soundtrack!). I plan on sharing this widely with friends – thanks very much for sharing this with the class!
Week 8 – on Russ Girsberger’s A Manual for the Performance Library, (appendix, glossary, bibliography)
These three sections – an appendix filled with useful forms and references, a glossary filled with all relevant terminology for interacting with both the musicians being served by the library and fellow music (or performance) librarians, and a bibliography containing titles relevant to each key area in setting up and running a performance library—are an appropriate enough encapsulation of the value of this book. In short, if I were to walk into the responsibility of running a performance library with little to no specialized training, I absolutely believe I could follow this book chapter by chapter, step by step, and have a functional end product made from scratch. I doubt this manual—a more appropriate title would be an impossibility—will make an outstanding performance librarian, but my guess about that is that such excellence only comes with experience. It would, though, help any new performance librarian move through all of the necessary steps to do the actual work of the performance library and librarian, to get through the daily requirements without necessarily having any special knowledge up front. That it is part of the Music Library Association’s ‘Basic Manual Series’ makes perfect sense—I expect it is a required resource for any new performance librarian, (as it should be).