your doctor had to work at a cafe to subsidise their wage?
Imagine a world without musicians.
A world where generative AI creates music according to the algorithms of what we like. A beige supermarket of our bias. I wonder how we even know what we like, if we only hear what an algorithm identifies what we like. It’s like being dressed by your mother, forever. Where are the doors to sublime new experiences? The revelation? The inspiration? Where is the moment of wonder? Where is the magic of discovery?
Discovery is facing extinction. It’s something we used to have. It was called a gig guide. It was called music programs on Radio National. It was called print media. Music magazines. Rolling Stone. Time Out. It was little festivals. Big festivals. Pop-up events. It was country halls. It was inner-city pubs. It was artists selling CDs at the end of the show. Now we have Spotify. Music that takes from artists and pays the platform. How do we find out what’s happening? Where the new releases are? What bands are breaking? What to see? Does a Facebook event really compare to five minutes on Countdown? How do we find artists we might love if the algorithm won’t show us?
And if we don’t find the music that we resonate with then what happens to us?
Musicians are our emotional avatars. There are songs that have saved me. There are songs that have woken me up. There are songs that have held my hand. There are songs that made me cry. They find us in our despair and tell us we are not alone. They understand heartbreak. They speak to our liminal spaces.
Musicians are integral to our social cohesion. Pubs are boring without music. So why are musos doing it so tough? And why aren’t we being more innovative to stop the attrition?
In an annual poll of 550 musicians by the Media and Entertainment Arts Alliance (MEAA), the union that represents the creative sector, they found only 1 in 5 musicians make a full-time living from their music. Half of the entire cohort are earning less than $6,000 a year. Many musicians can’t focus properly on their craft because they have to focus on a ‘straight’ job to make a living. Imagine if your doctor had to work at a cafe to subsidise their wage?
Being a musician is expensive. You need space to make music. Kind of tricky in a housing crisis. You need equipment, and touring vehicles, rehearsal rooms, session players, public liability insurance, oversize luggage, PAs and sound engineers, recording studios, marketing plans, graphic artists, websites, photo shoots, and of course, you have to find time to make music. To play music. If you are only playing one gig a week then you aren’t going to be match fit.
Ireland is trialling the BIA. Basic Income for the Arts. It’s $545 per week to eligible creatives. They asked an obvious question… what would it look like if artists could give up their day job? It’s not a cost. It’s an investment in musicians and artists to dedicate to their craft. It’s not just for them. The musical capital would be enormous. It’s an investment in them AND an investment in us.
