[microsound] strategies for getting music out

[stephen hastings-king <brainstone@xxxxxxxxx>]

list comrades:
i seldom post to this list, but find it quite enjoyable and informative. 
the collective in which i work is doing electro-acoustic work, in long 
formats, often working with poets.  but the question i have for you is   
not about what we are doing in sonic terms, however: rather it is more 
how we go about presenting our work to a public.  
given that we work as most of the list seems to in the area of 
"experimental" music, the questions we are trying to sort out would seem 
to be common to most folk here.

there is a preamble, and it is a little long, so please bear with me.

a few weeks ago there was a thread about the collapse of various 
distributors who had provided access to retail outlets for recordings 
made in this general field (experrymental sound).  the picture that 
emerged from it was quite bleak for anyone who had considered moving 
into music and out of the day job that surrently supports that music.

second, even if these distribution networks were intact, there is a 
second problem with copyright as it pertains to improvised music, a 
residuum of the early nineteenth century reconceptualization of music as 
object, the object-ness of which was understood to be a function of the 
score.

third problem: even if the above conditions did not obtain, there is a 
further problem of small audience, particularly for musical forms that 
tend to work in lengths from 40 minutes to two hours.  

this same set of approach conditions mean that we also run into 
limitations of the cd form (time per disc in particular).

fourth problem: i have been carrying out a small scale 
sociological-style investigation of changes in listening practices 
engendered by the rise of media like itunes--the definition of listening 
practices extended to questions of acquisition of information about 
artists, the role of graphics in staging a relation to the music 
acquired, in addition to how something like a preference for a shuffle 
function impacts on the kind of attention listeners bring to bear on 
what they are hearing.  
so far, the results are anecdotal (i would be interested in undertaking 
a wider version of this--if people might be interested in 
using/modifying the survey, let me know and i'll make it available--or 
if others have been carrying out parallel work, let me know about that 
as well please)
the sample so far has been limited to university students, staff and 
faculty where i teach...the results seem to indicate an implosion of 
demand for cd forms and outline a shift in the relation to matters like 
retail, a tendency to bypass graphic material as a mediation of the 
relation of listener to music, and a growing distance from the existing 
music press as a mediation of choices, etc..

the upshot....

we are thinking that it makes as much sense as anything else to use our 
website to make recordings available.
but we are trying to figure out what the implications of this move might 
be.
we figure that recordings operate almost entirely as commercials for 
live performances.  
we assume that there is no money in them for us or for most folk who 
release them, either --but that there is nothing about using a website 
as the primary vehicle for making our usic available that would preclude 
generating cd releases, either as merch for shows or as objects in 
themselves.
we are highly ambivalent about existing copyright law, both in fact and 
in principle.

our primary goal is to be able to perform in a variety of venues, mostly 
to enable us to get to the level of road tight playing--we have figured 
out that there is no amount of rehearsal and sporadic small performances 
that will get us to this place--we want to see what is out there.  so 
the objective is there, not in other areas.


so the outcome is that we are considering using our website as the 
primary mechanism for making our stuff public.

we wonder if others have reached a similar conclusion and what the 
implications of doing this might be.  
because i am sure that we have not thought of everything.

thanks in advance for any feedback

stephen

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