I Hate Mornings

I think it must be the curse of my generation¹ that we were promised outlets for our creativity and not given them. God knows why we think we are so entitled, but the curse is evident in the growing number of my friends who have some sort of creative skill, urge or passion, and struggle to find the outlet or audience for it.

Unmarried

Previous generations seem to have been satisfied with THE HOBBY. That’s no good for us. We’re all about THE ART. We demand to earn our living and make our mark as creators. But we are the Peter Pan Generation that doesn’t really dig business, so we’re crap at useful things like self-promotion and networking.

I have friends who are happy with normal jobs. They tend to be the ones who are also married, because marriage is a sign of GIVING UP ON THE DREAM. It’s OK to be with someone for ever, as long as you don’t get married. Because you couldn’t possibly get married until you’ve figured it all out (ie. next year).

So we’re all floating along. We hoped turning 30 might bring a flash of enlightenment. It didn’t. We’ve created a wonderful and free digital world where everyone can have everything and we’ve turned down every opportunity to do things ‘the old way’, because we knew things were going to change.

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I believe that music is artistically valuable, culturally necessary, beautiful, joyous, human and magical. I believe that the music I make brings happiness and light to the people around me, the people who engage with it online, and of course to me.

I also believe that when people are grateful for music they will thank the musician. That might be a pat on the back after a gig, a quid in a hat, or a slice of cake. It might be a fan club subscription, a £200 gig ticket, or a yacht. But when people aren’t grateful for music there is no reason why they would thank the musician.

I don’t believe that I have a right to earn money from my music. When people are grateful for my music they offer me stuff.

Rather than leave argumentative comments all over the internet, I’m going to offer you links to some different viewpoints on the matter. All are well-argued and interesting. I don’t agree with all of them, but I think it’s important to try to see this issue from a few different perspectives.

• “To eliminate or to throttle file sharing is an assault on your rights as an artists.”, Just Say NO To Putting An End To Illegal Music Sharing. by Bruce Warila
• “In this day and age, of course, it’s particularly hard to persuade anyone to buy music, when they can just get it for free, anonymously, on the internet.”: Releasing a new album! Tell me your thoughts! by Nick Gill
• “This is like what happened when we moved from sheet music to recorded music. Only more so.”, Thing 20: Forget product – sell relationship by Andrew Dubber
• “Having an audience of 500,000 that aren’t currently making you any money would be an INCREDIBLELY WONDERFUL problem to have to solve.”, Promotion Is A Numbers Game (Get Heard!) by Steve Lawson
• “If it still sounds petulant to some people for me to say that I “expect” some reward when other people enjoy the fruits of my art, time and money, I can only respond that it sounds petulant to me when people say they expect it for free.”, Short Replies by Frank Turner

If I work out the answer I’ll let you know. ;)

h3. An offline voluntary pricing experiment

The last few years have seen a host of interesting online experiments with voluntary pricing models for music. I came across the idea through “Jonathan Coulton”:http://www.jonathancoulton.com (internet superstar), who was himself blogging about “Jane Siberry”:http://sheeba.ca/store and “Songslide”:http://www.songslide.com/About.aspx. The system generally relies on an artist having an established and loyal fanbase who are sufficiently understanding and aware of the realities of the musical career that they are willing to patronize their favourite artists by volunteering real money in exchange for music that is available for free.

The idea has always intrigued me, but I have never had a chance to experiment with it myself. The other night, however, I was surprised to find myself at the centre of an offline voluntary pricing experiment, during which I rediscovered the long-lost phenomenon of “tipping”.

h3. “Tipping”: offline voluntary payments

It was 3am and I was sitting behind a grand piano in a hotel bar in Manchester, four hours into a set of singalong requests and going strong. Out of nowhere, a drunk guy in a suit sidled up with a glass and set it down on the piano. I was mildly disappointed to find that it wasn’t full of beer, but very pleasantly surprised to see that it was full of money. An impromtu collection had taken place, and my new best friend had created what you might call a “tip jar” from a Belgian beer glass.

Now I’ve had coins thrown at me before, but this was different. No coins. Notes only. I quickly wrapped up my hilarious rendition of “I Wanna Be Like You” from The Jungle Book, and counted my winnings. £240. That’s right. Two hundred and forty pounds. Of course I carried on playing until everyone was passed out or ordering breakfast.

h3. A useful income stream?

There are certain parts of that situation I can recreate: the drunken crowd, the late night singalong and the pockets full of money. But the drunk guy with the tip jar was a magical catalyst. Enough of the crowd knew him to start off the generous tipping, and he was drunk enough to persist (but not drunk enough to accidentally spend it all on more beer…). Without him I would have woken up the next morning just as hoarse and hungover, but none the richer.

We’ve all heard stories of piano bars in distant lands where tips are as forthcoming as applause. I hear there might even be a couple in London. I’m going to find them. If there’s one thing I can do better than anyone I’ve ever seen, it’s playing five hours solid of requests in any key (and 90% of the lyrics intact), including shameless covers of Neil Diamond, Disney, Tina Turner and Billy Joel. There’s no depth of musical populism to which I won’t sink for cake and/or cash.

So who knows a good piano bar…?

This is a copy of an email that went out today to my mailing list. It might be of interest to creative types trying to deal with the money problem ;o)

I create music all the time. Mostly I create it in my head, but often I write it down (sometimes lyrics, sometimes chord symbols, occasionally real musical notes on little shakily-drawn staves). I really enjoy doing this, so it creates value for me. Unfortunately, nobody else could care less whether I’m scribbling inspired melodies or not.

h3. I create value for other people too!

So I use my music to create value for other people, and more often than not they give me something in return. Sometimes it’s beer, sometimes it’s cake, and occasionally it’s cash. Now that I’m a full-time musician (and don’t drink anywhere near as much beer as I used to!), I’m more concerned with the cake and the cash.

Now, I have a seemingly infinite source of creative energy and earth-shatteringly cool musical skills. All I need now is a heap of opportunities to create value for people. And that’s where I need your help.

h3. (Everything I do) I do it for you

In case you don’t follow these things, let me summarise the state of music in 2008:

• The record industry has no idea what’s going on
• People still love music but are getting more and more confused by marketing messages, and have no idea what’s going on
• Musicians, songwriters, bands and producers (almost all) have no idea what’s going on
• People discover more music through their networks (friends, family, office, online social networks) and less through broadcast media
• You can sell 16,000 singles, have a number one hit and make no money whatsoever.

It’s not good for the record companies, but it’s quite exciting for the rest of us. When you’re drowning in the musical equivalent of a sea of baked beans, what’s better than having your own musician, who can write music you like, play in your lounge and even listen to your problems (perhaps interpreting them in song, thus completing the cycle of happiness ;o)?

h3. Let’s be more specific.

I need cake and cash to survive. So I need opportunities to create value for other people. I create value:

• when I create music in a particular situation (live gigs)
• when I create music to fill a specific need (commissions and cowrites)
• when my musical creations are broadcast (royalties)

Royalties happen when you’re commercially successful, so we can safely ignore those for now. ;o) Gigs are often the only way to get cake and cash quickly. Commissions and cowrites are where we start to see the real value. Writing songs (and/or other music) for people and with people helps to build a reputation, get referrals and recommendations, more cake, etc. Teach a man to fish, and so on.

h3. I need your help.

I’m not asking for the moon on a stick. In fact by reading this far, I would hope you’ve internalised enough of the message to subconsciously help me somehow, some day. But some-day-cake isn’t quite the same as now-cake, so keep reading…

This list may seem huge, but most of it won’t apply to you. Skim it, and pick one thing that seems easy. That’s probably the one for you. But feel free to work your way through the entire list if you like. It’s all good:

h4. Discover me

• listen to some of my songs on “benwalkersongwriter.com”:http://www.benwalkersongwriter.com/songs
• listen to “I Hate Mornings Vol. 1“:http://www.last.fm/music/JB+Walker/I+Hate+Mornings+Vol.+1 on Last.fm
• watch the “Ten video”:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ovT0nEZipt0 on YouTube
• be amazed by the “experimental dance video”:http://www.benwalkersongwriter.com/film I soundtracked

h4. Recommend me

• in person: tell somebody who might be interested about what I do
• by email: forward this email to someone who doesn’t know about me
• on the web: ** subscribe to my “RSS feed”:feed://www.ihatemornings.com/rss/. ** share me with your network (“Facebook”:http://www.facebook.com/share.php?u=http://www.ihatemornings.com, “Myspace”:http://www.myspace.com/benwalkercapedcrusader, “Fuzz”:http://BenWalker.fuzz.com/, “Twitter”:http://twitter.com/ihatemornings) ** mention me on your blog, status, Twitter, Christmas email… ** bookmark me in your browser, or on “Delicious”:http://del.icio.us/post?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.ihatemornings.com&title=I%20Hate%20Mornings%3A%20Ben%20Walker%27s%20songwriting%20blog ** listen to my music on “Last.fm”:http://www.last.fm/music/JB+Walker, “Fuzz”:http://BenWalker.fuzz.com/, and let people know your favourites ** watch “my videos”:http://www.youtube.com/user/ihatemorningsdotcom on YouTube, and give ‘em some stars

h4. Book me to do something for you

• I write songs for people (pop songs, children’s songs, rock songs, folk songs)
• I write songs with people (cowriting with artists, producers, musicians, poets)
• I teach songwriting, musicianship, performance, music theory
• I play piano at parties, fêtes, dinners, funerals, bars, pubs
• I play my own songs at gigs, parties, campfires
• I play Sixties songs with “The Legendary Swordsmen”:http://www.legendaryswordsmen.com at weddings, birthdays and garden parties

h4. Give me feedback

• leave a comment on my website
• email me (ben [at] wallpaper jazz [dot] com)
• “Facebook me”:http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=529602587
• text me (07812 204396)
• comment on one of my “YouTube videos”:http://www.youtube.com/user/ihatemorningsdotcom
• “Twitter”:http://twitter.com/ihatemornings me

h3. What’s in it for you?

Everything and nothing. It depends how you look at it. Maybe you’re more than happy to be filling the world with beautiful music. Maybe you’re looking for something more tangible in return. Well, what is it? Let me know and I’ll see what I can do. My cash and cake resources are limited, but I’m sure I can tap my seemingly infinite source of creative energy for some good ideas…