Music Industry? What industry?

[James Coplin]

This is not rigorously thought through but I've been thinking about this a
bit lately.

I am and have been suspicious of the label and idea of something as "art"
most of my life.  In the past 50 years, there has been a accelerating
erosion of the label to such a degree that now everything is considered art
so nothing really is.  The most interesting of these erosions of labels to
me has been between the once fairly distinct terms of art and craft.  There
was a fairly distinct separation between hobbies, crafts on the one side
and art on the other which largely separated the amateur/home activity from
the professional/industrial.  As such, it has always struck me that crafts
were out of the marketplace but art was firmly in the marketplace.  The
transition of an activity from one side to the other seemed to always
correspond with the commercialization of it.  Folk art is the classic in my
mind.  Suddenly, once the things my grandmother did like quilting,
knitting, etc. were firmly in the category of art things like quilts saw a
market not only created but the price for such items soar.

Now, I have noticed that in the US over the past several years, there has
been a massive resurgence in traditional crafts again.  My wife has gotten
into knitting after a stint with quilting (as have several of her friends)
and I continue to brew beer, preserve vegetables via canning and pickling,
etc.  While these products have a "market" as sites like Etsy show, people
who pursue them are largely doing so for their own purposes, not to
participate in the market.  Partly I think this is a response to the
increasingly mechanized existence we live but I don't think that is the
whole answer nor do I presume to fully understand why.

Crafts strike me as demonstrable in a way that art is not.  I can tell by
my senses in most cases the quality of craft.  That sweater is well made,
those preserved peaches are tasty, the furniture is solid, all of them are
beautiful.  Art it seems has to be mediated culturally.  I think is we are
honest with ourselves, while we may rankle at the idea that we rely on
someone/something to tell us what is "good" art, we have to admit we do in
fact often resort to mediation to tell us what and how to value things.  If
for no other reason, who has the intellectual time to devote to considering
all objects presented to us as art and make a fully reasoned value
judgement?  Like the article says, there are just too many master works to
even keep up with.

So, where then does this leave music?  On the one hand it seems like a loss
to push music back from the art category to the craft/folk category but I
am not so sure.  Take the case of craft items.  Once someone is basically
competent in their craft, they are able to make something of far superior
quality to an industrialized piece you can purchase in the market in most
cases.  My wife's knitting is now at a point where she is actually becoming
quite proficient but even here early scarves she made are far warmer and
sturdier than anything I could purchase.  My beer I am quite proud of and
it is certainly better than most large scale industrial breweries.  I
prefer to many other small craft brews as well.  My canned tomatoes I put
up in the fall from local farmer's organic produce is way better than what
I can buy in the store.  Why should my music not go the same route? Given
the above, it seems that returning music to craft may remove it from the
category of art but it does seem eminently reasonable that I can get such a
craft product (purchasing a Noise Theorem disc from Tony for example) that
is superior to something I can buy from the larger industrialized market
(anything form a major label).

I think this idea of craft is also interesting in light of the explosion in
DIY.  These also in my mind fall under craft/folk instruments and
activities.

Thoughts?

James R. Coplin


On Mon, Sep 16, 2013 at 9:11 AM, Tony Scharf <entropymagnet at noisetheorem.com
> wrote:

>
> > > Who in ampfea is signed ? :)
> >
> > Gert?
> >
> > Quite a few of the guys from the early days (mid-90's) got signed, I
> think .. Jono, Zebedee, umm .. whatshisname, who lost all his stuff in the
> New Orleans levvy break, and a few others ..
> >
> > Its just us hanger-outers who are still hanging out. ;)
> >
>
> I owned a label, and NoiseTheorem has received a few odd offers.  But why
> would I bother?  I might get a bit more exposure, but giving up some level
> of control and quite a bit of what little money there is just doesn't seem
> worth it to me.  I'm just better off running it on my own.
>
> Tony
>
>
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>
>
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