Last week, spent a fascinating day in a room full of people who make a living (or part of their living) from music. It was facilitated by Andrew Dubber, as part of a research project for Birmingham City University.
One of the things that came up was a two-part conversation about how we define ‘success’ and how much we earn. Which prompted me to raise the question about how much I earn ‘from’ music and how much I generate in earnings ‘for’ music.
Dubber differentiated years ago (in a slightly different context) between ‘music’ and ‘my music’. And I now use that distinction in considering where the value is in my online music endeavours. I’m as happy to make money ‘for’ music as I am to make money ‘from’ music. The reason being that ‘my music’ is a sub-set of ‘music’ not the other way round. So if ‘music’ does well, I can do well. It’s also true that my opinion about other people’s music is more valuable to the people I’m talking to online than my opinion about my own music. It stands to reason that I think the music I make is awesome – otherwise I wouldn’t release it. I’m not in the habit of putting out music that I don’t love. It’d be pretty much impossible for me to promote it if I wasn’t 100% behind it. Continue reading “I Can Make More Money For You Than I Can For Me”
