Do you think of your Music as a product?

by Minim ^Pro @ 2012-08-22 – 16:50:05
Do you think of your music as a product? If you want to be paid for your music then you probably should.

Here's something that musicians don't always get. In financial terms music, like any product, is worthless unless somebody wants to buy it. Although many of us would like to think of music as something outside the realm of dirty capitalism, the reality is that selling music or a musical performance is subject the same rules of supply and demand that govern all other financial transactions.

I'm no economist so I'm not going to attempt to into a detailed economic discussion here, but the basic principles for musicians to remember about supply and demand are:

• If demand for a product is high and it is in short supply, the price will be high.
• If there is demand but supply is plentiful, the price will be lower.
• If there is no demand at all then supply and price is irrelevant, because nobody wants that product.

In a nutshell, the higher the demand and shorter the supply, the higher the price can be. This is why ticket touts can resell tickets for popular gigs and sporting events for far more than the original price. When the stadium was empty, demand may have been high but the supply was plentiful. As the seats started to sell out, the supply became dramatically reduced. When an event is sold out, if there is still high demand for the tickets the tout can command a much higher price.

This explains why local musicians playing standards in scratch bands earn less per gig than established artists like Herbie Hancock or Pat Metheny. It also explains why those guys earn less per gig than Bruce Springsteen or U2.

Your average jazz scratch band sounds more or less like any other average jazz scratch band and you can hear that kind of music played all over the place regularly. As a result, supply is plentiful and demand is pretty low - therefore the pay for these gigs sucks. Nobody is going to pay £50 for a ticket to come and listen to people they've never heard of jamming on Autumn Leaves.

By contrast Herbie Hancock and Pat Metheny are two of the most popular artists in the jazz world. They both have unique styles and sounds and unique voices on their instruments. They have built reputations as special players and people want to listen to them.

As a result, the demand for their performances is much higher than for a scratch band of local players. Also, supply is limited because they can only be in one place at one time - and it could be years before they return to your country or city to do another gig. These factors mean that ticket prices can be pretty high.

Despite the fact that messrs Metheny and Hancock are at the top of the jazz tree, jazz is still a niche market in the music industry. The demand for rock artists like U2 and Bruce Springsteen is much greater, but the supply is just as limited. This means that those guys can charge even more per gig than the top jazz players.

However, the artists above haven't always been able to charge top dollar for their performances. At one point they were unknowns and there was no demand for their music at all. At one point, they were as anonymous as most of us! The incomes of these musicians will have increased exponentially with their popularity. As demand for their music increased, so did their incomes.

As a musician, it's imperative to realise that you can't charge for something that there's no demand for. As a result it's pointless expecting to command top dollar when nobody knows who you are and there's nothing unique about what you do. Essentially, you need to create demand first, then you can charge for it.

So how much do you charge? Well, the more unique your music/performance (product) is and the fewer places people can get something similiar, the more you can charge. Here are the rules:

• Generic product and no demand - no work at all
• Unique product and no demand - no work at all
• Generic prodcut and in demand - low paid work
• Unique product and in demand - Kerching!

Full article on: http://playjazz.blog.co.uk/2012/08/22/do-you-think-of-your-music-as-a-product-14590476/