Not being a fan of Amanda Palmer's music made this a much more inspiring video. It made me feel that the role of a music producer needs to change. Too often are the big music producers driven by money and not by fans, artists, or the music...
Therefore, what is music? Why do we
enjoy it? Why does it make us feel a certain way? Well, according to the Oxford Dictionary, music is defined as, “vocal or instrumental sounds (or
both) combined in such a way as to produce beauty of form, harmony, and
expression of emotion.” Music is designed to transport us to a moment or a
feeling, nostalgia if you will. Think back to a time when you were very young
and when that curious day came where people would gather around and place a
burning cake in front of you. Somewhat harmoniously, everyone began to sing a
song that, at first, seemed like it came from church, but then you realized
they were singing to you. Your eyes immediately lit up with curiosity and
excitement as people continued to sing, “Happy birthday to you.”
Lets
fast-forward to your first school dance where girls stood on one side of the gym
and the boys on the other. Several flirting glances were sent your way, which
you returned with a smile or a giggle. Immediately your immature friends think
you have fallen in love and hatch a scheme to bring that person
across the boy/girl threshold into no mans land. Nervously, you both stood an
arm length away from each other slowly shuffling in a circle together to a slow
song. That song, years later, is played on the radio and immediately you’re
taken back to embarrassment and a slight smile is brought to your face. Music. It pulls at our emotional strings, teaches us how to
dance, and provides a colorful soundtrack to our mundane lives. Without it,
humans would be quite boring.
Lets now fast-forward a
few more years later to your first concert. Your friend calls you up and tells
you they have tickets to your favorite band. However, they’re performing way past
your bedtime and your parents would never allow such a thing. So, what do you
do? You wait. You wait until it's dark and you hear the loud bellow of snores
coming from your parent’s bedroom. Cautiously you slide your window up, shimmy
down the tree outside your window, tiptoe down the driveway and meet your
friend who has turned the car lights off and is in neutral outside your house.
You both arrive at the concert venue; you’re immediately energized by the large
crowd gathering outside to get in. You whip out your fake ID, make your way to
the front row, and then it happens. The lights go down, the crowd roars, and
that first note sails across the crowd like a signal flare lighting up the
night above at sea. Forever that experience is burned into your brain and from
then on you have a deep connection with the band.
So, should there be a
price on these experiences? Should the band reap the benefits of your
well-planned escape? According Amanda Palmer, lead singer of Amanda Palmer and
the Grand Theft Orchestra, in a recent Ted Talk, “Don’t make people pay for music. Let them.” As a
music producer, the main goal is to endorse, get a record deal, and make lots
of money. What about the fans? Amanda connects to her fans in a very unique
way, more so than most other artists out there do. Amanda doesn’t stay at hotels
or on fancy tour buses, she stays with her fans. Wherever she goes, with use of
social media, she finds a fan’s place to stay at. Amanda explains that she has stayed
with thousands of people from both sides of the financial spectrum. For example, she
once stayed with a very wealthy couple in the Lower East Side that offered her red wine and a warm bath. Conversely, she has also stayed with a family
who were all undocumented immigrants from Honduras. That night, the entire
family stayed on the couch so she could have the bed. Amanda began to realize
that her fans are dedicated to her and she to them. Why? Because her fans trust
her, and she trusts her fans.
Amanda
goes on to explain that when she signed with a new label and she had a new album
that was about to come out, there was a lot of hype surrounding the release of
the album, but when it came out the record label was disappointed. It only sold
25,000 copies and the label considered it a failure. Shortly after that, after
a performance, a guy came up to Amanda and handed her a ten-dollar bill and
apologized because he burned her CD from a friend. From then on Amanda decided
she would give her music away for free and, according to Amanda, “encourage
torrenting, downloading, sharing.” She dropped her label and put her band on
Kickstarter, a funding platform for creative projects. Her goal was to get
$100,000 and, unexpectedly, her fans pledged more than she thought. Check out for yourself what she raised on her Kickstarter page.
So should we have to pay for music? Well, I guess the big
celebrities like Beyoncé and that bratty girl with the weird haircut, Justin
Bieber, need to be able to pay for their absurdly lavish lifestyle. But besides the
pop culture anomalies, who are sponsored by big wallets, we should want to pay for our music and not be afraid of repercussions
hanging over us if we don't. Amanda would probably agree that we should be free explore our musical world and create nostalgia
at will without worrying if the debit account will be overdrawn.
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