Notes on Tone #17

One of anomolies of the current Death of Music is the fact that revenues, earnings and such for live music remain very strong.

Summers certainly, in North America and Europe, are more than alive with the sound of music, as festivals pop up like… well, mushrooms…

Now, it’s almost as hard to imagine a time when there weren’t a dozen outdoor music events happening within driving range of so many people as it is to imagine a time before that, when people played music and sang in their homes***.

The draw of these events, regardless of genre, is multi-faceted of course but I think part of it is how much better they sound than an MP3.

It holds true all the way down the line, from the ritual of the Stadium show to a the intimacy of a guitar camp. Music has been a central part of human social life since forever.

There used to be a connection between ‘the industry’ and the audience. There were a lot of people involved with The Former Industry- whatever their other failures may or may not have been – loved music as much as anyone else in the audience.

Artists who worked with Ahmet Ertugun, for example, almost always speak of him with immense respect. The same can be said of indies like Chris Strachwitz++.

There was a compete circuit, or circle, if you will, inasmuch as on a good day the artists, the audiences and the people in the Former Industry all loved music.

*** IMHO much of the credit for this goes to folk music festivals. More on that another day.

++ find out more about Mr. Strachwitz and the sonically-unbelievable Arhoolie Label right around here: http://www.arhoolie.com/index.html

if you love music, you'll drool...

but i could be projecting on that...

-30-