Music industry

“ When one considers that he has hundreds of other cases all involving different samples from different songs, the value of a principled bright-line rule becomes apparent. We would want to emphasize, however, that considerations of judicial economy are not what drives this opinion. If any consideration of economy is involved it is that of the music industry. ”

“ Music has also become an important industry, employing a vast number of agents. It is high time that this employment were placed within reach of American labor. Such an end can be attained only by furnishing adequate training for this skilled work. At present foreigners are the agents for the satisfaction of this need for rhythm in orchestras, bands, hotels, restaurants, church choirs, studios, clubs, steamships, operas and at social functions. An important wage earning occupation is thus out of reach of our own talent. ”

“ If we consider it from the material side, it is one of magnitude; we need but think of the money invested in buildings, opera houses, schools, concert halls, publishing plants, factories, the sums spent on musical instruments, instruction, concerts, opera, etc., to recognize the commercial side. When we think of the great army of persons whose livelihood is conditioned upon musical work, upon the great audiences that support musical enterprises, we recognize the magnitude of music in a social sense, and that it offers a large field for study. ”

“ But do we really think we are more likely to get a twenty-first- century Ray Charles, or a fusion of styles to create a new genre, in the world we have made? Do we really think that the formalist ignorance of Judge Duffy or the market optimism of the Bridgeport court, in which thick markets offer fungible sets of samples to be traded like commodities, are good guides for the future of music? Are we in fact killing musical creativity with the rules that are supposed to defend it? ”

“ The profits derived from a musical education are proportionate to the investment. Careless work, an utter disregard of principles, in other words, a mere dabbling with music, will afford but superficial results. ”

“ One observes the similarity between these processes and the dynamics of business itself, and how motives and ends become adulterated with elements of outright commercialism. It becomes possible to speak of a system, real though in no sense formally organized: it involves the committees as well as the managers, and, in the last analysis, tends to assimilate the various activities which contribute to our music life. ”

“ Such reflections are applicable to the whole range of our music life, but specifically to concert and opera in this country. In no other land, we believe, is there such a divergence between what takes place, on the one hand, in the established concert and operatic life, and, on the other, in musical enterprises supported by universities, schools, or private groups of citizens, enterprises run not for profit but for the musical experience that can be gained from them. ”

“ Every one interested in the progress of music, must rejoice at the rapid development of its resources and the general spread of its pleasures among the people. We are a profoundly commercial nation, and it is delightful to see that in our greater wealth and prosperity, rational amusements, and more especially music, go on increasing step by step with our more business-like occupations. ”

“ But I cannot bring myself to believe that I was intended for a musician, because it seems so small a business in comparison with other things which, it seems to me, I might do. Question here, What is the province of music in the economy of the world?" ”

“ The business dynamism which affects so much of our music life constantly perpetuates itself, and, as can be observed in matters remote from music, often achieves a quasi-ideological status, fostering as it does a system of values favorable to business as such. ”

“ We demand far less in quality of music from a live band than from a mechanical reproduction of band music. Groups of people who assemble to dance will pay relatively high prices for inexperienced players with a monotonous repertoire for the sake of having live music. ”

“ But now no publisher will buy an entire work; for a popular song or two out of it, or perhaps a duet, he will offer a sum, not enough, however, to remunerate the composer for the labour of a single week, and the theatres pay him nothing, be his success what it may. The managers find that they are conferring a favour by accepting the music of an opera, and plenty of composers, or pseudo-composers, press forward to be obliged. ”

“ What is undeniable is that the taste of the public at the present epoch tends towards the picture with a distinct subject and towards music with a programme, and that the taste of the public, at least in France, has drawn artists in this direction. 'Programme music' is, for the artist, only a pretext to explore new tracks, and new effects require new means. ”

“ The bounds of an American fortune will not admit the indulgence of a domestic band of musicians, yet I have thought that a passion for music might be reconciled with that economy which we are obliged to observe. ”

“ We already rank with them in performing it, and in organizations, such as our orchestras, opera houses, chamber music organizations, music schools, music settlements, music club activities, community singing, glee clubs, oratorio societies, and amateur orchestras. America needs music and loves it as never before. Perhaps out of all this music study and concert-giving in addition to what might be done with the radio and mechanical instruments, which are now making records of the world’s finest compositions, there will come a race of real music lovers and creators. ”

“ One sometimes hears the question: if things are really so, if there is an absence of genuine tradition and we have to consider the existence of economic forces pervading our music life in an almost mechanistic fashion, is it not chimerical to hope for the development of a genuine music culture in the United States? ”

“ Other Organized Bodies.—Other means for promoting musical progress in the United States were the societies in different parts of the country, which provided concerts, aided musical education, kept up public interest, the great German singing societies, music festival associations, lecture courses, etc. ”

“ Musical Criticism.—When indicating the various agencies for the shaping of musical appreciation in the United States, special mention must be made of a group of writers whose contributions to musical magazines, to the daily press in the large music centres, as well as their work in permanent form have influenced the taste of the American public to a degree not paralleled in any other country. ”

“ It behooves the musician, therefore, to study the underlying bases of the community music movement, and to use this new tool that has been thus providentially thrown into his hands for the advancement of art appreciation, rather than to stand aloof and scoff at certain imperfections and crudities which inevitably are only too evident in the present phase of the movement. ”

“ Just how it will bear fruit we cannot say, but it is making 145its appeal more and more, not only to the American, but to the foreign composers as well, and they believe that this music,—the syncopated rhythm that the American is at last developing in his own way—in spite of its humble origin, is the one new thing that America has given to the growth of music, and they envy us that wealth of rhythm that seems to be born in the American. ”

“ Inasmuch, therefore, as we are condemned, for our sins, to be not only producers but consumers of this "American music," it behooves us to make careful inspection of the claims for it so extravagantly put forth, and to assure ourselves that we are getting something besides labels for our money. ”

“ We have attempted to show that the business mentality that directs so many of our musical institutions fosters an economy of scarcity as regards talent and repertory. We have tried to show how it tends drastically to restrict opportunities for young artists and their careers and to limit repertory. ”

“ The pathway of true creativity, of healthy growth and achievement for the composer in America to-day, lies in abandoning the competition with European sensationalists and ultra-modernists in the narrow arena of the concert halls of 'culture', and turning to the fulfilment of national needs in the broadest and deepest sense. ”

“ The family were entertained at the residences of the first99 citizens, who vied with each other in extending to them the most complimentary attentions. In these homes of wealth and culture, where the study and practice of choice music formed a portion of each day's employment, these talented artists, surrounded by a selected company of educated persons, shone even more brightly than when upon the public stage; for here they could confine themselves to a rendition of that higher class of music so suitable to their own tastes and powers, as well as most welcome to their cultivated audience. ”

“ It may be that this plaint explains the lack of labor songs in this period of industrial maladjustment when the worker is overmastered by his very tools. In addition to sharing with our neighborhood the best music we could procure, we have conscientiously provided careful musical instruction that at least a few young people might understand those old usages of art; that they might master its trade secrets, for after all it is only through a careful technique that artistic ability can express itself and be preserved. ”

“ If you offer new music, you have all conservatories, all singers and the whole public against you from the start. If you want to see your works performed, write a music which does not differ the least from what is in vogue today; just copy; steal your opera in bits and scraps from the whole of Wagner's operas. Then you may count with considerable probability on having it accepted. My tremendous hit last night should prove to you that the old music is all that's needed for years to come. And my opinion is that of every other singer, of every manager and of the whole paying public. ”

“ In the first place, you must effect an entire change of economic conditions: a preliminary step of which every tiro will recognise the easiness; then you must bring to bear on the new order of things the constant influence of music. ”

“ When we consider, in the light of our present experience, how large a range of emotion that naturally utters itself in tone was left unrepresented through this lack of a proper secular art of music, we can understand the urgency of the demand which, at the close of the sixteenth century, broke down the barriers that hemmed in the currents of musical production and swept music out into the vast area of universal human interests. ”

“ Inevitably they need [Pg 55] the help of managers, businessmen concerned with music for reasons of profit and who bring to music a business point of view. In the absence of subsidies granted on the basis of clear and convincing artistic policies, it is necessary that these businessmen exercise the greatest care in balancing receipts and expenditures. This means that the concert society or opera company is run like a business enterprise—in which profits, to be sure, are not the main purpose, but which must be at least self-supporting, or close to it, if it is to enjoy continued existence. ”

“ Intense as are the activities of the present, they are still merely the preparation of the soil for a future growth the nature and extent of which we can only guess at to-day. The stream of musical evolution in America, in the present transitional period, is rapidly overflowing its wonted banks, and passing the boundaries of the traditional musical world. The many are striving to obtain that which has been the exclusive possession of the few, and in this endeavor are not only extending, but also actually transforming the art. ”

“ Only when the ideas are no longer preconceived, when, in other words, a large body of music of all kinds will have brought a secure tradition into being, then the American musical profile will emerge and the question of American style or character assume meaning. ”

“ If we had not turned over our music making to professionals it would be so now. Instead of going to the concert or the opera after the evening meal, or playing bridge or talking scandal, people would have participated in the singing of madrigals, glees or whatever other sort of popular spontaneous music had been developed, and all would have been sustained and uplifted by the exalted joy that comes from joining with others in the production of good music. ”

“ This article, then, expresses my conviction that the average American man or woman is potentially musical. I believe the world of music to be a true democracy. I am convinced that our chief need is to make music ourselves. ”

“ If now we set out to glance over the circumstances which have eventually brought about the present condition of music in America, we find that this history, taken in its largest outlines, has a threefold aspect, the features of which may be roughly termed appreciation, creation, and administration. The degree in which the new world has grasped and understood the facts of musical development in the old must constitute a chief factor in any consideration of its musical evolution, and this subject will naturally include a reference to musical culture in America. ”

“ During those eleven Christian centuries, from the latter part of the fourth century, when the corner-stone for our musical system was laid, until the wonderful exploration period of the fifteenth was well advanced, the masters of music were absorbed in controlling the elements of their art. Since then event has crowded upon event with rapidly increasing ratio. During the past two centuries the progress of the art has been like a tale in fairyland. ”

“ Every branch of music, however, is cultivated with us; and music as a profession is even more certainly lucrative than painting. America welcomes the most renowned singers and musicians in the world, and the highest efforts of musical composition are performed here to audiences sufficiently cultivated fully to enjoy and appreciate them. We cannot doubt that the future will still further develop the American love of all the arts; or that, in time, this continent will rival that of Europe in great artistic productions.
XVIII. PROGRESS IN SCIENCE AND INVENTION. The Patent Office. ”