Category Archives: Music

July 8, 2014 · 9:36 am

Let’s Get Physical

Usually on TunesDay we talk about a song and that’s the title of the post.

CD

(Photo credit: grytr)

Today, however, we won’t be examining any old Olivia Newton-John songs and will, instead pose a question.  When was the last time you bought a piece of physical media? A CD or a DVD is what I mean. Well, this TunesDay we’re going to answer that question as well as have a think about what it all means. Maybe we’ll throw in a little point about statistics while we’re at it. Ready?

The good folks at Nielsen Soundscan and Nielsen BDS have some news for us about the amount of musical content consumption over the first six months of the year:

For the first six months of 2014, sales of albums are down 14.9% vs. the first six months of 2013. Vinyl AlbumSales and On-Demand streaming continues to show strong gains – Vinyl LP sales are up 40.4% and overall On-Demand streaming up 42% over last year, with on-demand audio up 50.1% and on-demand video up 35.2%.
 
Wow!  Everything old is new again – look at vinyl.  Here’s the statistics lesson – vinyl grew from 2.9 million albums sold to 4 million.  Yes, it’s up 40% but it’s a tiny percentage of all the content sales (maybe 2%).  Always put numbers into context – on their own they can be pretty deceiving.
On to the bigger point.  Once the music industry stopped fighting consumer demand and allowed the changes brought about by digital technology, I think they got a better picture of what was good and bad in terms of the music they were selling.  Album sales, both digital and physical, continue to fall.  As a heavy consumer of music I can tell you that there was nothing worse that spending $15 (in the old days) on an album to get the 2 great songs you wanted to hear.  That changed with the iTunes model of single track sales and the broader point of letting consumer buy just what they want is not lost in that.  Maybe that fall is about the inability of artists to put together a great album?
What stands out to me in this report is the continued growth of on-demand streaming – Spotify, Pandora, and others.  Audio on-demand streams grew 50% and unlike our vinyl example, the numbers are significant – almost 34 million streams up from just under 24 million.  Assuming each stream is one song, that’s 10 times the equivalent number of albums (10 tracks to an album) as were actually sold.  I suspect a good chunk of that music wasn’t new – the long tail at work.  So we’ve gone from consumers having to buy a physical product which continued excess materials (for which they had to pay to get what they want) and needed to be stored someplace (you should see the piles of records and CD’s in my house) to choice as to buying specifically what they want with no storage issues to paying just to hear what they want without owning or storing anything.  The content is the same, the business model radically different.  Maybe something in there points to a trend in your business?
Some might look at the Nielsen numbers and think music is in trouble.  I think it’s pretty healthy as long as we’re focused on the business music is really in now.  What do you think?

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July 1, 2014 · 9:14 am

Woodshedding

This TunesDay I want to focus on something that every musician does – woodshed. That isn’t a non-sequitor.

woodshed

(Photo credit: The Year of Mud)

With respect to music “woodshedding” means practicing your instrument but it’s so much more than that. The term comes from that people would go to their woodshed to practice without being overheard.  Well, more like not imposing their unrefined craft on people until it had been honed.  As a young guitar player, I’d sit in my room for hours listening to music and trying to play along.  I think I did that all the way through college even though I was playing in a band (for pay!) by then.  It wasn’t just about learning to play – I knew how to do that after a while.  It was about getting better, internalizing the actions my fingers would take on the fretboard so they’d happen without thought.  The goal was to let my brain hear what I wanted to play and for my fingers to play it, almost like walking or breathing.

I’m sure you’ve heard of the 10,000 hour rule.  While “Outliers” may have popularized it, the concept can be traced back to a 1993 paper written by Anders Ericsson, a Professor at the University of Colorado, called The Role of Deliberate Practice in the Acquisition of Expert Performance.  The notion is that “many characteristics once believed to reflect innate talent are actually the result of intense practice extended for a minimum of 10 years”.  But Gladwell (“Outliers”) oversimplified the concept and ignored the fact that talent has something to do with the progress one makes.  You can practice all you want and you might get better, but the true elite at an activity generally have some natural gifts that are brought out and improved by all the practice.

Why this thought today?  Sometimes when I encounter a young businessperson they ask about how to grow:  improve their skill set, learn more, make better decisions. We talk about woodshedding and the fact that a musician plays something wrong the first dozen times but eventually learns it.  Making mistakes – playing it wrong – is an important part of the process.  So are the hours you put in practicing.  In business terms that can mean reading books, going to seminars, or taking online courses to refine and grow.  You want to pick the right instrument too.  You must have some basic talent – if you are terrible at math and not detail-oriented, accounting might not be your best choice.

If you aren’t always practicing, you’re falling behind those competitors who are.  Your call.

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June 17, 2014 · 8:49 am

Anthems

The World Cup is my favorite sporting event and one of the more interesting parts of it relates directly to our TunesDay theme.

Español: Equipos de Paraguay e Italia en el mo...

(Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Every match is preceded by the national anthems of the teams involved and those are our topic today.  Why I think this event is so great is, in part, due to the national fervor it stimulates.  Here in the U.S., I think it’s doubly so for those who are following it.  After all, in addition to rooting for team USA, nearly all of us are from somewhere – we’re a nation of immigrants, right? – so there are at least a couple of teams we’re following.  For those of us who love the game, we pay attention to the best teams in the world as well – Spain, Germany – actually, I won’t miss watching ANY game if I can help it. We hear a lot of anthems – more so than at the Olympics where we only hear those of the gold medalists.

Putting on our marketing hats for a second, national anthems are a form of audio branding.  In commercial terms, audio branding is supposed to unify an identity (think NBC’s chimes, Intel’s audio tags, McDonald’s jingles, etc.) as well as bring certain brand attributes to mind.  I think the better anthems do that as well.

One of the best is that of France – La Marseillaise.  Its lyrics evoke revolution, conflict, taking up arms against tyranny, preparing for a fight – pretty good in a sports context – set to one of the world’s great tunes.  By contrast, the Spanish anthem is a march that has no words and which isn’t in my mind particularly Spanish-sounding.  Some – like Germany’s – were songs written by famous composers (Haydn) to which nationalistic lyrics were later added.  Others (like the USA) were poems first that were sung to popular songs (“To Anacreon in Heaven” in this case, a popular British song).

There are songs about the monarch, the countryside, the strong will of the people and yes, even about a flag.  The business point today is that obviously an anthem – audio branding of a people – can relate to almost anything.  It’s meant to be a signature and perhaps to inspire.  So ask yourself this:  what’s my business anthem?  What does my brand sound like?  As my team lined up before a crucial meeting, what song would we write or use to represent us?  What message would it send out to those standing (it is an anthem, after all) and listening?  Give that some thought as you get ready for the next match.

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