As a music enthusiast, I create mixes that are available online. I’ve also worked with online radio stations to create content with them. Now this might not be much in the great scheme of things, but the way I see music is one that can educate people - the top 40 isn’t the only music that is out there and to get people to listen to new and undiscovered artists is a beautiful thing. My creating mixes might even send people to independent labels where they go and buy a CD that enables that label to continue creating music that pushes boundaries and doesn’t need big label money in order to create their art.
For me to continue to do this, musicians need to not attack me with copyright and such laws as what I am doing is getting their music out there. I remember actually getting a legal notice to desist my actions from a record label as I was in breach of copyright. I was using soundcloud as a host and the track was by Rammstein; a band that has earned more money than most could dream of, and their label served me with a legal notice. I make nothing from doing these mixes; I do them for mine and others enjoyment, and to help encourage further sales. Bands who are making music without the help of record label funding are usually the ones who are grateful to me for liking their music enough to put it in to a mix, yet the ones who are finding their business model collapsing, are the ones turning to the law to grab every last penny that they can.
For people to continue to promote music and art, they need to have a little faith that others aren’t going to rip them off, or register their music under a creative commons license. Let go of the control and see what others can do with the music, or the art to get it to a different audience. The same can be said for any kind of creation, so keep creative commons and open source going and who knows how an initial project might just get out in to the world via an untapped resource.
I used to be a musician
I used to do music for a living and I know what you are saying. Look, the music industry is just about the most backwards one you can imagine. Equity investment funds like Terra Firma took over majors in order to sit over a big pile of publishing rights and sue everyone in sight, which makes at least economic sense because you get money for, literally, NOTHING, you are contributing nothing to the human adventure. These guys will be the last people to get it, and they will be fighting against a sharing economy to the very last.
No wonder that music has kind of stopped being a reliable interpreter of the Zeitgeist as it as up until the 90s, and we are stuck in a permanent revival of the 60s-70s-80s90s. In the end I got tired of it all and moved out. I have heard way too many conversation about catering at festivals and hotel rooms (you would think musicians talk about music, but they don’t so much, it’s more measuring up against each other for prestige, who gets the best treatment from concert promoters or stuff like that). Economists are much cooler people.
YouTube;
Luckily, I choose to be interested in music that is very far from mainstream, but I have come across behaviour that you mention, and whilst I want the musicians I enjoy to reap some benefit from what they do, too much becomes materialistic and the art is left behind.
What I enjoy is seeing music that is turned on to what’s going on socially and politically - sure music is entertainment, but music can and should educate and if it helps someone to realise what’s going on in the world and gets them living their lives differently then that’s brilliant.
Music can be a very powerful tool in the right hands, and maybe that’s what major record labels wanted; a taste of power without actually doing much to achieve it themselves.
My Music Gotta Be Worth Something to Somebody
That’s what Barry White said when Napster blew up and everyone started downloading. He came out firmly in favour of music industry means of consuming and listening to music. You buy White Gold: The Very Best of Barry White CD and he gets some of the proceeds. That’s the way music works is it not??
Your approach is fantastic. Creating your own mixes and mixtures of songs is a very creative and adaptive approach to the music to which you listen. I think it’s ironic that it was the Rammstein’s label which picked on you, the band at least pertain to be doing something a bit different and outside of the traditional modes of the global music industry. Well, I take great consolation from your way of bringing your own style and tastes to what you do, and bringing people to new music and perhaps more independent bands and record labels in the process. I hope that as other people begin to take more of a grassroots approach to making music and listening to it… we’ll all be better off.
Keep up the good work. Plus, thanks for linking your mixes. I’m listening to one now!
I just finished listening to one of your mixes! and we surely have common music tastes 
you beautifully blend those songs together.
As for the musical education… I guess this is one of the things that I’m trying to do by continuously sharing the music I like on various online platforms, for more than 10 years already. And I’ve noticed some positive results… surely, not on a global scale, but it is really pleasant when someone tells me that he/she discovered a certain music thanks to me
Keep up the great work! and hopefully more and more musicians and labels will start having more progressive views regarding the way music should reach people and how money can be made
Thank you
I am so pleased you enjoyed one of my mixes. It is always a thrill to know that people like what I do.
I think we will see a change in music culture. We already are as most people are sharing music. Sometimes those I share with and what I’m sharing, I do ask that they support the band if they like them, but most of the time I know most of my friends will do that. I very much approve the sites like pledge music where bands can actually offer packages for fans, so they can support the creation of an album from the beginning without any real need for a label, and I think this is going to become more and more popular. My friends band made $7,000 in a mere few days to support his project, so the money is out there for those who want to actually engage with their fans.
Mmusic!
Hey MissyK8!
I totally resonate with what you wrote! I am not musically gifted, I am not endowed financially either, and sharing music is the least I could do to put that brilliant music out there.
I’d like use the opportunity and share a short story that happened to me recently. For about a year now, I’ve had this healthy obsession with a ‘style’ of progressive rock/metal called DJENT. In order to overcome this obsession, to get it out of my system (for a while) I felt like doing a Djent Night at one of the pubs in Cluj (the city I study in). I talked to the owners, and they said “Cool, how about the day after tomorrow? We had to reschedule an event and the night is free”. It was kinda soon, but I accepted. That night I made the poster with one of my roommates, created an event on Facebook, invited people, shared it and that was it. No time for better advertisement. Given that it was the week of Easter, and because this kind of music does not enjoy too much popularity in Romania, the crowd wasn’t that big, but it was awesome!!!
The hype has been building up on Facebook when people were saying how much they were waiting for such an event/for such music to be played. As far as I am aware it is the first Djent party in Cluj and probably even the first in Romania. Because at parties here, people are used to listen to the old familiar songs, it was really interesting to follow people’s expressions, reactions and attitudes when they were exposed to stuff they were hearing for the first time in a public place or even for the first time at all. People came up to me and asked who was playing, what exactly Djent was, greeted me for the initiative, offered me drinks and even asked to do it again.
I was lots of fun…an emotional, psychological, mental relief/relaxation and physical recharge for me and hopefully for the others as well.
We could actually do it here…
TOOLosophy and K8, i had an experience similar to the Djent one (different music, though). It was a club night called Vuka! in Milano.
Can I suggest you both - and Arina too - to read this and Medhin’s comment to it? She proposed we look for a place in Strasbourg to do something like that. Maybe the two of you could volunteer an hour of playlist each?
That would be amazing to do if we could manage it 
I think our playlists will be as varied as the Edgeryders conference itself!
this is a great idea! to have a party with Edgeryders DJs in Strasbourg.
i would certainly love to contribute… but i have never done this creating playlists for public listening and maybe dancing except the sharing on social networks.
It’s so wonderful when you can put a night on that inspires you, and other people feel it too I’m DJing next week at a blues event, so whilst I DJ things publicly that I may not listen to all the time at home, it is creative as I get to read how people are reacting and enjoying.
At home I listen to a lot of electronic music and I have DJ’d that sort of music in public before and I find it much more exciting as I enjoy it as much as whoever is out to see it. London is amazingly apathetic though as we are spoilt for choice with the amazing amount of things we can go to, but the festivals I go to in mainland Europe are so refreshing for me as I get to experience my favourite music with likeminded souls. My friend Oli is starting up and event soon and I really hope it is a success for him as it will be great to go to an event at home that appeals to me.
From an organisational perspective, Facebook events are so useful - it was difficult to arrange events before Facebook took off so much. I’m not a fan of Facebook as a whole, but its reach is undeniable and if you want to get the word out fast, that’s the way of doing it.
I hope you’re able to do your event again and people react favourably to it
Crowdsourcing Music
Alberto that’s a brillian idea!
Do you thing we can do a some kind of poll/list of Edgeryders platform where people can introduce songs they would like to hear at the party, maybe even vote on the songs posted.
Therefore we can ensure that everybody’s musical tastes/prefferences are respected and represented. Is there a suitable venue for this? If I can we of any help, please tell.
Rock on!
Spotify?
Is Spotify Europe wide yet? We could always try and set up a collaborative playlist that way
There’s also a site called 8 tracks, and people can create a mix of tracks there, and link up?
I wanted to add a comment to draw attention to a video that I am truly inspired by, and shows how powerful and educational music can be.
First, a short explanation. Jairus from AdVerSary found he was to be on the lineup at Kinetik Festival in Montreal. However, it seemed he was supporting the headliners, headliners who use extreme imagery in their videos and artwork. They have never given clear explanations as to why they do this. Jairus was going to drop out from the festival as he was so angered that he was seen as a support to these bands, but then he decided to make the following video, and play it on a screen during his set.
Now this is just in a reasonably small music scene, but just think, given a large audience, and a bigger subject what anyone could be capable of given the same technologies. THIS is exactly why, in the right hands, music can change things.