If you talk to any small musician for more then a couple minutes, they will probably mention something about how the music scene in their town or city is dead. Today more then ever in recent history, small musicians struggle to find venues to play at, people that will go to their shows, or labels to sign them onto a contract and promote their music. Even for those that are constantly on tour, there is little they can do to actually make a profit from their music. Almost every small musician is actually losing money by making music. Music scenes are almost entirely obsolete.
One of the main things facilitating the dying music scene is streaming services. Spotify gives artists $0.003-$0.005 cents per stream, Youtube gives $0.008, and Apple gives slightly more, at $0.01 to artists. Small artists make almost nothing from putting their music out on these services, and yet streaming services remain the main way that people listen to music. If someone wanted to put music out only in physical formats like CDs or vinyl, they would still have to do the work to promote their music, which is work that labels used to do for them. Streaming services have made it almost impossible for small artists to make any money on their work, and has replaced music labels without actually replacing the work that labels used to do.
Another thing that is causing music scenes to die is the fact that people are not willing to spend their money on live shows unless it is someone who they are very familiar with—usually a famous musician. People have less money to spend today then they did even 10 years ago, and so the idea of paying a small cover fee to see a local band that they do not know well play on a Friday or Saturday might not seem as appealing. Instead, people will save their money to go see more well known musicians that they may have found from social media or streaming services, sometimes spending upwards of several hundred dollars.
Does this mean that your local music scene is gone for good? Not if we do something about it. One of the easiest ways to help keep local music alive is to go to local shows. Yes, usually there is a cover fee you have to pay. Yes, sometimes the band isn’t the best. This, however, is part of the experience. Bringing along a group of friends to see live music can be a fun way to spend an evening, and cover fees are often about as expensive as getting a latte from your favorite coffeeshop. It can also be a great way to find new artists to listen to.
Another way to help keep local music alive is by avoiding streaming services. This can be a hard switch for many people. Streaming services are admittedly convenient. All your music is in one place and you can easily make new playlists and find music with a small subscription fee. The issue is that the money you are paying to the company is not being fairly distributed back to artists. Musicians deserve to be paid for the work that they are doing. While bigger artists may be getting hundreds of thousands of dollars through streaming, smaller artists rely on people to buy their music on places like Bandcamp or physical CDs to actually make money. Many CDs are around the same amount or less then what your streaming service subscription is with smaller artists. The convenience that streaming provides doesn’t make up for the exploitation they are getting away with.
The last way to keep local music alive is to make music! It doesn’t have to be good., it doesn’t even have to be decent. Every single famous musical artist today started off knowing nothing about songwriting or playing their instrument. The music scene may be inactive now, but new faces playing music always brings inspiration and excitement, and ultimately, is what having a music scene is about.
