Leaderboard

Appreciate it man! Going ahead and bumping this up for review. No better way to receive feedback then by actually asking.

I have to say, for me, this is probably the saddest. While I have contended that pop does not equal less musicianship, I will agree I'm not a fan of the kind of music that plays on today's radio stations. I've tried playing music that I enjoy in the car with my peers, which is usually jazz or R&B, and they usually ask "What the fuck is this?" Then they put on Post Malone or Drake. I've asked them too why they don't like my music taste, and their response was, "Because we can't get lit to it." I'm sure people were getting lit to Bill Evans in 1963.

So I posted a rant on here recently about feeling like people who don't really belong get handed jobs while I have to work really hard to get even considered. Mostly it's a political game and the good ole boys from the university get everything in the area, but still felt good to complain about it. This is decently related. A point I bring up occasionally in discussions relates to saturation of the market. I'm going to venture into a subcategory and talk about mainstream vs. niche. I can't remember the thread, but somebody was basically asking how to be successful in the VGM scene, and why they weren't being successful. Asking what they did, they did metal covers of mainly 8-bit music. The discussion was productive, constructive, and a lot of good communication happened. (another thing I'm happy about OCR btw, teacher gatherings can turn into acid raining down form the sky) An example I give is Wily Stage from Megaman 2, and the comically absurd amount of metal covers there are of it. By cover I mean note for note from the original but with guitars. So if you're a metal guitarist, doing covers of Wily Stage, and you basically sound the same as the 1200 other people who have already done it, your youtube channel will have 6 subscribers and 40 total views, because you don't stand out. Very few people want to wade through 1200 virtually identical metal covers of Wily Stage hoping they find a good one. When it comes to mainstream music (here referring to what is produced on a large stream for mass audiences), this both applies and doesn't. It has to be somewhat new and fresh, but also very accessible to the average listener, but even then, no it doesn't. Talking with people about modern Christian worship music, it basically has turned into generic love song, but shaded to fit in a worship context. Why does it sound distinctive from pop music? Because it kind of developed in a musical vacuum. It evolved largely on its own which is why it didn't really follow pop trends as closely. Christian record labels were, and still are somewhat niche. Quick look at a stats site tells me that it makes about half the revenue of country music. I live in Texas. Country music is a BIG deal here. Christian music is a BIGGER deal here. There are a lot of bands that do Christian music but refuse the label so that they aren't put in that box where people won't listen to them. The watering down of the genre is a result of the labels avoiding risks. That doesn't have much grounding in reality, since a lot of the people are buying the music because it's available and it's basically the least bad option. Where to go from here? People are generally a lot more open to unique music than the labels give them credit for. Honestly, if the radio stations and everywhere were to start blaring pop music based on 12 tone music from 1910, eventually people would think that 12 tone influenced pop were the new thing. Exposure makes people tend to enjoy things. A lot of pop music really is very bad. But if you hear it a few times, the familiarity of it makes it not seem that bad. A lot of musicians are trying to do that. They're trying to be the next big thing, and as a result they end up with a sound that resembles the current big thing, but isn't very distinctive. I'm really talking on a large scale. Every musician has something that makes them stand out, if they're doing original works. But really, if there are 20 bands out there trying to be the next big thing, and they are all sounding like Portugal. the Man, but not as high quality, why would anybody listen to them when they could just listen to the real one? When it comes to people talking about a saturated market, they're exactly right. There are too many people trying to go where the money is, and they end up sounding like the other people going where the money is. Personal dig, a lot of guitar players I know that complain about not being successful have absolutely no regard for musicality or style, but still insist on doing their thing that doesn't work. The ones who do something different enough to stand out, but similar enough to blend in are the ones who succeed. I really think a lot of the state of the music industry today, with mainstream music is directly related to the lessening of value of music in the school system. A lot of elementary music education in the US is a joke, and I think it's the reason for a lot of problems in the music industry. In a lot of public schools, which the majority of the population goes to, music education is edutainment that doesn't actually teach music. By the end of 4th or 5th grade, the students might can sing a single line matching pitch, but even that is a stretch sometimes. It's not a fault by the music teachers, a lot of them only see a specific group of kids once a week, the other days of the week are other groups of kids. And there's a lot of red tape, and there's really short class times (~30 minutes), and this and that. Plus, economic issues causing kids to be hard to teach (why should I pay attention in class when I haven't eaten in 3 days and I don't know if I'll ever see my dad again because mom's new boyfriend beat him up again). Then there's secondary education, mostly band, orchestra, or choir, which is optional and being cut more and more as the days go on. The simplification and homogenization of pop music wouldn't be noticed at all because most of the population doesn't actually know anything about music. When I stand in front of students, especially those in rural schools, the students have this idea that music is what they hear on the radio. Music in school is something that vaguely resembles music, but is boring. I can show the trumpet players Maynard Ferguson, Herp Alpert, or the saxophone players Charlie Parker, John Coltrane, and they will be in awe. But the trumpet or saxophone they hold in their hands they insist is a completely different instrument. I can grab their trumpet and play the Gonna Fly Now solo and they will still insist it's a completely different instrument (subconsciously). Beyond that, okay, I played my boring band music, can I got beat the snot out of the drumset now? Marching band is what these kids really like, only for the reason that they get to play the music they hear on the radio in band. All other music they play is just sound that resembles music and is just filler, and as a result they just affirm that they aren't musicians and just listen to the popular music. This creates a demand that affirms that the labels and other sources should just be conservative with what they sell. They have the marketing money, so they win. Wow. This went on for a while. I haven't tried to really succeed in the music industry proper, mainly because all my performance experience is in live gigs, and small time studio work. I'm not trying to market JohnStacy the artist to try to sell music to whoever. I'm happy doing that, and doing the teaching thing. But, I'm getting more and more of those gigs because I'm similar (a brass player who can play both classical and jazz, and can work in any musical setting) but different (I'm a french horn player who can do this, and do this well, in a lot of cases better and more reliable than the trumpet and trombone players). I'm also observing people around me, both in person and on the internet. A lot of the ones doing well are doing something unique, but accessible and know how to market themselves.