Molly Sheridan

I’m in the middle of a little vacation, though in uncharacteristic fashion, I haven’t packed a suitcase and jetted off to someplace exotic. It’s really more of a staycation, as my colleague Frank likes to say, and it’s been a good week. In between catching up on boring adult stuff and building fantastic (or, in my case, ridiculous) contraptions, I can now recommend a couple of awesome restaurants (1, 2) and a movie to you.

In addition, I spent Wednesday with the good folks from the Future of Music Coalition for their 2009 Policy Day. What can I say: A time out from time off was in order when I saw the all-star guest list. For those who get giddy when debates over copyright reform and net neutrality crop up, I couldn’t imagine a more lovely February day inside the Beltway (aside from the moment that nice man told me I had to toss my coffee before entering the auditorium). It was a great relief, though not much comfort, to listen to legal professionals from YouTube and the RIAA play out on stage the internal debate I have running in my head when trying to sort out intellectual property rules and licensing issues in a digital environment. Look, mom, they don’t know either! Or at least they can’t agree, which leads to effectively the same end result for anyone out in the field hoping for a fair and reasonable playbook to follow. The short answer I took away was: No one has the magical solution to how we’re going to get out of this predicament (though a pristinely accurate database of metadata for every music track ever recorded would sure help us with the “how to efficiently log, monetize, and distribute” equation), but waiting for Congress to legislate us out of this or for the courts to litigate us clear is probably not the way to go. Meanwhile, however, that’s sort of what we’re doing.

You can catch the recap of some of yesterday’s panels here (though my favorite session–#3–in not currently available for some reason. Perhaps it’s a copyright issue?). Ahem. Anyway, I’ll be drawing on a lot of what I learned when Mind the Gap hosts its first book club event in March. Some of my blogger heros have agreed to read and discuss Lessig’s new book Remix: Making Art and Commerce Thrive in the Hybrid Economy in this space next month. We haven’t figured out how to email the wine and cheese around yet, but if early plenary emails are any indication, it’s sure to be a hot week of discussion. If you’re interested in playing along, get reading. I’m also gathering resource links, so if you’ve read anything great on this or related issues that you’d like to toss into the mix, please do float links and source directions my way.

I’ve been thinking about the site Etsy.com a lot lately, as it might relate to the composing and performing market. If you’ve never shopped there, it’s basically a connector site for crafty people, allowing them to sell their wares in an Amazon-like online shop. It’s popular among Baltimore crafters, which is how I first encountered it. I’ve stood behind young women balancing towers of packages at the post office as they sent out their creations to customers across the nation. It inspires me in a way that kicks me gently in the butt every time. They get to do what they love, and despite the odds, they’ve found a way to sell it to a much broader base than the traditional card table at the local flea market. That probably translates into an exponential increase in units moved and income earned. And they haven’t had to change their art one bit to make it happen.

In the age of the digital copy, the money for music is arguably best found where the real people are, and ordinary people don’t often know how to buy new music (the creation itself, not the recording–a la Corey’s project) or any of the arts for themselves. What if everyday people could link up with everyday artists to buy original art or performances in an organized, store-front way? Steve Reich might not need/want such commissions, but I bet there are a few composers out there who would. Samples and user reviews would help customers wade through the offerings with less pressure to pander to a single imagined demographic. Want to buy local? Search by zip code! Old concept (immortalize me in oil paint and I’ll let you sleep in my barn), new packaging.

Am I out of my mind?

Directly and indirectly, this series of illustrations by Maira Kalman provides a crystal clear example of why, no matter what the naysayers say, art is a vital part of human society that is just as deserving of public support as our auto industry and financial institutions (perhaps more so, when you consider the details). Why does that make us nervous sometimes, like it’s some sort of hyperbole that would make “realistic” people laugh? Would you want to be left alone in 2020 with only reality TV?

It’s on us. If this issue speaks to you and you have a few minutes today, write your congresspeople and let them know what you think. Specifically, if you would like more information on the $50,000,000 supplement for the National Endowment for the Arts that’s attached to the American Reinvestment and Recovery Bill of 2009, you can get further details here.

**Another photo from my inauguration day stash.

Well, sort of. There were a few (hundred thousand) people in between us and the new president.

Now we wait. There’s been talk about arts policy proposals and such already, of course. If Obama got up this morning after that marathon performance (his fierce new ride didn’t turn into a pumpkin until well past 3 a.m., apparently) and went to work, what should the arts community be up and at in the first 100 days? And in the spirit of “ask not what your country can do for you…”, while we’re brushing off and feeling all hopeful and intellectually fired up again, what should we be organizing to help propel the nation forward now that the weekend of a hundred speeches is winding down?

Listen on demand: Terry Gross interviews Steve Knopper, author of Appetite For Self-Destruction: The Spectacular Crash of the Recording Industry in the Digital Age.

In case you were sleeping these past few decades, crash your way through the recent past in recording industry issues. Made me so nostalgic for the time I spent during high school wandering the aisles of Best Buy picking out CDs, strangely. Do I miss the middle man? (Gulp.)

[h/t to the NPR-listening husband]

Is it sad that the first thing I thought of when I saw this slide show was “music publisher lawsuit”? With Beethoven, though, I think you’re clear.

Oh, and did you see Lawrence Lessig with his new book Remix on the Colbert Report last Friday? Well, if you didn’t, you can’t watch it on YouTube, which is sort of sharply illustrative of the issues at hand considering the topic and the fact that Lessig issued a remix challenge using the segment itself as source material.

The interview was not that exciting aside from Stephen’s on-air remix of the book with his Sharpie, but the intellectual property/usage/rights issues were some of the same ones that continually poke at my brain, so I was engaged. In my own endeavors, I don’t want to screw other people over, but technology has changed the playing field even if it hasn’t yet clearly changed the rules of the game we’re playing.

For instance, I took a picture to illustrate this post from the NYTimes website without asking for permission. I did it to illustrate a bit of what Lessig was talking about, but I feel guilty about having done it, which is how my mom and the Catholic church taught me to identify that my actions are wrong. Does it matter that the only reason that picture would be here is 1) to attract attention the article it links to and 2) to make this page more intellectually interesting and attractive? I could argue that this post is simply “added value” and does not devalue any of the original content in any way. We have to think about how the digital age has changed the idea of copies and distribution, but not money, of course, and that’s generally where and why things get confusing and uncomfortable. These days the copies and the distribution come practically free, but the content can cost a fortune in blood, sweat, or actual cash to produce, and that tends to make people nervous and protective. The NYTimes would hardly have cared about my little xeroxing escapades at Kinkos, but should they care about my blog? I can argue that it harms no one, but should that matter? What if they don’t like people like me who write about arts and culture and don’t want to be associated with my “brand”. Is that enough? Can this stand on a “fair use” argument, or are we pushing our luck and our common morality trying to justify such actions with that one?

I like the idea of a creative commons, but I’m not sure I feel that participation should be mandatory. But if participation isn’t mandatory, big guys like Viacom and the NYT won’t/can’t/don’t have to waste their time with small fries like me. This can take the thinking in a few directions. The one I can really throw my support to is the “too bad, make your own” argument because it might actually lead to even more and higher quality creative output. If I can’t use your picture, I might create an even better one to fill the void. However, then I create in my own sandbox, and there’s no drawing a mustache on a metaphoric Mona Lisa anymore.

Here’s an interesting take on how 21st-century orchestra musicians deal with the fact that their jobs often drive them a little crazy: they go out and get additional jobs.

“Dual careers are almost always a bonus–both for the income and for the variety and exposure to contrasting environments,” says Barbara Sher, author of the 2006 book “Refuse to Choose: A Revolutionary Program for Doing Everything That You Love.”

The article politely leaves out the part about how a person manages to eat, sleep, shower, and interact with loved ones while treading this career path. Hey, welcome to the new economy! With luck, one of those jobs comes with health insurance (a.k.a. access to the supply closet where the band-aids and ibuprofen are kept), so just be thankful. Double bonus: The article was penned by none other than oboe-playing journalist Blair Tindall, of Mozart in the Jungle infamy. 

But seriously, I know from personal experience that not tossing all one’s eggs into the same basket helps keep the creative life a little more charged up and balanced out, even if it cuts into playtime pretty regularly. If this article leaves you contemplating a career move, you can to dip a toe into the glamorous world that is classical music journalism (no jokes about the double sinking ship, please) with this back stage pass to the NYPhil’s season press conference. Also, consider the potential of jingle writing.

When I first moved to New York, I often wondered why so many writers dream of typing their way to success in Gotham. Sure, there are plenty of coffee shops and it’s probably easier to network your way into penning an article for Harper’s at cocktail parties in Manhattan than it would be in Missoula, but with so much activity 24/7 and a cost of living that just never seems to give a sucker a break, isn’t the place also just a tease? You can chat up an editor from Farrar, Straus & Giroux, but you’re so busy copyediting for one place and freelancing for three more and meeting friends for drinks and plays and shows that you realize with horror that you don’t have a single new idea to pitch.

Or maybe it was just a personal thing, arriving in New York as I did from the hills of Appalachia. Perhaps I just romanticize the drama of the extremes because the suburbs, where I came of angst-y age, were what really filled me with existential dread?

But then today I saw some deep-seated suspicions writ large: How the city hurts your brain.

Truth is, artists need nature! Well, maybe not this much nature, but all the same. And here I thought I needed to escape the urban landscape just because of an ever-increasing desire to smack rude strangers in the subway. But this week’s science tells us that there’s more to those artist colonies in the woods than just the quaint fireplaces and the really good food. We need to see open space in order fill it with our creativity. Or is that just one way to spin this study? Assuming most artist types don’t have the luxury of a country home and a pied-à-terre in the city, where should the aspiring put down roots?

(Personally, I vote for the space that requires the absolutely smallest time investment in cleaning it.)

In my line of work, I endure a lot of ribbing for my love of radio rock. I can plead a case citing the emotional catharsis possible due to the harmonic choices favored in the composition of the triumphant power ballad (the tonality of testosterone?), but I’m still not going to win many converts. However, I think I have it figured: double the fun. Love or hate you some Nickelback, this is honestly musically pretty fascinating. Be sure to strap on your headphones first, or you won’t get the effect.

[via Trevor]

Just when you think music criticism will never offer the kind of professional drama the doctor’s of Grey’s Anatomy enjoy, we have a development.

• Music Critic Sues Employer, Orchestra Officers

Now who will play Don in the mini-series?

Elsewhere, why hire a music critic of your very own when you can share?

To the journalists in the room quaking in their Chucks, don’t faint. We may yet profitably move this show to the internet.