In the music industry, there are several ways to make a living: the road, selling records, merchandise, or licensing in TV or Movies. The majority of bands make their living on the road, like mine...needless to say, during this COVID19 outbreak that income is no longer coming in. So, countless artists are pivoting to online concerts (either free or with a paywall), or turning to crowdfunding like Patreon or Kickstarter. Artists are usually prepared for things like cancelled tours or slow ticket sales...in general a fluctuating income is par for the course in the music industry. What we are NOT prepared for was social distancing, which has temporarily eliminated the touring industry.
However, creating CONTENT has never actually required one-on-one proximity.
Did you know that most records are made by what we call multi-tracking? It’s pretty rare these days for a band to get into a big room and play a song together while the engineer presses the record button. For most modern records, the norm is to layer one instrument at a time, often the drums and bass then guitars, then vocals. When the band lives in different parts of the country, like my band, sometimes we will have a few days for the drummer and producer, and then a few days for just the vocalists and producer. Thankfully we are able to keep up with the progress in real time using zoom and dropbox.
Other examples of long distance musical collaborations include Elton John and Bernie Taupin who wrote about 20 songs together before actually meeting in person and The Postal Service who actually named themselves over the fact that they recorded their first album by mailing each other DAT recordings and layering parts separately!
One of my favorite quotes is by Orson Welles: “the enemy of art is the absence of limitations.” Without any constraints; monetary, time, proximity, access to tools, creativity suffers. We’ve all seen Michael Bay movies right? :)
So here we are....those working from home certainly have some constraints. It’s easier said than done, but NOW is the time to “judo” the situation for your team and company just like Elton John and The Postal Service did. There are no easy answers, but I believe that the energy that we ALL have can be channeled into a complacent lane or a creative lane. So let’s be solution oriented and guide our energy into the proper lane.!
