Welcome to the Year of the local and Musicnomics 101

If you didn't know. 2015 is the year of the local and there is nothing more local then music and a surf spot.  That said what how and when this local trend gears up was not something I wanted to sit on the sidelines of so starting last year I join a local DC group DC Advocates for the Arts and started something called DCMadeMusic.com which is an effort to get DC made music out of DC since that is my local music scene.

However once I really started thinking about our city's music and having read just about every economic paper on what cities have done to bring music into their development and export plans the idea struck to go about this city by city enabling the existing networks to connect to national and global distribution. This way it get to boats, planes and trains for distribution instead of the bands van or car trunk.

So Altavoz and it's partners took some time to review what was happening and also looked at the data coming from the National Endowment for Arts on artistic impacts on the economy my own back ground in music and economics I've come up with a new word to describe what is needed to be taken into consideration

.  Musicnomics an online education in the business of music. 

It's on this new crazy way to secure a music deal   www.CityMusicDeal.com 

It's it's about Jobs then why isn't Music in the equation Data says it needs to be!

Recently the National Endowment for the Arts release a report on employment and the Arts and needs to be the wakeup call to banks, economic development offices and venture capital.  

As someone that clearly working in the capitalization of music we hear ourselves and from our partners that funders would rather fund an app that steals IP your music than actually investing in it.   

I've already blogged about compensation for workers in these type of jobs, which accoridng  Berklee.edu  "we are not only talking about more than comparable wages on averge paying  27k"

So now that we know we have a lot of people wanting to be in this industry and we have great paying jobs in it.  What are we waiting for USA?  

Lets invest in our Arts economy and makes some jobs people want for products that the world would enjoy us exporting.    

The Music Capitalist 

+Nelson Jacobsen 

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Here the link http://arts.gov/news/2014/national-endowment-arts-announces-new-research-arts-employment

Some Highlights 

The big picture - In 2013, 2.1 million workers held primary positions as artists. A primary job is defined as one at which the greatest number of hours were worked. In that same year, an estimated 271,000 workers also held second jobs as artists. Twelve percent of all artist jobs in 2013 were secondary employment.

Unemployment trends - For primary artists, the unemployment rate was 7.1 percent in 2013, compared to 6.6 percent of all U.S. civilian workers, but higher than the 3.6 rate for all professionals (artists are grouped in the professional category). This is an improvement over the 9 percent jobless rates in 2009 and 2010, but well above the pre-recession unemployment rate of 3.6 percent in 2006. Architects and designers were among the hardest hit occupations. While both have halved the 10-11 percent unemployment rates they faced in 2009, neither is back to pre-recession employment rates of 1-3 percent. By contrast, musicians have faced a steady unemployment rate of 8-9 percent since 2009, much higher than the 4.8 percent jobless rate in 2006.

The entrepreneurial spirit - In 2013, 61 percent of artists with a second job were self-employed, compared to the 35 percent of primary, self-employed artists, and 10 percent of all U.S. workers. 

Altavoz his throwing it's A into STEAM and so should you.

 So STEM is great STEAM is better and since it integrates Science & Technology plus Engineering & Arts with Math.

Hence the name.


Just taking a look at this blog you'll notice that I'm pretty PRO USMADEMUSIC and we're just not going to have music or any Arts with out education being a foundation where our future (KIDS) are introduced to it.

Here's a fact.

Students who study art are 4 times more likely to be recognized for academic achievement and 3 times more likely to be awarded for school attendance. 

Here's another.

• The US used to supply 80 percent of the Worlds Music today we supply 10 percent 

One last fact. 

• There are more people born every day and every single one of them needs art. 

Having first been introduced to STEAM via the Recording Academy Grammy on the Hill events I realized that for my company to survive let alone the US's place in the world of culture and economics to remain relevant we have to do something about it. 

And @AltavozDistroCo we're not waiting until 2014 we talking it this year.   I'll be making an announcement at the Washington DC Random Hacks of Kindness Dec 7th about a new program that we'll be helping to convey to school, community leaders and economist so stay TUNNED.........

1. http://www.dosomething.org/tipsandtools/11-facts-about-arts-education

Music capitalist to the rescue with blogs.

So I have to ask what does it means to local, national and world cultures and economies to be so naive about the nature and scope of Music on one hand! And, on the other be so totally immersed in it that music is beyond our imagination to live without.  Try thinking about not having music in your life without coming up with a Soundtrack 12 I dare ya.

Yet! here we are today and it's this state we are in that has lead to the blog, domain and personal moniker.  Music Capitalist.    I'll talk about my journey over the last 25 years and well into the future of the New Music Business and why it's important to all of us.

I'd like to start with something I was recently part of called Grammys on the Hill. At the start we where treated to a speech by the Librarian of Congress, Dr. James H. Billington about the impact of music and I'm going to do my best to get a copy of it and post it here.  Trust me it was inspirational.

This was followed up by the Recording Academy's launching of a campaigned called  "American Music: Creation is Innovation" to help educate lawmakers on the impact that music has on our economy and what can be done in the us to help us revive our economy, culture and moxie. I quote from the announcement to then shine a light on the state of tech and that of entertainment.

"Innovation" is a popular Word in Washington these days. Everyone from Congress to the White House is eager to embrace innovation as the key to our nation's economic growth and prosperity, and every industry trade association is ready to claim that they have cornered the market on it. But We know that real innovation springs from creativity, and American music is our finest expression of that creativity. So sure we're  staring to see the tide slowing on the abandonment of US Made Music just take this quote from a Commerce Site.

Future industry growth is likely to be among companies outside the soon to be big three worldwide record companies – Universal Music Group, Sony Music Entertainment, and Warner Music Group as the U.S. has a robust indie sector.  The indies struggle to export and prevent illegal file sharing and often rely on partnerships with the largest labels in global markets. US Commerce Department 

I  love however how it states the opportunity and impediments of promoting #USMADEMUSIC. Namely the lack of exporting.   This is something that I've been following for decades and have watched the US go from producing 80 percent of the World Music to now being on track to be a net importer of music and only supplying 12 percent to the rest of the growing world market.

So while the UK see's increase in music buying as does Germany too and I have to ask is this really a surprise and if we don't invest in US Made Music and work to export it how can the world consume it. 

Considering the recent bid for Universal Music Group and the Spurring of the offer to Sony to spin off it's entertainment division shows everyone that there is still a lot of life left in entertainment -- particularly music.

Recently I was very pleased to see  Ed Christman pointing out in Billboard article called "A New Day for Indie Distribution"  about the role of non Major distributors in which companies like ours Altavoz (mentioned in the article) are poised to make a difference in the music business.

BTW I have a couple of statements that I use and I would love to be able to put them to bed before sunsetting this blog.  The first is... We're entertaining our Economy to Death and Stopping the Haliburtonization of the US Entertainment Industry both of which we'll discuss here on Music Capitalist blog.

Also as a student of music and the business of it I'll be talking about where what and how things came about from the secret letter that changed the Rap game to how Mega Multi-Nationals are laughing all the way to the off shore banks and how come OWS never got bigger hopefully these subject and of course how to make money in music which is what I do is something that others can asprise to do as well.

PS Heck out this picture it's how we role Indie on the Hill with Big Heff and Bella Nae

For your ears ~ No Tears, video by Bella Nae https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=67TziksmoUU