Music Think Thank Is Now On Facebook

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MTT Founder Bruce Warila Wants To Meet You At Midem

Music Think Tank co-founder and frequent contributor Bruce Warila is heading to Midem and wants to connect with as many MTT contributors and commenters as possible.

The best way to reach out is via his echo louder blog or come to the meetup on Sunday night where he and current Music Think Tank and Hypebot publisher Bruce Houghton will be sharing some fun and conversation along with co-sponsors Topspin, Mobile Roadie, MXP4, SoundCloud and SongKick. Details on the meetup here.

Do We Consume Music More, Enjoy It Less?

Scientists say that our brain reacts to great music similar to way it reacts to sex.

In both of these situations, the experience of pleasure that we have is mediated by the release of the brain’s reward chemical, dopamine. This finding is based on the results of experiments done by analyst Valorie Salimpoor of McGill University in Montreal, Canada.

Music produces an intellectual reward, because the listener has to follow the sequence of notes to appreciate it. For the study, the participants were asked to choose instrumental pieces of music that gave them goosebumps. Lyrics were banned, so the associations the participants might have to the words in the music didn’t confound the final results.

Songs couldn’t have specific memories attached either.

While listening to their chosen music, Salimpoor’s team measured things like heart rate and increases in respiration and sweating. During these listening sessions, a 6-9% relative increase in their dopamine levels was detected in participates when compared to a control condition in which participants had listened to each other’s music selections.

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Top 6 Missing Features From Thumbplay Music

I AM THE most ungrateful person I have ever met.

At this moment, I have access to eight million songs. They are at my fingertips. And I’m not happy. It’s not enough. It’s not that I’m disappointed with the number of songs available.

It’s that every time I attempt to search for another artist or navigate within the app, I find shortcomings. They are small things. But they prevent me from enjoying my music experience in the way that I should. Or at least in the way that I think I should. 

In 2001, for $399, Steve Jobs gave music fans the ability to store one thousand songs in their pocket. Nine years later, eight million songs won’t suffice. Why?

No matter what the music industry does, we’ll all be unsatisfied customers.

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The Day Spotify Changed The World

At the dawn of a new decade, the digital music sector remains unchanged.

Spotify didn’t launch in 2010. If it had though, would we be different now? I think so. Had it been made available in the U.S., an iPod type moment could’ve occurred. It could’ve.

And it still could. I’m not saying this out of blind evangelism either. Looking at the social features of Spotify more closely, I’m starting to believe Daniel Ek’s proclamation that music will displace photos on Facebook in popularity. Photo sharing is the lifeblood of Facebook, as are games like FarmVille and CityVille. Status updates and link sharing also play a big role. We like to see what our friends (and strangers) are doing and hear what they’ve been up to. However, a large majority of people do little with their accounts.

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Should Digital Collections Be Worth Something?

Most people don’t care whether they own music downloads or not.

Of the more than 8 million people that are estimated to buy a Kindle this year, only a small fraction of them understand that the ebooks bought on the device are licensed – not owned – which means they can’t lend or sell their titles. By agreeing to Amazon’s terms of service, which they didn’t read, they’ve accepted these conditions. Soon, single ebook lending may be allowed on the Kindle, but users won’t be allowed to buy used ebooks.

The “first sale” doctrine indicates that consumers can sell their physical books, give them to a library, or do just about anything else. This legal principle covers CDs, DVDs, and videogames too. It enables the used marketplace and retailers like eBay and Amazon to exist and sell used titles. In the digital age, this concept is under fire. It’s no longer clear that consumers should be granted the same rights when they buy digital downloads.

You own an iPod and Kindle, but not the songs or books on them.

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Andrew Dubber To Record Album In Delhi With Street Kids

Andrew Dubber, a music industry commentator and founder of Music Think Tank, has ventured to Delhi. He is working with a group called Music Basti; it is a youth-run charity. It organizes music workshops in homes for street children. Professional musicians, many of whom are successful recording artists, run the music workshops.

In partnership with Music Basti, Dubber intends to record an album of songs featuring the street children and release it online. He wants to do this to simply try and raise money for the charity. All proceeds from the album sales will go to the group to support their work. He hopes that it brings their cause to a wider audience too. The album once recorded and mixed down, will be released through Bandcamp. It will be available for free and as a pay-what-you-think-it’s worth.

Dubber intends to use various forms of online media to build a story, create meaning, and connect the cause and music to people on a deeper level.

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The Real and ONLY Reasons Why Fans File-Share Music

Thus far, we’ve looked at eight reasons why fans file-share music.

Mainly, they’re unaware of the number of legal and alternative options to consume music that are available; they want to hear music and grow to like the songs before they buy them; or they don’t know the artist, either not well enough or at all, or don’t trust them, due to recent line-up or sound changes. Rebuilding that trust takes time and isn’t easy.

As well, fans file-share music when there’s too many hoops to jump through on an artist’s website or because the offer that the artist made, whether by price, package, or delivery, was terrible. Next, we looked at the role that the biases of digital technologies play into file-sharing—the different ranges of social behavior they promote in audiences.

We also tried to understand how choice overload can cause decision paralysis, leading fans to become overwhelmed. To cope, they take the path of least resistance, attempt to explore all of their options at once, and end up committing to no decision at all.

Lastly, we looked at how fans employ their own Internet law of economics when buying music and end up file-sharing it to mitigate the risk purchasing with an album they wouldn’t have otherwise bought. A number of motivations were intentionally left out of this analysis. Let us now explore some of the more common reasons why fans file-share:

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4 Reasons Why Fans Are File-Sharing Your Music (And Why They Can't Be Changed)

Last time, we looked at four reasons why fans are file-sharing an artist’s music—that they can change. These are simple solutions that any artist can act on and ensure that their fans aren’t motivated to file-share their music for reasons such as being unaware of alternative and legal options to consume their music or unable to hear the entire album before they buy it. Furthermore, new fans may not trust the artist because they don’t have enough name recognition or the artist has since changed their sound. Lastly, there may simply be too many “hoops” or clicks to jump through before fans can download or buy their album, so they resort of file-sharing it because it’s a proven, effective, and easy to use interface that works every time and is only a few clicks away; it’s also habitual.

These are all causes of file-sharing that artists can acknowledge and take steps toward preventing. In some cases, it’s simple solutions that matter. Educate your fans on the ways they can legally access your music, for free; allow them to stream albums before they buy them; build trust with your current audience and potential fans; and ensure that buying your music from your website or iTunes is the most quick and easiest way to access paying for music. If these general needs aren’t met, it could lead fans to download music that they may not have otherwise. Trouble is, these aren’t the only reasons why fans file-share. Here’s the four reasons fans file-share that artists can’t change:

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Music Think Tank Brings On New Intern

Good afternoon all, I wanted to take a moment and announce that we have a new intern that’s helping around Music Think Tank. Her name is Natalie Cheng (@ncswim881).

She is from Sugar Land, TX. She is twenty-two and is very interested in music marketing and branding, new trends in the music and record industries, and distribution. She wants to learn more about the changes affecting the music industry and how artists are changing the way they interact with fans.  Her career goals include working in a marketing position at a music company or label and working as a session musician for major artists. Currently, she is seeking a job/internship at music labels and companies in the Texas area or to continue her education, possibly pursuing a master’s degree in music or marketing. 

Here at Music Think Tank, she’ll be focusing on tagging posts, writing post summaries, approving comments, and getting involved in a myriad of other ways with Hypebot too.

Take a moment to welcome her to the community.

Last Week On Music Think Tank

Jonathan Ostrow: 10 Tips For Turning Your Fanbase Into A Tribe.
Apryl Peredo: Conquer Your City - Conquer Your World.
Mike Venti:  Selling Out Your Shows Every Time.
Ariel Hyatt: Four Cases You Need to Know About and How They Affect The Music Industry, Part 2 with Joyce Dollinger.
Brian Hazard: The Individual Edition CD.
Jonathan Ostrow:The Musicians Guide To Fan-Funding.

A Note From The Editor: Seeking New Authors, Spam Problems, And The Hit Song Contest

Afternoon all,

Hope everything is well; I have a few things I wanted to bring to your attention. 

Since the beginning, Music Think Tank as served as a platform and sounding board for a collective of some of the leading thinkers and change makers in the tech and music industries.  At present, I am looking to expand the author base and scope of the blog just a little bit wider, in hopes of bringing in even more great content. If you have something great that you’ve seen or have written recently, maybe even a big idea you’ve been kicking around, please get in touch. I would be interested in featuring your insights. As standing editor, my standards are indefinitely high, but I’d love to hear what you have in mind.

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Savor Your Music: The Effect of Abundance in Culture

Thus far, we have explored the paradoxes of choice overload in culture through the analytic lenses of the record store and web, coming to the conclusion that “paradise of music” that we had initially envisioned—may not exist.  As counterintuitive as it may be, the findings in my previous two essays point to the idea that more music is less.  That as the number of cultural options goes up, the amount of satisfaction that a fan derives out of any given choice will be lessened as a result; it may even cause them to opt out of the decision making process all together.  We also found that, in culture, the effect of overwhelming choice has the potential to cause fans to opt for the same old songs as a way to avoid facing unlimited options online and off, to rely on filters like Pandora rather than on themselves, and to become more passive participants in their cultural lives.   

Such insights are quite disheartening and run contrary to the long held beliefs of many, including the viewpoints that Chris Anderson expressed in his book The Long Tail.  The focus of this essay turns our attention away from our discussion of choice overload and the effects that it has on fans when they are purchasing music and brings us to the to the topic of how overwhelming choice may distress fans when they are enjoying the music that they already own.  Within the context of the iPod, we will try to discover whether or not storing thousands of songs in our pockets has forced us—as fans—to increase the amount of effort that we put into making a decision about what we want to hear and if the consequence of having unlimited options, causes us to enjoy any given song less.   

“For many of us, the iPod rekindled our dormant passion for music,” Steven Levy writes in The Perfect Thing.  “It made us want to hear more songs, it encouraged us to go out and find new bands to love, it offered a new ways to organize music and take it with us.”  As well, the iPod released fans from the constraints of Top 40 radio playlists and, for the first time, gave them complete control over their musical experiences.  Prior iterations, such as the Walkman, only allowed fans to play one album at a time, whereas the iPod granted fans the ability to play any song, from any album, at any time.  With the social epidemic of file-sharing that occurred alongside the advent of the iPod, the barriers of music consumption fell and the act of collecting music evolved.  Those who were born digital, among everyone else, gained access to a plethora of music online and could easily download the thousands of songs required to fill the storage capacity of any iPod.  Soon, even fans who previously expressed little interest in the act collecting music, downloaded massive collections of their own, and now, rather than burning single copies of CDs to give to friends, fans either loaded up their iPod full of music or copied and pasted their entire collections to their hard drive.  These common practices and newfound social behaviors had the effect of greatly multiplying the number of music choices that many fans faced and left them with the responsibility navigating collections that expanded far beyond their capabilities of doing so—with any measure of certainty.

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