Discovered By Whom?
There are lots of people living on the streets in Santa Barbara, where I live. A lot of the more enterprising ones have musical instruments, like guitars or djembes, and manage to get small bits of cash from performing on the street.
I overheard a conversation about these people. One person remarked about how talented so many of them are. The other person agreed, saying, "It seems like they're good enough to be discovered by someone."
I know what that means. If you're a starving musician, being "discovered" means a talent scout from a record company finds you, recognizes your potential, invests in your talent, helps you produce an album, markets you and the music, and then distributes your music to the masses.
Cassette tape decks were prevalent for so many years in automobiles that I still occasionally get into a friend's car and see one on the dash. It's an outmoded technology almost two decades over, but it stuck around for a very long time. Part of this is because we invented technology to connect new to the old. I drove around for a couple of years with a Discman on the seat next to me that plugged into the cassette deck in my first car.
The reason is simple: people like me don't buy a new car very often, and when I do, it's a used one, so the way it plays music tends to be behind the times. Now the car I drive has a CD player, but I can't hook my iPod up to it.
Our perception of what it takes to be a musician seems as stuck in a lot of people's heads as those cassette decks. All it takes to be a record producer these days is a laptop computer (which could be one of those cheap netbooks), some software (it's included on those new Macs), and some musical ability to play an instrument. (preferably well enough that people are willing to listen)
And now all you need to get it out there for people to hear is MySpace. (and maybe some guts to upload the songs for public scrutiny in the first place)
Cheaper hardware, software, and the Internet has made potential talent scouts out of all of us. There's often people playing they're instruments on the street. Who's to say you can't "discover" them yourself and help them make their art?
I overheard a conversation about these people. One person remarked about how talented so many of them are. The other person agreed, saying, "It seems like they're good enough to be discovered by someone."
I know what that means. If you're a starving musician, being "discovered" means a talent scout from a record company finds you, recognizes your potential, invests in your talent, helps you produce an album, markets you and the music, and then distributes your music to the masses.
Cassette tape decks were prevalent for so many years in automobiles that I still occasionally get into a friend's car and see one on the dash. It's an outmoded technology almost two decades over, but it stuck around for a very long time. Part of this is because we invented technology to connect new to the old. I drove around for a couple of years with a Discman on the seat next to me that plugged into the cassette deck in my first car.
The reason is simple: people like me don't buy a new car very often, and when I do, it's a used one, so the way it plays music tends to be behind the times. Now the car I drive has a CD player, but I can't hook my iPod up to it.
Our perception of what it takes to be a musician seems as stuck in a lot of people's heads as those cassette decks. All it takes to be a record producer these days is a laptop computer (which could be one of those cheap netbooks), some software (it's included on those new Macs), and some musical ability to play an instrument. (preferably well enough that people are willing to listen)
And now all you need to get it out there for people to hear is MySpace. (and maybe some guts to upload the songs for public scrutiny in the first place)
Cheaper hardware, software, and the Internet has made potential talent scouts out of all of us. There's often people playing they're instruments on the street. Who's to say you can't "discover" them yourself and help them make their art?