I Need It For Work

Hi, it's me, Jonah, the baritone saxophonist. Remember?

As a musically inclined child coming of age in the late 90s and early 2000s I remember the Napster era quite well. In fact, I remember the first time one of my babysitters helped me download Napster to find my first track. Even as a 10 year old, it made me a little queasy. Hard to argue with a key to all music ever though. It was a morally challenging time.

When iTunes was launched in January 2001 I was super pumped. I still had access to basically all music on earth, but now I could also pay for it. It felt like a win-win to me. I was in balance.

Oh, speaking of paying, or not paying for music, the second single from my new album with Lau Nau, A Few We Remember, is out today. Will you take a listen? You can find it on bandcamp below, or if you prefer, stream it on your preferred platform here.

Ok, back to my nerdy love affair with iTunes.

All throughout high school, I lovingly curated my own library of Jazz classics, System of A Down albums, and the latest releases from Korn. I was eclectic. Every summer in Chicago, I worked in the Gallery 37 performing arts program, and then used the money to buy more music. It felt good.

Except…everyone around me kept telling me that my responsibility as a young musician was to listen to as much music as possible. To always study at least three versions of a Jazz standard before I claimed to know it. To choose to be prepared for every gig by listening to all of the music on repeat until I knew it by heart. The message was, not to explore, appreciate, or treasure music, but to consume it. To consume as much music as possible. It was getting very expensive. I held out for a while, but eventually I started raiding my friends’ hard drives. Everyone else was learning so much more than me. I had to keep up.

All to say, when spotify arrived in the United States in 2011, it felt almost impossible to find a musician who wasn’t immediately using it. I don’t think any musician ever felt good about the deal they were offering all of us, but everyone hopped on board as a consumer. After all, we needed it in order to be the best we could at our job. Right?

I’ve worked a handful of different jobs, some corporate, and in all of them there was at least some amount of pressure to abandon my values as an individual and do what was best for the company. Lately I’m realizing, I do the same thing all the time as a musician, for the sake of my own career. I held out for a bit, but eventually, by 2013, I got a spotify account just like everyone else so I could compete in the NYC freelance saxophone player economy. Is that ok? Is any tool on the table if it makes the work better? Even if it hurts people? I don’t like that very much.

Lately, there’s been somewhat of an artist exodus from spotify. I think the arguments in favor are strong and compelling. But I’m also wondering why they don’t apply to every streaming service. The truth is, streaming itself is probably an impossible business model to ethically execute in the recorded music industry. Even if tidal pays ten times more per stream than spotify, it is still averaging like $0.013 per stream. That means the payment for 1,000,000 streams per year puts a musician well below the poverty line (if they keep all of it, which they don’t).

I’ve decided to stop using streaming services to consume music and go back to paying for albums. When I need an individual song for work, I pay $1.29 and download it on iTunes (it still exists). I’m doing it for one reason, it doesn’t feel right to me that artists aren’t getting paid for their music, and I don’t want to use my own professional responsibilities as an excuse to do something that feels wrong to me. This is a decision I’m making as an individual with my artist community in mind. I don’t want to break my values for the sake of my job anymore.

Anyway, just some thoughts I’ve had recently. Try to remember I’m telling you a story, not giving you an instruction. I’m not here to lead (or patronize), I’m here to share. I love you no matter what you decide. If you have thoughts, I want to hear them. :)

Mostly, I want you to listen to my new single. Do you like it?

Talk soon,
Jonah