Re: making money off your music

[Per Boysen <perboysen@gmail.com>]

On Fri, Oct 8, 2010 at 4:55 AM, Rick Walker <looppool@cruzio.com> wrote:
> It would be interesting to hear from professional musicians on this list 
>who
> live in other regions
> and countries.


I live in Sweden and here the market for recorded music has always
been global. So when I was signed as an artist to a couple of (yes,
the contract was sold and bought and sold and bought many times)
record labels they were all working on the international market, so
the changes I've seen are not particularly for this region.  It seems
the whole business went global by 1990 some time. Anyway, 1997 was the
year when CD sales dropped and since then many labels went bankrupt.
So much for the recording side of the job. I did some studio work as a
guitarist in the 80's and 90's but then the studio scene changed from
working on high budget projects to working on low budget demo
recordings, and that means no money to hire studio musicians.

If I compare the payment for working as a "hired gun" tour musician
the wage I had in 1987 was the same as that job is paid today - while
most other jobs in Sweden has seen at least a doubling of the wage
level since then.

My personal history is more about "trying to get out of full time
musicianship" rather than "making it" and I guess that says a lot
about my own musical tastes vs the market and common taste implied by
the music business ;-)  But I can tell that there is less money in the
circles now compared to one or two decades ago, when it comes to
booking freelance gigs (not going with the established booking
agencies).

Greetings from Sweden

Per Boysen
www.boysen.se
www.perboysen.com
www.looproom.com internet music hub