recently a lot of the musicians whose blogs I read have been writing really interesting (and often kind of depressing) posts about the state of the music industry and the sorts of things artists have to face in that world - most notably James Brooks' big articulate rant about it, which created a pretty huge and sprawling dialogue on tumblr and beyond. I'm not myriad-minded enough to have followed that dialogue through all its nuances and whatnot at all, but I did notice that a lot of the responses to it on tumblr were prefaced with statements along the lines of "I hope to enter the music industry one day, so this is scary..."
those sorts of responses made me start to think about all the information I still lack about the music industry, which is obviously not great since ultimately I would like to be able to make a living off my music. and I don't think I'm by any means the only person with similar aims sitting in this position of ignorance.
for me, the biggest questions have to do with the initial stages of contact with 'industry people'. obviously this is not so much a problem for me in my Aphir project because choral music is maybe not exactly an A&R rep's wet dream but, presumably because it's had a bit of attention on some UK blogs, Gunwaif has been approached online by one or two guys who have spoken tentatively about management rosters and asked to be able to see more of our material. now, I have a deeply-entrenched cynicism about the internet and I know that, while many of its inhabitants are honest pilgrims on the road to self-discovery, etc., there are scummy people out there and I would like to minimise my contact with them if possible.
I'd really like to know how to figure out who to trust in this context. meeting people face to face seems like a good way to potentially clear up any awkward internet/identity issues, but when you live in a different country from the people contacting you it becomes a little more difficult. there also seem to be issues of etiquette surrounding how deeply you can probe someone's identity and background when they do email you out of the blue about your music. I know that my bandmates and I have caused offence in the past when we have (politely) asked for more information from management reps who have contacted us.
on one level of course this makes sense, because even polite questions can potentially make people feel distrusted (obviously not something anyone wants to feel), but I would have thought that the clear potential for people to pretend to be who they are not on the internet would render those sorts of questions understandable at least.
I would love it if more established performers talked about this sort of thing in interviews and in social media because, well, who else can fledgeling artists learn from? and also, I suppose this is a big conjecture that I'm not really qualified to make but, I imagine that if more artists enter the industry already equipped with a strong idea of what's fair and who should be trusted, then it might be easier for them to push for some of the broader positive changes that people like Grimes, James Brooks, Bjork, etc., etc. have advocated.
