The Everyday Enchantment of Music

Brain Pickings – An inventory of the meaningful life.
THE EVERYDAY ENCHANTMENT OF MUSIC
A rough sound was polished until it became a smoother sound, which was polished until it became music. Then the music was polished until it became the memory of a night in Venice when tears of the sea fell from the Bridge of Sighs, which in turn was polished until it ceased to be and in its place stood the empty home of a heart in trouble. Then suddenly there was sun and the music came back and traffic was moving and off in the distance, at the edge of the city, a long line of clouds appeared, and there was thunder, which, however menacing, would become music, and the memory of what happened after Venice would begin, and what happened after the home of the troubled heart broke in two would also begin.

Upcoming Concerts

April:
We will perform at the Jazz Alley in Seattle from 19. April until 22. April.
We will perform at The Iridium in Manhattan from 26. April until 28. April.

May:
At the end of May Jon and I will perform duets, with Flamenco guitar and upright bass, at the Rialto in Loveland, Colorado, on 30. May, and at eTown in Boulder on 31. May.

June:
On 2. June the trio will perform with the New Mexico Philharmonic Orchestra at the Zoo, in Albuquerque. On 3. June the trio will perform at the Spencer Theater for the Performing Arts…

Opting Out

Opting out
Things are not going well in the music industry…. That’s an understatement. The truth is that things are pretty screwed up in the music industry… That’s also an understatement!

More people need to realize what artists get paid by streaming platforms for their hard work. More people should care!

The cold numbers (per play)
Napster pays $0.0167
Tidal pays $0.0110
Apple Music pays $0.0064
Google Play pays $0.0059
Deezer pays $0.0056
Spotify pays $0.0038
Pandora pays $0.0011
Youtube $0.0006 (IF you monetize)

To get on these platforms you also have to go through a distributor, for example CD Baby, which takes 19% of these royalties… On top of the fixed price for the entry ticket of course, which varies between $49 and $89 for an album. And of course to withdraw that money, you will have bank or Paypal fees…

So in average among these platforms, you get $0.0065, minus the 19% that’s a whooping $0.005265! Meaning for 10,000 plays you get roughly $50

It’s something I might give a try, to ONLY sell a CD from my website. No digital distribution, no streaming, no CD distribution… only selling CDs directly.