Musical economy

Globally, the mainstream media and the music industry have a sort of reciprocal relationship. Since the establishment of Radio Nepal in 1951, the Nepali media-sphere has played an important role in the development of the Nepali Music Industry. Of late though, changes in the Nepali society led by the technological developments have adversely affected the economy and quality of musical content of the Nepali Music Industry. This study looks into the reasons behind the dramatic decline of the Nepali music industry and look at the ways in which the Nepali media is dealing with this decline. It makes an attempt into explaining why the current trends followed by people within the Nepali music industry seem to be delivering weak results by comparing it with some successful music industries in other parts of the world.

In the city of Curitiba, Paraná, Brazil, there’s a discussion about the reason why local musicians and bands haven’t achieved commercial success as well as musicians from other Brazilian states. This paper analyzes the results achieved by many of Curitiba’s and Parana’s music artists, the problems they have faced through the last 60 (sixty) years, the service that their representatives should do compared to what they really do, the big record labels domain, the treatment given by local media and the real revolution that the internet and the technological innovations represent to the phonographic industry. The conclusion compares all the facts and data presented, analyses the real value of what has been done and identifies the importance of academic studies about the subject.
Keywords: Pop music. Local music. Curitiba. Paraná. Rock and roll.

Arnold Jacobshagen: Privilegien und Sakrilege. Orchestersterben in Europa? Vortrag gehalten auf der Tagung  „Wieviel Ökonomie verträgt das Musiktheater?“ der Europäischen Musiktheaterakademie und der Bayerischen Theater-akademie August Everding, 24. – 26. März 2002 Schloß Thurnau / Prinzregententheater München

[ITALIANO] Le preferenze dei consumatori si stanno trasformando in maniera decisa nei confronti della musica digitale. La diffusione del file sharing e della musica attraverso internet ha modificato profondamente il mercato musicale, i ruoli e le interrelazioni fra gli agenti economici. Il mercato delle registrazioni su supporto tradizionale quello maggiormente penalizzato dal crescente numero di download a causa del fenomeno della sostituzione. Nel mercato degli spettacoli live invece l'effetto dominante quello promozionale. Di conseguenza in una prima fase i profitti delle case discografiche - basati principalmente sulle registrazioni - si sono ridotti mentre quelli di artisti e promoter sono aumentati. Tramite il modello si formalizza il funzionamento dell'odierno mercato musicale alla luce delle interrelazioni fra agenti e sottomercati. Si propone inoltre una soluzione strategica di ingresso nel mercato dei live da parte delle case discografiche tramite fusione con il promoter. Secondo questo scenario anche il profitto delle case discografiche potrebbe aumentare in presenza di file sharing.

[ENGLISH] Consumption behaviours, listening habits and musical preferences are constantly changing. The widespread diffusion of digital music has radically modified the music market and agents' behaviour. The greater availability of music made possible by the internet has a negative impact on the recorded music market, due to substitution effect. At the same time, it actually stimulates live concert attendance, thanks to promotional effect. The model shows that, given the present contractual arrangements within the music industry, record companies profit decreases with the number of downloads, while artists profit - based mostly on live shows - increases. A strategic solution for record companies is then proposed. They should extend their business frontiers by entering the concert industry, either by competing or cooperating with artists. In that scenario record companies profit can increase with the number of downloads.

This paper intends to shed light on what governing bodies are associated with the music industry in Scotland and how music as a resource is valuable to the Scottish economy. My research focuses on the difference between local and government control whilst giving an insight into the positive influences of music. I have also included a comparative case study between two cities, Edinburgh and Glasgow, showing the positive effects of music within these areas. To begin with, I shall outline the political situation in Scotland explaining how the government intends to utilise music as a valuable resource for its nation.   

The paper explores one of the new business models of the music market proposed by Varian (2005): the importance of the promotional effect of web-based diffusion. An indirect form of such investment consists in non-opposition by artists against the circulation of their music files online, or, likewise, their choice of permitting free downloads of their music albums. The profits lost from legal sales - online or on traditional supports - may be off-set by promotional advantages deriving from greater diffusion, with an increase in the artist's market share. The model assumes the existence of a strong network effect and an exchange of information, opinions and contents among web users. The model's results are determined by the initial conditions, i.e. by an artist's market share at an initial instant of time: or in other words, by his/her popularity. It is shown that emerging artists should make maximum investment in promotion, so that the diffusion of their work can be driven by the network effect and they can emerge from anonymity. Instead, for well-established artists, whose market shares are already large, the optimal strategy is to make the least promotional effort, given that the spontaneous diffusion of their work is already high.

ABSTRACT:

This paper is meant to explain the importance of Nashville to the music industry.
With a research and with focus on business, Nashville seems like the center of the music world, especially jobwise. The most important thing in every industry is how many jobs it can provide and young people from all over America have been moving to Nashville to find a career in music. Some will become singers or songwriters, some will get into the management and others will work with cables and recording gear.
This paper will focus on potential careers in music and on what sets the Nashville apart.

This study discusses the importance of curation in the contemporary economy, particularly in cities. Curators facilitate choice among symbolically-differentiated products either by directly choosing products on behalf of clients or otherwise lowering choice costs. Demand for curation is accelerating in sectors where symbolic differentiation is a source of value, including cultural products, finance, and research. This is both because these sectors command a greater share of economic activity and because digital technologies have dramatically expanded the available supply of symbolic products. Here, the focus is on how professional curation is organized within symbolic/creative industries and across space. Curation is said to resemble a relay wherein the decisions/outputs of some curators are incorporated as inputs into curation decisions downstream. As product sets are passed through this system, the number of products under consideration is lowered along with the level of uncertainty surrounding each product’s value. Because curation systems require continuous information exchange, they should realize benefits from localization. Five types of agglomeration economies are identified: the superiority of face-to-face communication, the ability to form information cascades, coordination of ‘consideration sets’, the ability to determine what the market values, and provenance effects. Two empirical analyses support these propositions. A small study of the US labor force finds that curating occupational categories agglomerate at higher levels. A detailed analysis of major music festival programming between 2017 and 2019 shows that previously curated acts are more likely to be selected to festivals, that festival programmers are more likely to select acts from their local environment, and that acts from prominent music scenes are more likely to be selected to major festivals, controlling for quality. LA, New York, Nashville, and London are said to export 37% of music festival acts to major festivals, at least in part, because musicians in these places have better access to curation systems. These results as well as the theory of curation presented here suggest that the ability of ‘creative cities’ to unearth or determine product value may currently be understated.

Here is my paper on Soviet Estrada Musicians I've presented in the panel "The Working Underbelly: Precarious Lifes in Post-War Socialism" at the ASEEES 2016 in Washington. I'm indebted to Alexandra Oberländer who organized the panel and Aaron Hale-Dorrell and Tomasz Blusiewicz for their thoughful contributions.