I bumped into a friend the other day who was leaving a supermarket with a pack of blank CDs. He wanted to burn a collection of music albums onto CDs for use in his van to keep him chilled whilst on long delivery journeys. We both agreed that CDs were awkward archaic things and that the world is a better place now we have less use for them along with DVDs as the world uses more flexible storage technologies such as flash drives and networked storage.

Until only recently CDs in cars meant trying to change an album as you travel, or being fixed to those tracks on CDs already stored in multi CD players in the boot of you car or under a seat, both ultimately resulting in less choice for long journeys than a modern day mp3 player. For those of us who can plug their mobile phone music or mp3 player into their car hifi, can you imagine returning to the days of reaching for the glove box to change an album whilst keeping an eye on the road ahead?

It seems to me that music systems in cars have been a little slow to develop alternatives to CDs. Initial mp3 plugin solutions meant systems for connecting mp3s would be obsolete as soon as the device manufacturers decided it was time to change proprietary plug designs. However, with Bluetooth becoming a choice for streaming audio to your car hifi, or devices to stream over fm radio, (and maybe even wifi within cars?) we now have a number of open solutions to enable users to bring their music libraries along for the ride & easily connect to car sound systems.
But looking back, let’s be honest, CDs didn’t really add much value over a tape cassette in the first place did it? Sure, audio quality might be better (subject to the rest of the technology involved in creating the analogue output) but CDs weren’t designed for the harsh conditions found in the average family transporter and so many a CD would find it’s surface scratched whilst tape cassettes were reasonably well designed to protect the delicate magnetic tape.

So I have to ask, what has the CD ever done for us?

My friend and I agreed we weren’t that enthused by the CD’s arrival; albums and artwork became a lot smaller and so there was less art for the same or more money. I recall the record labels insisting on higher prices for CDs even though the manufacturing costs were lower. Then there is that particular pain of ‘rolling your own’ in terms of creating CDs for your car because you knew the originals were so expensive you didn’t want them destroyed in the passenger’s footwell. The technology for burning, I have always found, was only occasionally successful in burning a usable CD whilst the various formats for CDs only increased the confusion and failure rate.

So, for my friend and I, the CD wasn’t a welcome new problem solving technology, and as we gladly see the decline of the CD as a major way to purchase music, it continues to show itself as a cumbersome item that most would rather now avoid and now we can purchase, download and sync to our music devices.

Ironically now for me, the only reason I would purchase a cd is for the album artwork which was the same reason I resisted CDs in the first place.

Musician Selling Whole Music Libary

It would be perhaps too easy to suggest musicians in hardship are like many other tradesmen of today, feeling the pinch of the world recession because of the shrinking demand of those with both money and a willingness to spend. However one has to look deeper into the developments in the music industry to really understand the dynamics that are affecting musicians trying to make a living today.

The challenges of the music industry are probably well presented than by artist Alex Jenkins. As a musician and composer for all his life Alex has used his life’s experiences to fuel his passion for music. Alex rhythmic and electronic based compositions are as dark as he sees the world through his own eyes.

Now getting to a point where age and health inspires him to look for a gentler way of life, Alex is looking to sell the copyright (also known as ‘buy out’ in the music licensing business) to the highest bidder and advertising his music for licensing or outright sale at AmbientMusicGarden.com and Background-Music-Library.com. Alex is hoping his decades of musical recordings and compositions from the past will build a future where he can focus on taking the weight from his hard working bones and focus on helping his family build a brighter future.

However with the dramatic changes that have occurred over the past twenty years in music there is less likely hood of any business wanting or indeed needing to purchase music outright. Only rarely does this seem to happen nowadays.

Let me explain.

Whilst skill and talent may not neccessarily be evolving in increasing numbers in the population, access to professional level musical production tools has increased because the cost and complexity of setting up your own music composition and production studio has reduced. This has resulted in more potentially talented musicians being able to create more music at less cost that then means more choice for buyers of music in the consumer market as well as the business market for licensing music (for example, for advertising, films and TV shows as well as less exciting music uses such as presentation backgrounds and short run DVD productions). So with more musicians making more music available licensees are able to reduce the cost of licensing a piece of music. Simple over supply of demand.

Creating music in volume at professional level has never been more accessible to talented individuals.

Twenty or more years ago musicians formed bands together because they needed a pair of hands to play each musican instrument within a composition. Soon after this, with the development of the home four track recorder, midi communications between instruments, samplers and sequencers, composers were for the first time realising they could create musical works from their own compositions with no additional help. Collaboration between artists could be based on compositional input whilst real instruments became valued for the performance value separately from their use as tools for creating songs.

Where does this leave musicians like Alex?

Alex has a very large collection of pieces of music, albeit mainly only archived in mp3 format which reduces the markets that are likely to license a piece of music for a particular use. The outright sale of a composition without notation or a higher quality file format is very unlikely.
In addition, because the music industry is also contracting due technology developments such as the availability of illegal downloads, many consumer focused musicians and record companies are attracted to the big numbers involved in licensing for films, TV and advertising for the potentially large financial sums involved but also because of the potential for free marketing that music can gain from exposure to a buying market via a film or successful TV series, driving short term sales of music in the consumer market place. This has meant a reduction on average of the negotiated price for a sync and / or master recording license for use of a piece of music in film, TV and advertising.

I recently spoek to a band manager who had their music licensed in various big film names such as The Matrix. He told me that musicians are working harder than ever before to win deals that are on average half the price of the same license ten years ago.

The result is that those who were traditionally in the business of film and TV licensing are also seeing their incomes dropping. More musicians producing more music cheaper in addition to even more music entering the market from other parts of the music business has seen this shift.

So for now Alex can still consider his musical works as a cash cow for its ability to more likely be licensable repeatedly to as wide a range of markets he can have a profile within as opposed to any markets who are willing to purchase the copyright of music at high prices.

If you would like to syndicate this article you have the writer’s permission if the following author’s note is included in the page directly under the article.

Written by Guy Lewis.  Guy writes about the music industry specialising in music for business, in particular royalty free music for background use for many business licensing needs.

Its still September! For years I have created ambient relaxation music at this time of the year influences by the gentle changes in nature I see around me. This year the change here in western England has been later than normal it feels.

I have only just begun to find trees who’s leaves are changing. The September themed pieces are located under the Kesseny artist page here.

Here is a short taster of one track in particular, September Journey.

http://www.f4b.org/audio/7325/7325.mp3

September Journey’s licensing options are linked here.

A lovely warm early autumn day here. Just taking a break and enjoying some relaxation music from Ambient Music Garden. Here’s a mix of some of the best relaxing music from some past collections at AmbientMusicGarden.com

Alex Jenkins is one of our most prolific artists. He has his music presented here for licensing and also, quite uniquely to us, for outright sale.

Alex’s music ranges across many electronic based styles with an underlying darkness in their feel.

I caught up with Alex recently to ask him a few questions about his music.

Guy: Alex, you have a range of instruments you play to compose and produce your music. What instrument did you start with and how did you evolve?

Alex: I started in a private Catholic school where studying classical music was part of our schooling, and music theory. I used to also study piano with my dad at home, where he taught me some of the most gloomy depressing piano, as he suffered depression, and he used the piano to express his inner self. I learned from my Dad, I guess. And it was beautiful.
Then I took up percussion and drums in my junior high school years playing in our school band, and at home I practiced the electric bass and guitar, and maintaining further studies on the piano at the same time. I continued this throughout until I left my senior years at school. After I left high school, I started exploring synthesizer keyboards, and that is where I really found my self creating music on the dark side.

Guy: How do you begin composing a song, do you have a tried and tested methodology you use every time?

Alex: There is no real way of me starting to compose a song. I suffer much depressing, and personal losses that I start drifting into a void on the keyboard synthesizers. Sometimes all it takes is a couple of notes to get me going, and things of the past with my my late Ma and Dad…. sometimes the music I create is better than any medication. I am not evil like some people may think by hearing my music, because the music is me, and what I feel. I am a Christian.

Guy: What sort of uses would you expect media professionals and business people to use your music for in the future?

Alex: Perhaps in horror films, and what ever seams to be the need, but no happy type of films. I am not a happy type of person, my music is not happy, so I do not want to see it in happy settings, if I can help it.

Guy: What is your view on making music from now on and into the future, do you have any plans ?

Alex: Really who knows. I do want to create, and am working on darker material, and much further exploration in the psybient music world.
I have done some studio material with jazz improvisations in Fort Myers, Florida called the Omega Jam Sessions, and this is the only music I have done that is a little more on the up side. It kind of felt good, but in some way it is not really me.
In my eyes the real musicians are Black Sabbath, which I listen to their early material much, and Shulman, and some doom metal, and psybient music.

Guy: Thank you Alex

Alexander Jenkin’s music is presented here at:

Alex Jenkins At AmbientMusicGarden.com

I have just produced a four hour collection of ambient meditation pieces and whilst reflecting on them I noted how much of the composition and production was done in a dream state, a mixture of late nights, not enough sleep and thoughts on relationships, floating around in my mind at the time.
I am particularly proud of these tracks and also amazed at how well they came out under the circumstances. Richard James, aka Aphex Twin has mentioned how he found creating music in a half dream state caused by excessive lack of sleep was a very creative process for him. I am not so sure I like that idea too much as I do like my sleep! However the feeling of listening to tracks I’ve made not remembering how I got to the point of creating the interweaving melodies feels like listening to something that had its own life and did much to create itself.
This is a good process for creating music, I like it and will do more :-)

Clear Message is one of twelve new tracks available for spa businesses licensed as background music this month. Here a demo sample at SoundCloud here: