Piped Music Vs Paying The Piper

CityLab recently had an article that resurrected the subject of a debate I have been having internally and with others going on two decades now.

The article is about efforts people are making in England and the US to limit piped music in public places. The plethora of Christmas carols being played everywhere make it a timely subject.

The specific part of the article that reinvigorated questions for me was the following:

“My goal is no music in public places, unless it’s live music,” Hunter said. “Let’s keep music special. Music is not special when it’s part of the wallpaper.”

My issue is that often even live music in public places can end up part of the wallpaper because it doesn’t register on people’s awareness. But due to the prevalence of piped music, when it is live then there is a better chance for it to be noticed. More live music means people will become increasingly inured to its presence over time.

I don’t begrudge musicians an opportunity to make money in the least. My concern would be that if music in public places was banned unless it was live, there would be an increase in unpaid “opportunities for exposure.” Licensing piped music is cheaper than needing to pay licensing and someone to perform it.

Though I could see a scenario where more musicians do end up being paid even as the increase in live performances reduces the overall percentage of musicians being paid.

So what are your thoughts, dear reader? Will removing piped music make live music more special?

As you answer, consider that if you are involve with music performance, you may have a bias toward paying attention to any live music out of professional courtesy. At the same time you may be completely blind to the presence of visual works of art. Visual artists may orient on those works while being unaware if music is live or piped, if they consciously register its presence at all.

Something else to consider. If people saw more live music under the imprimatur of a mall, cafe, or other business, even if the performer wasn’t being properly compensated, would that repetition reinforce the value of live music in one’s life?

Or are all these questions moot as people increasingly plug headphones into their phones and select a soundtrack by which to experience the world?

About Joe Patti

I have been writing Butts in the Seats (BitS) on topics of arts and cultural administration since 2004 (yikes!). Given the ever evolving concerns facing the sector, I have yet to exhaust the available subject matter. In addition to BitS, I am a founding contributor to the ArtsHacker (artshacker.com) website where I focus on topics related to boards, law, governance, policy and practice.

I am also an evangelist for the effort to Build Public Will For Arts and Culture being helmed by Arts Midwest and the Metropolitan Group. (http://www.creatingconnection.org/about/)

My most recent role was as Executive Director of the Grand Opera House in Macon, GA.

Among the things I am most proud are having produced an opera in the Hawaiian language and a dance drama about Hawaii's snow goddess Poli'ahu while working as a Theater Manager in Hawaii. Though there are many more highlights than there is space here to list.

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3 thoughts on “Piped Music Vs Paying The Piper”

  1. I object to both live and piped-in music at restaurants, as they make it difficult to have a conversation—already a problem in many restaurants now that I’m starting to go deaf. Outdoors, live music is fine, but piped-in music is just an irritant.

    More musicians would be paid if all music were live, and the money would be spread out more among musicians. Since the total amount spent on music would probably not increase. the result would be a lot less money to the “super stars” and a little more to the working musicians.

    Around here, live musicians are ubiquitous (one on every street corner downtown, every bar has a music schedule, the museum sponsors live music 3 nights a week or more, …). I don’t know whether the ubiquitous exposure to live music increases or decreases its value—how would you even determine that?

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  2. I think this is one of many questions that seem to circle around a theme we have been discussing for several years now. Your post reminded me, for instance, of your essay from a month ago about the conservative nature of ‘hip’ audiences in relation to the masterworks audiences. I began my response to that essay with something that directly applies to your question here. I do not think this is a coincidence. I wrote:

    “There always seems to be a marked difference between folks who come with the expectation of familiarity and folks who are seeking (or merely accepting) challenges. The folks willing to be challenged seem the most vested in supporting what the artists do, whether they understand or like it or not. The folks seeking familiarity are not noticeably there for the artists or the art per se. Rather, they are there for what the art already means to them. The art only in relation to them.”

    I sometimes worry that our culture is working specifically toward an *ideal* of familiarity with the arts rather than an investment into art itself. It is not that familiarity is unimportant. Rather, the thing we need to ask is how important it should be as our *end-game*. If our culture is significantly aiming people towards mere exposure and developing specifically the sense of music as what it means only in relation to its audience, then I fear we have lost something.

    For instance, the question you are really asking is “Why should live music matter to anyone?” If the only way that music matters to a person is how they are familiar with it as a consumer, then listening to live music is almost immediately disqualified by being, 1), rare, 2), generally more expensive than listening to it on one’s personal devices, 3), occurs at specific times and places only, and so does not have the convenience of simply pushing a button at one’s inclination. Of course there are many other reasons why live music challenges the expectations of mere familiarity, but in this case as in others there is a dividing line we need to account for, and we simply have not had it as clearly focused as it needs to be.

    Every serious art form faces the difficulty of finding and cultivating an audience willing to be challenged. This is often a matter of the will of an audience, and the significance of that should not be underestimated. If folks are merely aiming for familiarity, it isn’t necessarily that they are too lazy for anything more challenging, it may simply be that for them there is simply no *reason* to look beyond what they already know. So the question is less about getting them off their couches and out of their homes. Fundamentally it is a question of changing their *minds*. How do we get them to SEE that live music is worth the challenges? (This is, of course, the same question as how to get people to use toilets in rural India.) One needs to *become* the kind of person for whom these things matter.

    I think the more we consider these related questions the more obvious it is that the answer lies far below the specific question asked. You can’t always solve problems by attending only to the symptoms. The inability of most people in our culture to value live music goes far deeper than the issues of live music itself. We must confront the kind of people we have become who no longer value live music as something special in its own right. That is, “What is the difference between the people who ‘get’ live music and those who do not?” And until we have fully understood that difference we will be forever chasing shadows…….

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  3. LOL! For those who do unplug from the www, I really wouldn’t want them almost exclusively exposed to the quality of live music presented by those opting for exposure – you might get lucky, but otherwise it’ll be mostly hobbyists, students, cute little-uns, and performers well-past-their-prime. (Based on experience at many frequent local city arts festivals.)

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