Dunedin music industry figure Scott Muir took his audience through a few hundred years of music production history at the Dunedin City Library on Saturday as part of Techweek, before concentrating on what today’s musicians need to do to get an audience.
From the production of sheet music in the 15th century the industry moved to phonograph recordings in the 1800s, then on to records and later cassettes, CDs, MP3s and file-sharing, before the likes of Spotify and You Tube arrived.
That meant the medium for delivering music had been changing throughout history, Mr Muir said.
Global music revenue was beginning to rise after dropping steadily since the 1990s, but revenue from "physical" items like vinyl and CDs was still declining.
Mr Muir said distribution had changed a lot from the days distributors got records or CDs into shops.
Then, a record worth $3 would go through middlemen before being sold in a store for $20.
Of that the artist may have received $1.
Now it was cheaper to make recorded music, but "everything has shifted" as people were spending more time online and buying fewer physical products.
The middlemen had been cut out of the equation, and digital distribution was the "smart way" for musicians to get their recording out and make money.
"It’s not just big, it’s growing, and it’s going to keep growing," Mr Muir said.
Some said nobody was making money from music any more, but that was not true.
Once music was provided to a digital distributor like Spotify or Apple Music, it was up to the artist to promote it. Otherwise the songs were like "pins in a box of pins".
It was important to create "a powerful social media presence" to attract fans and that had to be across the gamut of platforms, from Facebook to Twitter and Instagram.
There were unexpected markets for music overseas.
South America was a "massive market" for K-pop music from Korea and J-pop from Japan.
Mr Muir said it would be useful to use technology to find out where Dunedin music was popular overseas.
However, while there were markets out there, he said it was the top 5% of New Zealand artists, like Neil Finn and Lorde, who made the most money from their music online.
Despite the speech focusing on digital and financial aspects of music, Mr Muir said creativity was an essential element of the human experience.
"I have a better life because of creativity."
The reason for making music was not necessarily about the money, he said.
