George Frideric Handel’s Business Savvy
By David J. HahnThe Lehrer News Hour ran a very interesting report during Christmas about the business and finances of George Frideric Handel. It fits in well with our discussion of musician…
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Musician History: Court Musicians
By David J. HahnCourt musician was a career path for musicians in feudal Europe from the Middle Ages to the late 18th/early 19th century. Of the gigs available to musicians during this time, court musician was the most prestigous and best paid job around. The position disappeared in the late 18th century/early 19th century when the court system itself crumbled. Certain elements of the court musicians life and career parallel modern musician careers, but for the most part, court musician is a gig that has dissolved into our past.
What can we learn about ourselves from their careers?
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Learning From Our Past
By David J. HahnAs we move forward into this new era of the musician industry, maybe we should look back. What did musicians do for a living 100 years ago? 300 years ago? Who hired them? How did they get gigs? What kind of money did they make? Which of their mistakes and triumphs can we learn from?
I believe that we are moving into a new musician industry that is a hybrid of the old world (pre-recording industry) and new world (post-recording industry). We still can sell recorded music – we shouldn’t abandon everything we’ve achieved in the past century – but we also have to relearn how to make a living as musicians did before the invention of audio recording.
What if we are able to create a new, more sustainable model for the musician career by combining all of the knowledge of the two traditions? Who knows. Maybe musicians are broke, have always been broke, and that’s just the way it is. I don’t know – I think it’s worth looking into.
