The Music Industry does not equal Music

My friend Amy Mitchell, young, shrewd, intelligent music attorney, just sent me a link to a young (about a week old), shrewd, intelligent blog posting (by Gerd Leonhard). It contains all kinds of new, amazing ideas about music and technology and the Internet that, to your average consumer would sound like something straight out of a Ray Bradbury piece.

It uses words like micro-music-channels, longtailing, MediaRSS, wimax-ing, imoogli, beatwibes, digggster, RL. It talks about "this will be the next that", leaving many of us confused, because we haven't even heard of that yet.

As a musician, it's impossible to avoid these conversations. You may or may not be aware that the entire music industry is in a state of panic and crisis right now. Remember 9 years ago when you downloaded that N*Sync single for free using Limewire? Well, you don't get something for nothing, the trickle down has happened, and you (and hundreds of millions of others) have brought the industry to its collective knees. It is in its death throes.

The funny thing is that even as these millions of cogs were turning -- as people were forwarding links, tweeting on Facebook, checking out new music on Myspace, syncing their iPods, honing their streaming radio stations on Pandora and otherwise getting their technoratic rocks off, as my friend Amy was sending me this blog about waves upon waves of new gadgetry, new mediums, new platforms -- I was sitting here in my room, playing harmonica. I am learning to play the harmonica.

Because I'm a musician. What new platform is that?

How many flash drive Terra bytes are in the college-ruled Five Star notebook that I wrote my newest song in the other day, a song written on my acoustic guitar, all rosewood and steel and fingers and vibrating air, a song in C# minor, a song about being aware of your life, living in the present?

Where is the 360 merch-publishing-online-distribution-record deal in this Hohner Bluesband harmonica, a little too moist because I'm still learning how to block two reeds with my tongue, learning how to use the shape of my cheeks and mouth to bend notes flat?

A message, from musicians to the music industry: I don't know what shape this whole thing will take. I don't know if we'll be lifted up, turned around, or screwed harder than ever. I hope everything works out. I hope everybody wins. But at the end of the day, I know my place. It isn't with any infrastructure of any kind, but with the raw material of music itself. And that will never change.