Another reminder: You solicited my opinion.

Anybody who reads your latest will observe its contradictory nature. Contrariness that spells misery.

your entire rant is about how miserable you are.

no, it isn’t. you seem to want to force the idea down my throat that I’m miserable and have come to you for advice, but I’m not and I haven’t.

My ‘rant’, as you so graciously put it, is (for the third time) about how difficult it has become to make high-quality recordings (i.e., recordings that cost money to produce), in a world where recordings have no monetary value. As I wrote above, I’m worried that a form of art that I love is in danger of disappearing, or at least in danger of being in a much diminished state.

As for me, I’m not at all miserable and have nothing to complain about. As it turns out, I’ve been rather fortunate from a financial point of view, and for that I’m grateful.

How you can take away from what I’ve written that I’m ranting about my own misery is beyond me. Whatever. I hope you find someone who’s genuinely in need of your counseling services.

-LH

Look, I get it — you want to be right. Guess what, you are! You are right in your own right — just not mine. You want to convince me of your point of view, but I don’t share it. And I’ve said that I don’t share your outlook several times. Yet instead of listening to that, you are still driven to convince me. It’s like you’re a Calvinist on a mission to reform and convert. Even when I suggest that you talk things over with your musical partner you take offense. At this point, as far as this conversation between you and I are concerned, the only thing I’m convinced of is that you want to convince me of how much you are offended by my comments.

As for taking things personally, your entire rant is about how miserable you are. If I suggest that you speak to your music partner, how exactly do I presume to have more in common with you? That doesn’t make a bit of sense, and no sense at all. It’s all about you. You are about you — your issues are about you — your music partner is about you — general commentary is about you — even CDM is about you because it’s red and black, and you’re black and blue.

As for personal attacks how’s this: “Every time I stop by this forum, I’m left with the impression that anyone who actually earns a living from music is branded a dinosaur or a robber baron or whatever and is treated as persona non grata on the forums.” You attack everybody because you feel like an outsider. You do this even though this blog’s publisher specifically invited anyone — anyone at all — to participate and to be frank in this discussion.

At the most and the least I offered either/or propositions, and you were not forced you to choose anything. You can either work for what you want or not. That’s what I basically said. But you seem to want musicians to be relieved from the burdens of working jobs unrelated to making music. You also demand that you get paid for your work as a musician. I say that both are possible if one work’s for it, and you take offense. You don’t agree with file sharing — I get that. But you also are out of ideas of how to get people to pay you for your art — I get that too. Two sure things I know are that people have to work for what they want in life — and sometimes some people get lucky. So what I’ve also said is that if you work through your hardships to get what you want, then you also stand a chance of getting what you want. But you took offense at that too. Never mind the fact that you asked a question that can only be answered by a musician’s passion and resourcefulness.

For the record, the first personal attack between us was launched by you: “What a lot of abstract nonsense! You should get out and meet some real musicians.” Never mind the fact that your riposte was in response to a comment not addressed to you.

Whatever. Create your answers if you don’t like what anybody else has to say.

I still say that if an artist loves his or her work and never makes a dime from it, then the artist still has love for what they do and works that they love. Which is a whole lot better than nothing. But you hate that idea — I get that too.

To ask that question, LH, means that you don’t know the answer, and since you don’t know the answer — that means that you’re not resourceful. On the other hand, your musical partner does know the answer.

My partner and I live and work together 24/7, and have for years. There isn’t a hair’s breadth of distance between the way we see the economics of the music business: we are in it together. How unbelievably presumptuous of you to suppose that you have more in common on this point with my own life and work partner than I have!

The mistake you keep making, Mr. Bliss, is to personalize this disucssion. Instead of thinking about the big picture of the music business, recording as art, the nature of copyright, etc., you make a personal attack on me (or whoever), as though the problem were no bigger than how will LH pay for dinner tonight, haha. From there you stoop even lower, to the assumption that my musical partner somehow has more in common with you than with the person who has lived and worked by her side for years on end. One ridiculous out-of-touch statement after the other comes out of your mouth.

The pity of it is that CDM really ought to be a place where matters of copyright, DRM, piracy, file sharing, net neutrality, technology, etc., can be discussed by everyone interested, including working musicians if they want to participate (why not?)

When the discussion spirals downward into personal attacks, it cuts the discussion off. But most importantly, it creates the impression that musicians aren’t welcome at CDM somehow. Every time I stop by this forum, I’m left with the impression that anyone who actually earns a living from music is branded a dinosaur or a robber baron or whatever and is treated as persona non grata on the forums. It’s really too bad.

-LH

get dancing, good people of CDM!

You can listen to the whole show, presented by Kemal Rijken, if you go to my homepage! I cant seem to post the http link here…

enjoy!