I have been composing
music since I received an SY99 music keyboard from my girlfriend who
thought I had some musical talent for my 44th birthday
in 1991. Seems I could touch
the keys and music would appear. The keyboard had digital recording
capability and I thought it would open up to a career with a successful
marketing of my listenable music. Very ambitious I know.
After several years of overwhelming effort trying to "get it out there"
through record companies, I failed dismally. The Internet developed to a point where
I thought I could do it myself with a world wide reach. I resorted to
teaching myself how to use a computer, and after a lot of very hard work
I could say I have been through the whole ordeal of doing what I could
to make things go right. To anyone who would want to have a go at
marketing your own music, I say good luck if you can succeed. For me
after 25 years, it is still really a hobby.
At least I taught myself to produce a CD product as good, if not better
than many of the professional CD manufacturing services did along the
way. I founded Davina Records as a vehicle to release the music as I
could see no other way around that minor technical publishing
"requirement" to provide a manufacturing and promoting source for the
music. It helped to structure the
project, to take
care of everything involved in CD manufacturing, and it was a big learning curve to get the
least of the best equipment I needed for the job.
So the
product has evolved into a very high quality collection of music of the
first 5 albums. It has taken years to get the music up to the standard I
wanted, and still the editing goes on. Work on the next 5 albums is
under way with the other album collections possibly never getting
finished before I kick the bucket. Five CDs have already taken over 24
years and I have only really got started. If the level of absence of
support continues as it has been, I may have a hard time achieving the
first stage of the whole music dream I set for myself from a very early
age in my life.
In such a commercially oriented age, products are always associated with
monetary value almost to an insane level. Products are not always
"manufactured". They can be created in various ways. A
painting for example. Sometimes they are
simply priceless or unable to be weighed up in terms of monetary value.
For me my music was produced and it has taken over 20 years to
preserve it for what it is worth in the most practical form of "record"
and that has been a Compact Disk. No debates intended.
In smaller manufacturing
processes all my CDs are virtually "hand made", but of course they are
manufactured, and done using the best technology I could afford. So they are all "manufactured",
but the MUSIC is beyond
"hand made" of course, because I composed it. lol
So having produced the first 5 out of a potential 35 CDs, trying the
internet music download system looked like the way to go. I was encouraged
left right and centre to do it. It involved an ongoing cost but I
thought it was worth it as the exposure was world wide. My music was
available on well known download sites such as Spotify, Amazon, Google
Play, Songcast Music, E-Music, ReverbNation, and a few others. After 7
years I found that all the income was absorbed by the download sites one
way or another. I got nothing. Literally nothing.
The music
download system might look like it is working for certain styles of music,
but not for my style of music. After years of experience, I am convinced
it has more to do with the way the download sites are set up. Using
their built in search engines is a big fail really, and the Genera List
is pretty useless for finding the kind of music one is looking for
except for genera of American popular music.
Well in 2020 I was told
"CDs are making a
comeback. Even vinyl records are too." I think about it... After all, they are the best
traditional independent music source, with no ongoing fees and sit on
the book case shelf and can be passed on and played on demand. Even a
USB stick with mp3 music files are like this. Books are like that. A
relatively permanent record.
Download
sites support the random listener out there. The music is heard and it
is gone. In reality the download only supports the financial interests of the download site. Not the
composer or the artist. It sounds like a great idea. So easy and
convenient - especially for the consumer and definitely for the download
site. So who gives a thought for the fact that composers and musicians
actually need income too. They eat food and pay their dues too.
Outside of the forced option of a download site, is the "free zone world of music", where an
optional choice of music is available on CD and Vinyl - not drowned into
invisibility from the great mass of "impossible to search" online
cacophony - and no internet or microsoft operating system to deal with
or needed to actually listen to something you value. You can actually
own the music without losing track of it... ( that's a pun there...)
The Internet is basically geared for an
American public so that doing open ended searches rarely leads to
Australian sites unless something is specifically asked for. The Google
search engine is the best, but sure is slanted to favour American search
results. Of course there are other search engines. One wonders why they
don't improve their function.
Dogpile
|
Ecosia |
DuckDuckGo
Selling my "Diarbe Music" on CDs through EBay with their convenient
product delivery system, I hoped to access people who like the slower
and more relaxed - even old fashioned style of music, that can be heard
on my Diarbe.com website.
I have tested the response to the CDs on Etsy,
which I thought would be good to go but that did not produce a response
at all. Finding the music on the site was impossible, unless the exact
name of the music or artist was used in their search engine. You would
have to know the Diarbe Music was there or you would miss it forever.
The site does not seem to attract the kind of public who may be interested in my style of
music anyway. Now let's not talk about eBay. I am convinced it is more
likely that people will find and get my music more certainly if I just
stood on a cliff of the local shoreline and tossed the CD's
into the ocean with or without a bottle around them, than sell music on the sites claiming to do that job.
Finally there is
You-Tube. Free music galore. Surely this will be the last age where
musicians create recorded music for an income.
Diarbe Music is for the person who wants a bridge "from the
external world" to
"the internal world". It is why I called it Personal
Universe Music, a previously unknown genera. I could not work out which
of the presented
genera to publish it under, especially the strange American
categorisations. Diarbe Music just seems so "different" to what people
are being offered to listen to these days. But it has been classified as New
Age-Ambient, Easy Listening and New Age-Classical. You try 'n classify
it. Let me know what YOU think it is.
This Collection of 5 CDs is a First Edition of 45 pieces of music. Five
CDs with 9 pieces of music per CD. I hope there will be at least 4
collections of the planned 7, before I have to meet my maker. I am
73 years old at the time of writing, and really I have barely got started. Such is
life.
I suppose these days, my music is for the older generations. It is
contemplative as it reminds you of times and places and feelings past.
Definitely for "lone time" and quiet time relaxing at home or on long
drives down the freeway having a "think about things".
Rule #01: The way to determine
Scam
Websites on the internet:- At the very least, if they are not
directly contactable or do not or are unwilling to respond, and do not provide a response
e-mail address or a physical address - at the very least (perhaps for security reasons) a
post-office box address.. then forget them. Save yourself time,
effort, sometimes unbearable stress, and perhaps money.
Rule #02:
Never give your bank account details to an internet trader of any
kind. Expect them to accept payment of any size through your PayPal
Membership or any other legitimate online payment agency. If the
trader is not 100% honest they can withdraw un-authorised funds;
pretending innocence to cover their "balance of payments problems"
etc and it is hell recovering it. Sometimes you have to cancel your
card number and be issued with another from your bank. Though this
does not (in Australia) effect your bank account numbers, it
takes time, the card number may change, and it may incur a considerable card replacement fee - so
you lose anyway. Not to mention the hassle of updating your card
numbers to those who are authorized for direct debits
