Broadway sings blues over synthesizer invasion

While audiences at Broadway‘s “West Side Story” thrill to the on-stage drama, musicians in the orchestra pit are fighting a battle every bit as vicious as the Sharks-Jets rivalry.

This is gang warfare of a high-minded sort, pitting some of New York’s best live musicians against a synthesizer they fear will usurp the job of playing Leonard Bernstein‘s pulsating score.

Sophisticated synthesizers and computer-manipulated recordings are increasingly taking over orchestras. Sounding almost like real players, while costing much less, they’re especially popular with provincial or touring companies.

But until mid-July — when “West Side Story’s” producers announced that a synthesizer was replacing three live violinists and two cellists, or half the orchestra’s string section — staff violinist Paul Woodiel thought that at least the classics would be immune to the trend.

“It was the last straw for me,” Woodiel told AFP.

“I was a student and a friend of Leonard Bernstein and it’s almost certain he wouldn’t have allowed this. This isn’t dinner theater, it’s not Las Vegas. It’s Broadway and Leonard Bernstein was the greatest American musician.”

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How Musicians Are Using Social Media to Connect with Fans

Today’s musicians, both mainstream and indie, are using social media to connect with fans, build anticipation, and generate revenue in new and unique ways. The products range from singles to mix tapes to digital six-packs, even oddly shaped USB sticks, vinyl, and the occasional traditional album.

But how are these artists reaching their new fan bases online through social channels? Much like the business world, social media promotion for musicians is still a very new game, with no exact recipe for platinum success.

There are however, some innovations being put forth, and a new connection is being formed between artists and fans — a connection that empowers both to give each other what they are looking for.

Fan-Funded Projects

We have all heard about the success of micro lending organizations like Kiva, which use multiple small payments to contribute to a larger goal. The same process is being applied to creating an album or a music-based project.

One such project is the Washington D.C.-based indie hip-hop group Panacea. The producer/MC duo listed their project on Kickstater, a funding platform for artists, designers, filmmakers, musicians, journalists, inventors, explorers, and others.

The project was posted on the morning of February 26th. According to Jeremy Calvery, the group’s Director of Digital Media and Promotion, “We were at $1,000 before the end of the first day. We had to increase the number of $200 packages from three to five over the weekend because people were e-mailing and literally begging for the chance to ‘buy’ the whole back catalog. Less than five full days from the first e-mail to the list, we had reached the funding goal of $3,800, which was set to be just a bit more than what the minimum press of 250 vinyl copies was going to cost.”

Another hip-hop outfit, the Get Busy Committee, also launched a project on Kickstarter. In their drive to raise $3,218, they included one premium pledge level at $1,000 — an investment that netted the donor a song about him or herself to be included on the record, as well as a platinum plaque. They sold this spot within 24 hours.

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Trent Reznor: classic gaming, indie marketing and more

The blog site Joystiq has a really great interview with Trent Reznor – probably better known as the life behind Nine Inch Nails. Trent has been a forward thinker in the music and new media space for a long time now and certainly hasn’t been afraid to ruffle some feathers along the way. The interview is gaming-heavy (as can be expected) but a lot of the vibe can apply to other areas of media and marketing as well.

See the article at Joystiq.

DRM Is Dead But Here Comes Variable Pricing

Digital Rights Management (DRM), at least as it relates to music, is finally taking a dirt nap. Apple’s iTunes Music Store is now 100 percent DRM-free. This morning, when I upgraded to the latest version of the iTunes software to buy the new album by Midival Punditz and Ursula 100, it seems all music is now DRM-free. Apple first announced in January 2009 and said it would introduce DRM-free iTunes in April 2009, starting with 8 million tracks and eventually making the entire library overtime.

All songs I buy from iTunes will play on most of my devices. Such as my Sonos Digital Music System. I think it’s a brilliant and much needed move, though I’m not sure I’m going to spend hundreds of dollars to upgrade to DRM-free version of my tunes. I mean I paid for them once; why pay again? Why not just make existing files DRM-free without making us pay up. It shouldn’t be that difficult to do.

The DRM-free iTunes however has its downsides, because with it has come with variable pricing, which includes paying $1.29 for some songs. These songs don’t have anything special about them, like special artwork or a higher bit rate. They just cost more because music industry executives say so.

See the full article at GigaOM.

Yahoo’s New Artist Pages Aggregate Online Music From Across the Web

The Web has transformed and spread around music content – people can find music at Last.fm, iTunes, and YouTube, among dozens of other services. MySpace has become the epicenter of the music scene and the preferred platform for artist web pages, but it doesn’t bring together all of the platforms for music distribution available on the Web.

Yahoo’s relaunched Artist Pages, however, do just that. From one webpage, users have access to a dashboard filled with content related to their favorite artists. YouTube videos, the iTunes music store, Pandora, Last.fm, concert information, and Flickr photos are all available in one simple and clean interface.

It may not be as flashy or image-heavy as a MySpace Music page, but it certainly gives MySpace a run for its money in terms of functionality and customization, and Yahoo’s plans to open it up to third-parties makes it an even more appealing option to music artists.

The Yahoo Artist Page Interface

The interface bares no resemblance to the old Yahoo Music artist page or even the MySpace Music page. Instead, Yahoo seems to have opted for a cleaner, simpler interface that boxes up the key content.

The top links users to videos, discography, tracks, photos, or concert information, although all of that content is available from the start page. Concert information is viewable via a Yahoo Upcoming widget and vdeos are available in the center column, both from Yahoo and from YouTube, just for starters.

See the full article at Mashable.