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Reason to believe

On the face of it, there's no justifiable reason to record music these days, except for fun

Peter Edgerton

Friday, 2 March 2018, 16:20

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The much-maligned Málaga Metro (how's that for alliteration?) is going to come in handy over the next few weeks. After a hiatus of many months, I'm finally going to start rehearsing some new songs with a view to recording them. The studio where we'll be working is, as our Spanish friends say, 'at the fifth pine tree', i.e. the back of beyond. At first I thought I'd be involved in some kind of mini triathlon in order to get there (I haven't got a car) but, no, it turns out it's just a stone's throw from a Metro station. Glory be.

On the face of it, there's no justifiable reason to record music these days, except for fun which, admittedly, is a pretty fine reason. Not that long ago, I used to make recordings and sell enough of them to fund the next one with maybe just enough left over to get a kebab on the way home. These days, I'm pretty sure sales will barely cover the cost of the kebab.

There are many well documented reasons for this development including the fact that we're simply too used to getting our music for free, that there's far too much of it about and, anyway, everyone's shelves are too full of Ed Sheeran CDs to fit anyone else's on there, even if they wanted to.

All kinds of marketing gimmicks have been rolled out in order to encourage people to cough up for music that they can readily get for nothing on myriad streaming services but none of them have really worked. The only vaguely sound reason to record these days is to get your music out there so that when you do some gigs, enough people will turn up to make ten-hour van journeys with three sweaty blokes eating pizza worthwhile. It used to be the other way round, of course - bands would make losses on touring in order to promote their music live and then make profits on record sales. This reversal of roles is all to the good in the long run, I suspect - working hard for your income is a noble pursuit whatever your profession... and musicians should be no exception.

In the meantime, I'll be catching the Metro out to the fifth pine tree each week, practising and recording for no immediately apparent reason but safe in the knowledge that ploughing forward is always our best option. In the absence of any real logical justification, I'll stick with 'having a bit of fun' which, come to think of it, sounds just about perfect.

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