Welcome to Why Make Music…, a podcast where we dive into the world of creativity and inspiration,
hosted by ThinkTim. We're broadcasting from Planet Earth, now, without further ado,
let's embark on a journey to think , to talk, and to explore, why make music.
Yes, yes, yes. Welcome back to the podcast, why make music, episode three. This is going to be our
third adventure and two podcast journey. Today, I am ThinkTim will talk to you about the numbers,
about the amount of people in the world that are making music, the creative forces, the minds.
What does the numbers mean in the whole grand scheme of things? This podcast, why make music?
It's an idea I had to start a conversation. If you know anyone that's creative, an artist,
a musician, a writer, whatever you want to start a conversation with them, you should ask them,
why make music, or art, or writing, or anything creative. Let me tell you a little bit about myself.
My name is ThinkTim, that's T-H-I-N-K-T-I-M-M. I am a independent musician, music producer,
completely self-taught, self-trained. I have a project currently out on all streaming platforms,
emotional or feelings, you can find it on all streaming platforms. You can find me on social media,
Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, come check me out. Anywho. Episode three. The last two episodes,
I started with a story about the past, about basically what got me into music, what made that a focus
of my existence, and today I will do the same. I am trying to figure out a structure, and this seemed
like a good way to start. So, many, many moons ago, as a young man, I ventured out to do music,
to make music, because it was something I always did. And unlike the time that we have today,
where we can basically reach out to everyone at one time, now is anyone listening? I have no idea,
but the reach is there. Back when I started reaching out to people, I had a place and I had a paper.
It wasn't really a locally circulated paper. I think you really could buy it on newsstands and limited
circulation. It was a page turner called The Trading Times, and in the classified section of The Trading
Times, you could post an ad for musicians. Now, unlike today, where someone could get back to you,
you could see their profile, you could look at them and you could each other, oh, is this a good situation
to get yourself into? Back then, it was more or less, you place an ad, you leave a number, you say what
you're interested in, it sounds like it's almost like a creeper ad, but anyway. So I said, hey,
local musicians trying to start a band, my influences are da, da, da. If you're interested,
give me a call, we'll get together and we could see how it goes. So, needless to say, I got phone calls
from my answering machine and I took down the names and numbers and I called about a dozen or so people
back and I made a few friends, I met some people that were talented, I met some people who were
aspiring musicians and I met some people who just basically said, hey, do you like these people? I
like these people. I want to see what you're up to because we have the same likes of musicians and I
made a few friends who that way also and whatever. Anywho, but today that seems as though that's not
such a strange thing to do because people meet so many people online or you can peruse people's
profiles and find out what their likes are. But back when I started doing this, if it wasn't a situation
of knowing someone, who knew someone, you really just either met people through school, friends,
employment, family, so forth and so on, you know. That reminds me of a joke I saw on a television show
once and I think it was a comedian and he was speaking about how wives, girlfriends, significant
others to males, basically whomever, was basically like, oh well, I'm going to get with my friends
and they have another person and that other person likes the same things you like so why don't you
that person go sit over there and talk about the commonality that you guys have in common.
I'm not really good at telling jokes but that was basically the story where it's like, oh you like music,
he likes music, she likes music, you like music, you guys should sit down and talk together.
But as I was saying, this week's episode is going to be about the numbers and about how crazy it is
that we decided that we want to do. So what I did, I took to the internet, the world wide web, Google,
whatever you want to call that search engine and I was typing in questions to see what type of answers
I can get because I'm curious and I'm sure, quite sure, after two episodes people are tired of hearing me
just ranting rave about craziness that's in my mind. So before we get into the craziness that's in my mind,
let's talk about some possible semi cut out there issues or numbers of how people that view this whole music thing.
So it's funny that if you type in and ask a question about how many types of songs there are,
the internet will actually tell you that there are two broad categories of music and genres
and they comprise of classical, traditional music forms and the other form is considered to be popular music.
Now the classical, traditional music form, I'm assuming that's more so the classics, I guess, like Beethoven, Bach,
and from there, after that, everything else just falls into popular music, which is kind of ironic because nowadays
people say, oh, you sold out if you do pop. Well, pop is short for popular and popular comprises of rock, electronic, pop,
R&B, funk, country, hip hop, polka, and reggae. This is brought to you by the facts that are listed on the internet.
Shockingly. So let's think about that. So they're really trying to tell us that there are only two major categories of music
and everything else is subcategories below that. Question. Where do musical scores fall at?
Where do classical music fall? Where does, I don't know, I'm like, but I will get into it because it says also that
music has been divided into genres throughout history following a range of criteria. Streaming services like Spotify
now classify that there are 1300 genres of music. So that basically just counteracts the first statement that says that there are
two major categories. So anywho, as we go on here, you'll sit back and you'll understand what I'm getting at here.
So you take these 1300 categories that are listed on Spotify and then you take those and you say, oh, well, there's classical music,
there's pop, there's rock, there's hip hop, there's electronica, there's EDM, there's folk. Why are we categorizing something that basically
it's all the same thing? Music, how I look at it, is something that a person makes. Now in 2024, you have AI and AI could come up with a
track for you or whatever, but if we exclude all that AI situation, music is created by people. And I'm assuming that depending on
your location, your situation, how you feel, the emotions that you put into it, that do you want to be categorized in 1300 musical categories?
Do you want to be categorized in the two quote unquote major categories of music being classical, traditional forms of music and
everything else being popular music? Now I know for an example, just from life experience, that there are some people who might say
that there is spiritual and secular music. And those are the two major categories. And then those who are highly into spiritual scenarios,
church, so forth and so on, listen to gospel music. They tend to tell you that, oh, in their household growing up, they could not listen to
secular music, which meant that anything else about whatever. Side story, it was mentioned in a conversation the other evening night that
basically music as we were listening to it, I say growing up 90s, 2000s, 2010s and even currently now, if you turn on the radio,
if you turn on extreme service and you listen to music, a lot of times, depending on what you're listening to, R&B pop, the subject matter is
always basically the same. It's something about a relationship, which that brings it back to my first situation of why make music. People are
the ones that make the music. So therefore, the music that they make reflects the things that they see and do. So shockingly, emotions go
hand in hand, music, which goes hand in hand and relationships, which go hand in hand with lyrical content, which basically makes you think that,
oh, goodness, unless I'm telling a story, there's some great storyteller, writers, past, present that can craft a story and tell you the entire journey from
an outside view. And then there are songs that are written from such a personal point of view that you feel as though it reaches into you personally. And
that's how you relate. So with that being said, talking about people, on average, they say a person in their lifetime hears 1.3 million songs. It said
that it would also take that said person 961 hours and 10 minutes every year, which is equivalent to 40 days of nonstop music. So you understand
how much we listen, how much we take in. That's what I get. Music is something we can't escape. When I was putting together this podcast, and I was
thinking about what I wanted to do. And as time goes on, I'm going to probably want to, I guess, get out of a situation where it's just me talking and looking up facts
and sharing my point of view because truthfully, who am I that I can draw an audience and just by rallying off craziness. But I really wanted to consider the
fact of okay, if I do a podcast, I want to put music in the background. I cannot sit back and realistically expect anyone. I'm not a comedian. I'm not famous. I have no
stories to tell. I don't think I live a very, very over interesting life or anything like that. So the stories I tell are basically everyday stories that anyone can experience. So my way of reaching out and connecting is basically saying like, okay, if you're going to hear me talk about music, I'm going to put music that I put together in the background. So this way, at least you can say okay.
If we're going to watch a guy talk about sports, at least if he plays sports, I can relate to what he's saying because I'm assuming he has some type of idea what he's talking about. So with that being said, I am saying that there is a percentage of people who are creative.
And how do you view or how do you hear or how do you interpret the music you hear when you're a creative person? It's like, do you critique it? Do you learn from it? Do you take it in and digest it a different way than someone who is non creative?
I have friends who are not into music as far as making music, but they are listeners and most people do have people in their life that basically, I think the average person more or less is a regular music listener and not necessarily a music maker.
It's funny because since I am doing the musical stats of the internet, it says in 2022, there were 75.9 million music creators.
And they said by the year 2030, they expect that number to grow to be a hundred and eighty, I mean a hundred and ninety eight point two million people who make music that includes musicians, singers, songwriters, people who play music and people who release music.
Crazy, they say that there are 120 new tracks released on the server, on a streaming service every single day. So with that, you got to think like becoming a standout with 120,000 tracks being released a day is basically an
impossible.
I say that because I think as consumers and of people who
see musicians, entertainers, and we think, wow, that's a very interesting life. I would like to live that life.
Do you realize that that's a very, very small population of the entire world and how that must make that person feel that everywhere I go, people know who I am.
People listen to my music, people consume my art.
120,000 new tracks are released on streaming services every single day.
That is crazy.
They say that they are 130,000 musicians and singers in the workforce, with 40% of them being women and 60% being men.
Welcome to the Why Make Music Statistical,
with numbers from the mighty internet. Why am I saying all this stuff? Because truthfully, I'm not going to lie to you.
Doesn't matter to me. No one does it.
I am just having a conversation and I'm basically playing devil's advocate.
Because in all reality, if you're creative, none of this stuff really matters. I looked this stuff up and I read it and I'm looking, I'm saying, okay, this is going to be very interesting.
I actually made notes this week, so I got it on the screen here and I got numbers of quotes and different points of views or whatnot of how to present this.
As I read it, I thought it was insane. And as I'm saying it, I think it's insane because those numbers are crazy.
If someone told you ahead of time, like, oh, do you know you're putting out a project tomorrow or you found a project a month ago or you found however many projects you put out there,
that every single day because of the amount of people that are creative, that there are hundreds of thousands of songs coming out every single day.
So that segues me into a situation, a topic, another topic that's still in line with this.
How do you listeners, creatives, fellow creative people out there, how do you transverse the whole entire independent marketing scheme of getting yourself hurt?
My avenues have been attempting to post on social media to try to independently distribute my music on platforms, to try to build a community and speak and comment and play with the algorithm that runs Instagram,
X, YouTube. And I'm not going to tell you, it's a hard task. So I do salute anyone who can build an audience and bring people in.
Hats off to you.
This is a learning process. I have been actively on this quest. I'm not new to making music, but I am new to trying to share it with the masses.
But I don't think I'm doing bad because hey, guess what? If you're listening, you're one of the few and I'm happy to have you. And I'm very happy and I'm very humbled by the fact that you tuned in, especially after reading these numbers.
Another crazy thing I came across as I was researching this stuff and looking at numbers, they said that only, there's a percentage, there is only 11% of independent artists are able to make a living solely through music.
That's 7% of everyone that's making music independently. So that's basically one out of 10, one out of, I mean, one out of 100. No, no, no, that's 10 out of 100 by bad. My numbers are off. But anyway, I've been looking at these numbers too much.
The other funnier thing is that I wanted to compare something to it. So I was like thinking like, Oh, what can you sit back and compare? So if 11% of independent artists are allowed, are able to make a living solely through music, do you know if you transferred that over that they say only 7% of pre-med students actually don't want to become doctors?
So that's the situation that you're looking at the comparison. So you gotta think, if ever you were going to college or you're in college or you're post college and you were looking at careers or you are a doctor, 7% of the people that you were in med school with went on to succeed.
That's crazy. Now I'm not saying that, Oh, that's comparable because by all definitions of the research that I've been doing, it's basically saying that independent artists who can make a living.
It's crazy because it says some of the top earners are only making, I'm not saying only, but some of the top earners are making $92,000 independently as a musician. That's not bad. You're working for yourself and I'm sure you're keeping your hours and you're recording and you're getting or whatever.
But this is based upon my, I found salaries in California. I did California because you're California in New York. Those are the big epic centers of industry, of entertainment, so forth and so on.
But California stuff, the cost of living in California is really high. So if you're making $92,000 a year playing music, that balances out to almost like $1,700 a week.
I don't know if that's really doable, but then the thing is that decreases substantially as you go down. So then if you go down and you're like the average musician, the average independent person, you're not the top earners.
You're only making $45,000 and that's only like $825 a week. And then if you're in the lower tier, I guess that's the semi-working person trying to get it done.
Or at least I guess you at that point you've cracked the code so you're in there, but you're not necessarily really, really knocking it out the park, but you've got something going on there. They say that person makes $26,000 a year, which is insane because compare the situation.
So you mean like, oh, like I said, you take the two, sometimes you need to have a comparison in order to really think about what things are. So I'm sure if you went to med school and graduated from college and you were only in that 7 percentile of people who didn't make the cut of dropping out and you went on to not become a physician, which physicians make top dollar.
They make good money because of course medicine, health care, all that stuff is always there, always relevant. But I'm sure that you graduated from college, a university, a higher learning, a degree, something, associates, bachelor's, master's, doctorate, whatever the scenario is.
So I'm hoping that with that college education that you went on to at least make six figures and you're not necessarily, I guess, stuck on trying to do the music thing.
Because like I said, I'm a hobbyist. So therefore I do understand the value of a dollar because when I was younger, I did want to chase this dream. But responsibility basically was life. Life is life. You cannot necessarily live on your dreams.
I'm not saying shoot your dreams down. But the thing is that I'm playing it by the numbers, by the numbers here. And I'm just saying that it's so, so crazy because even with all this information you take in, people still are creative.
People still make music. So if you see what I'm doing here, I am not trying to dissuade anyone from being creative.
I'm like, I'm sure everyone in this day and age has looked up what they think their earning potential could be if by chance they were to strike that perfect deal or find that perfect sync license or find that perfect pot to your lid, more or less.
You know, like, oh, what was it? You know, I'm doing close to my name. I promise I was not going to ever put names up there. But sometimes you have to find that symbiotic relationship in the business of being creative.
And that might mean you might have to find that business entity, that marketing person that could help you elevate to that next level to unlock your earning potential.
Sometimes you might have to necessarily do other things. I'm like, I'm not going to lie to you. Like, truthfully and honestly, honestly, I like to make music. I'm not necessarily the best social person.
I wasn't heavy into social media prior to like I did it. Of course, you had the accounts because that who doesn't have the account who doesn't have a social media account. But as far as focusing the attention on myself was not necessarily my goal.
It's kind of just funny because you really think about it. I guess that's why there are people who market their music and there are people who do the music.
Sometimes a person can't do both jobs. So props to folks who have the team up there that are making that effort that are cracking that code that are taking their stuff to a higher level that are giving their creative things out to the masses.
Because that is very, very important exposure that goes back to also the artist's the artist's mentality. What makes them feel good. We say we create because we create anyone that creates I've said this and other other two episodes before.
If you create the greatest situation and greatest feeling you can possibly have someone liking what you do, or even in this day and age, just liking what you do because you never really know the intentions, why people dislike what they dislike.
It's hard to try to train yourself to not necessarily give your opinion about something because it's something that I'm learning as being a creative person or being a creative.
Everyone's a creative person but putting myself putting my music out for judgment, because that's basically what it is.
You become non judgmental towards a lot of different things, a lot of things in life, basically, because you realize that everyone puts in work, everyone puts in effort.
Even the people who came up with this information that I was looking at, I'm like it's very nicely organized and I'm with two different websites and I did my reading and whatnot and there's tons of articles so shout out to the writers, the publishers who gather this information.
It's great. I'm like, I'm like a lot of you like, I used to read magazines and I used to hear artists, entertainers say, oh those who criticize are those who can't do it.
Actually, sometimes those who criticize are those who can do it because people are competitive so therefore I'm like I ain't gonna lie. Sometimes you might want to call it junk junk, but you shouldn't because the person put their time into it and it means something to them.
So, like I said before, I'm not the most positive person in the world I'm going to always put out the positive vibe and say oh, this is how you should handle it because that's the best correct, the PC way of doing things.
And you should always appreciate anything that comes your way as far as something that makes you happy. Something that gives you joy, something that brings you joy so whether it be music, art, books, cooking, family time, sports, activity, leisure, health.
If you are a opportunist that makes you happy you do what makes you happy. Don't base your happiness on other people and that's the thing that I think that I'm understanding as a independent artist or independent musician, that it is kind of crazy when you sit back and you think that
there are so many people out there doing what you're doing, and there are so there are probably more people that can relate to attempting or trying to make music or trying to get on the radar, and there are people on the radar.
So if you think about it, think about your favorite artists. Think about reading the credits on their album, think about how many producers, they employ, think about all the people they don't list as helping them out.
Think about the people who sacrifice just for that person to get what they think. God, think about the parents, the friends, the relatives, the people who might have been the best musician in their area or the best singer in their area, the best dancer, the best artist that
oh basically I'd have taught this one person something and that one person I told you before, it comes down to something that might be something as simple as, oh that person has a better smile, that person might be aesthetically more pleasing than you are.
So it doesn't come down to what you have to put in there. I'm like, you have to understand, it's a team. So the thing is that sometimes you might have to sacrifice your dreams, your aspirations to be part of the team. So don't ever look down on the person who's not famous or not
figurehead of this situation. I'm like, it is very, very rare. Like I'd like to shout out those who keep it pure and those who can do it on their own and they keep a tight circle and they put out stuff and they seem as though they're uncompromised and unphased.
But I'm sure eventually something has to go. I'm like, they're obviously, the world is the world and as much as we want to get rid of the thought that there are record industry executives and lawyers and A&R people, or old school people, I don't know if A&R game is still out there the way it used to be.
But they have jobs and they make money and they figure out a way to somehow get it done. They get paid and sometimes they're getting paid more so than the artist is getting paid.
So there is a flip side to this whole entire music thing. You have to think that there are times that the artist is sometimes the last to get paid. The artist is at the bottom of the totem pole. The artist is the face of the product.
At the same point, if you're not writing your material, you're not producing your material, you're not bankrolling your material, that artist that you put on that pedestal, that artist that you see, may not necessarily be the financial, the most financially stable person in their situation.
And I say that because even that person still wants to be that creative. So I'm not knocking anybody because still that person had a dream or an aspiration. You just don't trip or fall into a situation where all of a sudden you are the person that everybody's staring at, even though you may not necessarily be the person that put the majority of the influential.
You know, so the thing is that everyone, that's why I said you can never be negative towards anybody because the thing is that if you're able to call, if you're able to view or listen to someone's music, their art, and you realize that you know who they are.
You're aware of who they are, you're aware of their accomplishments, their failures, so forth and so on. All that means is that person tried, that person put it out there, they put their situation on the line, and they deserve the credit for getting where they are.
With that being said, I say all that because it's extremely important that we research, we learn the music business, we learn anything. Like, you can't go and be a doctor, you can't go be a mechanic, you can't go be an engineer without education.
The music industry, making music, I downplay knowledge, and I downplay the seriousness that it takes to put forth the time and effort to put together music and try to market your scenario because, like I said,
I'm a little bit of an older person, so therefore I understand the value of responsibility, I understand the value of family and life and so forth.
And a lot of times, like all my entire life, and I'm sure everyone has heard this too, it's like you hear, oh the starving artists, oh the sacrifices that you have to make. Not only you have to make those sacrifices, everyone has to make those sacrifices.
If you look at the center of these creative people, and especially those who make it really far and they gain the fame and success and they gain the financial freedoms, look at this, ask them, why make music?
Are you happy? Are people around you happy for you?
I'm telling you, one day, one day when I get to a point where I can interview somebody and talk to someone else outside of myself, I'm sure there will be stories to tell and share. I'm like, I have stories I want to tell and share, and I'm getting to them, but it's like, you know, I'm trying to not be the spigot just to put out a bunch of stories about myself.
So therefore, each week I will put out a little bit of fear, a little bit there, so keep coming. As time goes on, you will get to know me a little bit better and hopefully you guys will go on to the comments and so forth and so on and leave a message or leave a statement and say, hey, I can relate to what you're saying or what you're saying makes sense or what you're saying is completely BS, you know, like it is what it is.
But you have to believe, like we've all seen the quote unquote rise to fame movie and all the things that the person sacrificed along the way and all the missteps that the person had just to have the success and then all of a sudden lose success and then maybe they never got it back again or maybe they faked it back.
It's a complicated story and it goes that way and a lot of things, I'm like, you have to understand, a lot of people when they put their eggs in a basket for something that's based upon the reaction, that's not a guaranteed thing.
That's why I'm telling you, listen, I put that stat in there about med school and about education in there on purpose by looking it up because like you have to sit back and think like, oh, a lot of young people today think that a level of celebrity is the
greatest thing in the world.
And it might be cool, don't get me wrong, it is good, but at the same time, is it something that you can maintain forever? Is it something that you really want to be dependent on other people to
give you the opportunity? You know, education is not something that you can shake a stick at. I'm like, no, you can
go to school, get a career, get a job, work hard, and you too can probably make as much as some of these entertainers. I mean, we've all seen the stories where it's like, oh, you assume the grass is green and you assume that the gold records bring money.
I talked to you about the money that you get from streaming and it's not a lot of money. I'm like, you have to stream an awful lot. So maybe it's because so many people are listening to music and the revenue is there because they have to pay for it, you know, I'm like, everything is crazy.
I'm like, you guys sit back and think like there has to be tons and tons and tons of financial benefits from doing music. But the situation is there's so many people doing it. If you break it down, it basically says that the regular average salary for an independent
musician comes in around $13,000 a year. They say some musicians are able to generate higher income through various avenues such as selling merchandise. You know, you license your music, you teach music lessons, you create and sell courses online.
You know, you sell stock in your music, you know, it's like it's all types of different things you could do. For us digital musicians, we can create presets and sample packs, you know what I'm saying? You can do this, you can start a blog or a podcast. You can do the sync icing thing and try to get like the same place to write for TV or film.
You can start a Patreon page. I have a Patreon page.
But I might say like, listen, all I'm trying to say is that listen, everything counts. And if you could
make any type of music, maybe you could like my music. You know, so I want to thank you again for tuning in. This one was a little bit less ranty, even though it was ranting on just statistical numbers and data found off the internet when it comes to being an independent musician in the internet age.
Social media.
So, I want to thank you all for listening.
Please, find me where you find your podcast. Go on YouTube, pick me up this algorithm situation is real man. I'm like, you could try like you could try to put yourself out there you could try. I don't want to be a bother I don't want to be a pest.
But check me out. ThinkTimm everywhere. ThinkTimm… if nothing else. T H I N K T I M M. Peace.
Peace.