The Value of Music

We've all heard the term exposure thrown around as a form of currency, but in this day and age is exposure really a currency worth accepting?

In the world of the internet, attention is everything. So many people earn their living not from their music, but monetizing their "brand". Imagine if you could get your song heard over a million times, but not earn a penny from it. As a result of this attention, you could then work with companies as an "influencer" and get paid to place products in your social feeds and videos. Joe Bonamassa recently described this as "Kardashian-ification" of the music world where artists in high positions don't get rewarded for their art but they make their living as glorified sales people.

What do you as an artist want? Do you want people to provide value to your career by supporting your art?

Music has been viewed as a free thing, or severly devalued, where the miniscule payments from streaming services are deemed acceptable instead of actually investing some financial support to an artist. 

Let's imagine that you are a self-employed teacher offering singing lessons in your local area and a student asked you to teach them for free on the premise that they would then tell other people about you. Would you do it? I very much doubt it. Services aren't free and neither should music be. Music is the product that comes from musicians working and putting their own time and money into creating that art to share. We're surrounded by products everyday in our home and the shops that we would never dream of not paying for, because someone worked hard to make it. Why should music be any different?