> On Wednesday, February 2, 2005 at 12:10:11 PM, Doug wrote:
>
>> This narrative of relentless homogenization and decline badly needs
>> some fact-checking.
>
> http://www.pewinternet.org/pdfs/PIP_Artists.Musicians_Report.pdf
>
> "57% of Americans study, practice, or do some type of artistic
> activity. -- "Pew Internet & American Life Project: Artists,
> Musicians and the
> Internet," p. 5.
I do not doubt this is true but how much time does this really reflect? People often project idealized lives/selves into singles ads and surveys.
http://www.bls.gov/news.release/atus.t09.htm
I recognize that this a bit of tangent but there is also a defintional thing in that the Pew Study asked about "study, practice, doing", which makes sense, and then projected that into what they call "artists and musicians"? Isn't that a bit of a leap itself? I have known people who get paid for music and art that denied they were "musicians" or "artists" (primarily out of some reverence for those terms) and I have known tuneless one chord guitar strummers that call themselves "musicians" (presumably out of an analogous lack of reverence for the term).
Jim
"I'm a man of the moment, Pop is my stock and trade, Singles, jingles, and demos, Conveniently made. ... Whose music will die unplayed. ... Whose music could have died unplayed."
-Barry Manilow