Finding a place in the heap (March 21, 2007)
The top people performing in
the wider arena ‘folk music’ are the tip of an iceberg – beneath the surface is
a morass of bands and singers who form the backbone of folk music. Each one of
them is in their own way, helping to support those who’ve reached the peak of
success.
However, for those well-known singers and bands to arrive at the
surface, sell thousands of albums and become festival favourites it’s
necessary to have that mass of people doing the same below them to varying
levels of competence.Every singer, band and
songwriter is striving to find his or her place in the structure. Some may
never rise above the foundations, but a structure needs its foundations to stay
up.
Perhaps it’s the need to find their place that made many
bands in their early days dish out covers of artists and bands that were
popular at the time. That course allowed them to be reasonably certain that
would get a hearing (unless of course they were crap musicians). They were
playing songs that everyone knew, understood and could possibly relate to – an
easier route than risking their own songs. Not too ago that was the cue for a
million covers of ‘Streets of London’ and a thousand Ralph McTell sound-alikes;
today the world is different.
Today, technological advances
such as Podcasts and the Internet enable songwriters and bands to place their
music in open forum without ever having to play a note in front of a live
audience. They can beaver away, finding their place, developing their own niche
audience and build a loyal following. They have never played at a club or
travelled miles to perform a two-song floor spot. They have achieved (in some
people’s eyes) success without having ‘served their time’ as a struggling
artist. Is this good? Well yes or no – it depends on your view. For a start,
the Internet and such services as MySpace have allowed far more songwriters to
gain quicker and wider exposure to potential audiences. It’s also enabled
performers to put their own material in front of an audience without the chance
of open rejection.
Of course, singers and bands still struggle to find their
sound or style. Ask a cross-section of well-known performers to describe their
style and some tell you that they’re still searching for it. However, many that
began by living on a diet of ‘covers’ do go on to build a career and preserve
it through the changes of fashion by finding their own niche and presenting
their own songs.
The mantra is ‘find your audience, know your audience
and keep it’. The only issue then is - how big is that audience? Are they
enough to sustain your career and if not what steps do you take to do something
about it? Change the style of your music or seek another audience. Bob Dylan
changed style successfully, although at the expense of alienating much solid
support along the way. However, if a young Bob had access to the Internet would
he have posted his new music ahead of his tours of folk clubs, where half the
audience left after two songs?
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