therealslim said:
You gotta respect the 18 years he put in...
Ah Aging Youth, forgot I am only in the scene for less than two years, still learning. Please teach me more (better understood in mandarin).
The question of local music growing or dying is really a subjective one. Some people thinks quantity is sufficient, while others think quality is more important. some ppl think quality is meaningless without quantity while others say both must be present before you can say it is growing successfully. All of which are right...in their own right.
Is there a forefather and is that important is again subjective. What is the definition of forefather anyway. The understanding between therealism and agingyouth may differ quite drastically...this is only my assumption. therealism may refer to one being world renown, a Stalin or George Washinton type as a forefather figure where AY may just refer to a more day to day version of forefather, again my assumption. Again these two thinking are correct.
Back to basics, is Singapore's music scene or industry growing? Most of us would agree it is, as seen from the increased in activity, whether in number of bands coming on stream, whether in the number of gigs being organized, whether in the number of crowd going to gigs, and even the number of foreign acts sailing into Singapore. What is needed is a KPI to determine what a generally agreed term of success is. Whre are we now and how do we get there?
Where quality is concern, it is hard to determine whether we are or we are not as this would take more energy and resources to pin down.
What about the economic perspective of the scene or you may call the industry. Are the CDs of our bands selling well? Do they get higher returns from playing at gigs? Are people spending more money on bands, whether for private functions or paying to enter a gig's gate? I think these are the more realistic performance indicators as compared to..is the music producer getting more pay, or is the jam studio getting more bookings, or the music shop selling more guitars or the newspaper writing more about bands? I do not think this has reach a standard of preferrence.
This is an imperfect market...in strict marketing terms.
Is there a potential for growth in all aspects? Not visible to me. Not as yet visible. What we see now, all the hypes of types will go away easily and the scene has no fundamentals to sustain itself. Major gigs like Baybeats and Rock On Singapore are funded. Take them away and the scene dies, and this is not impossible. So a new model must surface, one that is sustained by market forces, by the audience, by the sale of CDs and by the power of commercial interest.
However, are our bands willing to go "commercial" ? This is food for thought to our musicians.
I am organizing the National Bands Convention because I need to know how I can best help bands in Singapore to be able to stand on their own feet.
Please particpate in the convention, and gt others to do so too when it comes.
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