linuxaudio.org

On Wed, Sep 01, 2010 at 09:24:26PM -1000, david wrote:

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> Hakan Koseoglu wrote:

>> On 2 September 2010 08:01, david  wrote:

>>> But they weren't created for the masses. They commissioned and paid for by

>>> the wealthy rulers, for themselves. They were done because someone paid the

>>> artist to do them. Therefore, they are commercial art.

>> Oh no, they were for the masses. Most of Bach's product is church

>> music and those days you can't get more for masses than that.

>

> Back then, the churches were big funders of composers and musicians. The

> city churches were also incredibly wealthy, even by today's standards.

Interestingly, they still are.
Almost all the musicians I know of who are actually making a decent living, are doing so by playing churches, either the white megachurches or the black gospel churches. The megachurches in particular have sound systems that blow away just about any club or bar or even concert hall around. They have crazy money laying around, thanks to their own many millenia of marketing experience, and the American system of giving churches complete tax exemption. They spend a fair amount of it on music and musicians-- draws in the crowds and keeps them coming back. Christian music is pretty much the only end of the commercial music business-- outside of the Disney popstars--  that still exists as a going concern.
>

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> And the "masses" didn't attend the big cathedral church in town. That

> was for the rulers, nobles and wealthy.

>

Nice pun, the "masses" attending church. Were they then the B Minor masses?
> Bach didn't write free music for a church - he wrote it because they

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> hired him to write it!

>

>> Similarly there used to be plenty of concert halls where the musicians

>> played fast and loud, mostly to the people leering and cheering. Most

>> composers were not retainers by the nobility but would make money by

>> selling the note sheets (and that's one of the many reason why

>> Copyright came to be).

>

> Which meant you had to have written music that people wanted to hear in

> the first place. You were writing popular music to make money.

> Commercial art again. The only difference is who's handing you the coin

> for your music.

>

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