The WordPress: sceneincardiffdecline.music.blog
Google Doc Link: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Sfgvsu1_h5lfJQjFuf6iMksu11LIgCLhxULR-D5z0wc/edit?usp=sharing
I have been asked by Alex to help him out with his research for his documentary on the current music decline in Cardiff and Bristol. He has asked that I find stats for his research which I will happily do and add any further information that I find valuable to his documentary. I have his research which I will bounce off of and add my own research to this document in the meantime.
Recently, there has been a decrease in music venues that play live music, and with the current demolishment of some of Cardiff’s more popular music venues including Buffalo and Gwdihw due to a recent boost in business rates. There has definitely been a damaging blow to the music scene in Cardiff. The only live music venue that I can think of is Live Lounge, Clwb Ifor Bach and TramShed now that Buffalo and Gwdihw has been shut down.
There has been a defiant decrease in interest in artistic subjects like Music, Drama and Art over the span of a couple of years. The subjects no longer spark as much interest as they did before. While there has been mention of Cardiff becoming a Music City, the decrease in interest and live event locations have been dwindling. There has been cuts in music departments all over Wales which has resulted in a massive decrease in interest for students as there are no longer any instruments available. A £220k instrument fund was issued, however this was not enough. Our Musical Nation is under threat due to these cuts and Wrexham councillors have backed these cuts in North-East Wales. So this recent decrease in music doesn’t affect just Cardiff and Bristol, it is affecting Wales as a whole. Without musical education in schools, there will be a more obvious decrease in interest and therefore, fresh talent in the music industry will be sparse at best.
I recently asked my father, who was born in 1968, what the 70s was like regarding talent and music venues in Caerphilly (where he is from) and Cardiff as my Grandfather played in a band during this time. He has noticed the recent demolishment of popular live music venues and the lack of fresh talent in Cardiff during the span of his generation to mine. The recording was taken in the car so please forgive the audio.
I also went about collecting book research, I used two books that I thought were very informative and shed a light on the music industry and Documentary making.
Book 1
The Documentary Filmmakers Handbook 2nd Edition
Genevieve Jolliffe & Andrew Zinnes
Bloomsbury
London
2012
Page 20, Chapter 1
“Q – How do you make your subjects comfortable during interviews?
Mark – I spend a lot of time with them beforehand. I always try to establish a relationship with them. That may mean going out to breakfast with them beforehand or pre-interview phone call. I always spend at least an hour beforehand somehow. I think it’s essential that you don’t go in cold.”
Page 21, Chapter 1
“Q – What are the common mistakes that you see documentary filmmakers make?
Mark – One thing is that they haven’t thought clearly through what the audience needs to know to understand this film. They’re so immersed in it, they make assumptions that the audience knows what they know. People are afraid of narration. It’s sometimes the easiest way to get from A to B and to provide the exposition that you need.”
The music industry – Digital Media
Patrick Wikstöm
Polity Press
Cambridge
2009
Page 47, Chapter 2
“The core of the music industry is in this definition considered as musicians, song-writers, producers, record companies and music publishers.”
Page 58, Chapter 2
“Since most pop music performers do not achieve success in the recording industry, most of them have to make a living as musicians in pubs, clubs and other similar venues.”
Page 88, Chapter 3
“However, by distributing music on a piece of paper, a CD or some kind of physical carrier, it is possible to turn music into a rival good: to create an artificial supply; control the distribution; and upholds the consumer price”
Page 89, Chapter 3
“Broadly speaking, right holders of today no longer are able to control the distribution of their music.”
Page 118, Chapter 4
“The distance between the amateur and the professional artist has been radically reduced. Even through content generated by users may be important to music firms, every teenager yearning for the limelight will not succeed… In the end, only an extremely small number of people will be able to make a decent living as a creative force in the music industry.”
From what I have witnessed recently in the modern world, there has been a massive decline in both talent and issue. I noticed that a lot of people attempt to get famous through broadcasting sites such as YouTube as it is far easier to simply upload a video of himself /herself than to go into a pub and perform. Busking is a popular occurrence in Cardiff, but social media is a far greater tool to get famous. There are many talented people that can be found through the internet, the one that comes to mind for me is the YouTube famous band ‘Ninja Sex Party” which along with releasing CDs, release almost all of their songs onto YouTube due to their massive following. Their songs, I believe are fresh and brand new despite the band being around since 2009, they perform in venues sometimes but the easy accessibility makes sharing their music much easier. There are many talented individuals on YouTube who release music or music covers online, but in recent years there has been a massive problem with Copyright. Music covers, sometimes a person’s go-to to get famous are instantly taken down or demonetised by either the songs original company or the artist themselves. It is much more difficult to get music out there when YouTube are out for blood and money. This has discouraged many people into getting into the music industry and therefore their future in the industry has been crushed.
As my father, Fabian Thomas, has stated, there is no longer any fresh talent that sparks his interest and this could be said for many local Cardiffians with interest in live and local bands. The recent cracking down on music online has visibly discouraged many hopeful artists and this has caused a massive dip in the local music community. I would blame copyright for this, but the reasons for the lack of fresh talent and the decline can be put down to varying reasons be it copyright, business proposals or the simple shutting down of clubs.
What is Copyright?
Copyright is described by the BBC as the ‘legal right that protects the use of your work once your idea has been physically expressed’. There is a legislation that applies to this statement, in short it is ‘the right type of intellectual protection’ which stops people from stealing the following
- Brands
- Inventions
- Your artistic creations including art, music and literature
Copyright law is currently a madness that is sweeping platforms such as YouTube, the original owners of songs are cracking down on people who use their music as a method to get views or to achieve some household fame. Examples of this can be seen almost everywhere on YouTube. Unfairly, YouTube will take the revenue of whatever YouTuber for their use of short-clips used in their videos, music used either as background or even incidental. YouTube offers a three strike policy on copyright, once a person has gained three strikes their entire account is wiped of everything they have ever posted publicly and privately an example of this is Danny Sloggett who had all his videos claimed by YouTube. The current situation is nothing short of insanity. Another example of the unfairness of it all is the YouTuber TheFatRat, who creates his own music and publishes it online for entertainment. He is very talented, but has received a personal copyright claim on his one song which sparked a debate stating that YouTube is unfair. It does not just extend to music alone, it has even affected the gaming community back in 2017, popular YouTuber Pewdiepie was hit with a copyright claim/strike while he played Firewatch, the reason was not logical as the creator of the game simply hated Pewdiepie and the claim itself was an illegal, unfair reason.
There has been many articles discussing the matter of harsh copyright laws, it has been proved that the harshness of the laws in place discourages hopeful inventors, artists and authors. Some of these articles include Washington University,and Communia. YourBusiness states that the laws in place ‘limit creativity’. This in turn affects any hopeful artist who attempts to make it on the internet or public massively.
However, the counterargument for the harsh copyright law claims that people are illegally taking music and making it their own through remixes. The law is in place to protect these hopeful artists and former artists such as Paul McCartney, the bass guitarist of The Beatles, who advocated for these laws to be put in place. However, copyright laws differ from place to place, but one crucial aspect remains and that is to ‘protect’ creative materials or ideas from being stolen and illegally used. Other people who wanted stricter copyright laws included James Blunt and opera singer Placido Domingo.
Back to Cardiff
Recently, Tourism purely for the music scene has been at an all time high according to Business-Live, with 363,000 music tourists coming to Wales. In Cardiff the most popular music venues are the Motorpoint Arena and the Principality Stadium due to the performances by Beyonce in the past and in the near future Ramstein. Live music can be played elsewhere rather than little clubs or bars, however, such places are only reserved for big names as the ones previously mentioned. But there is currrently no governing body for music in Wales despite having a body for art and literature. The most popular venues are below.
For the Motorpoint Arena
Just to name a few
For the Millennium Centre
They mostly do musical performances alongside the New Theatre, the most popular ones being The Lion King, Peter Pan, Les Mis and The King and I.
For the Principality Stadium
It could be said that all the famous artists are hogging all the best venues leaving not much for the smaller artists. With the industry being hard to please, smaller artists are now discouraged.
ChloeMusicScene 