Sunday, September 30, 2012
Is YouTube the New Tin Pan Alley?
huffingtonpost.com: If you lived in New York in the early 20th century, and you wanted to hear the most popular music hits of the day, you only had to walk over to 28th Street and 6th Avenue -- Tin Pan Alley. As you moved toward 5th Avenue, you'd hear the cacophony of dozens of pianists banging out the greatest songs of the era, enticing you to enter their stores and buy sheet music from their publisher. And if you were lucky enough to walk down this legendary block in 1913, you might have heard the playing of a young George Gershwin. But times changed, and by the middle of the century, Tin Pan Alley was only a memory.
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14 comments:
I didn't know much about Tin Pan alley before reading the article, but I agree that YouTube is today's equivalent of what that must have been like back in the day. I love how quickly information can spread and new artists can be discovered using YouTube. I see how beneficial legally distributing sheet music can be for composers and songwriters today, but it's unfortunate when YouTube videos of songs are falsely advertised as "free link to sheet music download" when it really just links to a for-pay sheet music distribution website.
I agree with what Will said. I had no idea about the Tin Pan Alley until I read this article. But when I did, I wish I could know how it feels to walk down the 28th Street and 6th Avenue because I love street performances and listening to piano. I would have been definitely the one who would be enticed to enter stores to buy sheet music. I also think the title makes sense because YouTube can be seen as global Tin Pan Alley that has access to everyone in everywhere. Nowadays, it is amazing how anyone can hear the most popular music hits from YouTube or Pandora anytime he wants. I realize how the time period goes so fast that trend took only about 90 years to transform from Tin Pan Alley to YouTube.
Speaking as a customer of NewMusicalTheatre.com, I'm appreciative of a legal way to support emerging artists in creating new work. However, I see a fundamental problem in trying to get exposure for shows through YouTube. What YouTube is fantastic for is exposure through the "related videos" - you go looking for something you know, and it leads you to discovering something new you don't know (hearing Jason Gertner on the Book of Mormon tour leads you to Adam Gwon's Ordinary Days, which then leads you to Nick Blaemire's Glory Days). But like the issue of Tin Pan Alley, these songs are disconnected from their plotlines - the songs that succeed on YouTube and NewMusicalTheatre.com are the self-contained "audition songs". I think it's telling in NewMusicalTheatre.com's website that you can buy songs by the track and highlight collections by voice part - the major business here is for cabaret/concert performers and auditioners, not getting interest in the show itself for producers and investors.
The way I see it, the long-term plan for composers posting on YouTube goes one of two ways: gain exposure in the hopes of getting picked up to write something commercial (like Pasek and Paul being tapped for A Christmas Story), or drive those gangbuster songs into traffic to a licensing website or, at the very least, into an option to listen to/read an entire show. Otherwise, you end up in the music biz, not the musical theatre biz.
I don't think I agree with what Brian said... I don't see the fundamental problem that he talks about. Rather, I see what he's saying and it does happen, but I don't think it's a problem.
I do think that YouTube could be considered a new Tin Pan Alley (although the experiences of walking down 28th and 6th in 1914 and sitting on your couch with a laptop clicking through funny cat videos are kind of different...). It's a medium through which new talent can be discovered. For new composers who want to write musicals, it's a fantastic way to showcase your "best" song, which would be the audition song that Brian talks about. Yes, that might be the only song that sells one piece of sheet music, but if you meant it to be part of a musical, it's part of a musical. It can be marketed as a stand-alone song and used for audition pieces and cabarets, but if it's good and a producer likes it, they are a million times more likely to pursue the show than they would have been had it not been on YouTube at all. It's a great way for people who don't live in NY and can't go meet big Broadway producers and pitch an idea to still get their music heard.
I don't think the two things are mutually exclusive, and in fact YouTube makes it impossible: a composer could put a song on YouTube from his new musical, and it could become a hit on NewMusicalTheatre.com and sell lots of sheet music for lots of small auditions. Or it could be heard by a big-shot producer and be the start of a brilliant career. The point of YouTube is that it doesn't allow you to target an audience very specifically, which means there are tons of directions the situation could go.
Once upon a time, a friend of mine back home (and by friend i really do mean friend, not myself), was a member of a sheet music trading website. It was sooOOOoo illegal but had been up and running for a long time. She put up a piece of Jason Robert Brown's music. Jason Robert Brown found it and commented on her post that it was very illegal and that she was taking away from his income. She didnt believe it was really him so she argued with him on this website. Turns out it was him! She was threatened by lawyers and she became the talk of the town.
AnywhO kids, dont steal from artists because THEY WILL FIND YOU.
Tin Pin Alley didn't have commercials
On the note of what everyone has mentioned, i feel that Youtube really has become a version of what was once Tin Pan Alley, I also didn't know what it was a first but in essence both worlds seem so similar- the arts in an accessible, go to place with a concentrated amount of dedicated artists. I have a split feeling about whether I think Youtube performances of this new, emerging music is beneficial, it is helpful for circulation of ideas, but often it does not pay credit where credit is due. Nevertheless, I feel that this is the case for any and all art, there is always controversy over whose work is which, because ideas are often hard to come by and or require some collaboration somewhere in the process. Hopefully youtube will be a help rather than a burden to those emerging artists, otherwise I feel that the debate will be an ongoing one.
I agree with Cat.
My only issue with this article is that I don't think counting Youtube hits is an accurate way to measure exposure. Especially because when videos go viral, people tend to watch them more than once. Watching a youtube video repeatedly is not an indication of ticket sales or growth in audience numbers.
Kinda, YouTube is where I go anytime I want to hear music. Here is the catch. I want to go there when I want to hear music I know about. If someone tells me of a new group or song that is where I go to listen to it but it is not where I go to look for new music. Every once in a while I will find a new song off of the most viewed lists but that is rare. New music usually comes from friends, or commercials or now recently Pandora and Facebook. But all in all, word of mouth is STILL the best music advertising medium.
I don't know if I buy the correlation the author is presenting in this article. It is true that Tin Pan alley is a thing of the past, and other mediums like it are phasing out, but I don't know if youtube is replacing that. I feel youtube is the medium that allows me to find new music, but it isn't where I discover it. I still discover it at clubs, performances, concerts, and other places where audiences exist, and then use youtube as the place to find it again. It seems that youtube is an innovation of accessibility rather than it is what is being made out to be in this article
Youtube has done alot for modern musicians not just musical writers. It allows everyone all over the world to view an listen to the hard work and talent that the songwriters put in to their works and it also allows people publicity for free. A place like Tin Pan Alley must have been amazing in its time and its a shame that a place like that no longer exists but its new iteration through the magic of youtube performs more or less the same task. You can follow a stream of "related videos" and find tons of new music similar to popular ones you already like.
Like others have said, I also didn't know anything about Tin Pan Alley before this article, however I got a pretty good idea of what it was like from the writer (Which was quite great). I see youtube and the internet really as an avenue for exposure and promotion of current and new artists. I think that Youtube is probably an evolution of Tin Pan Alley, but with a twist. This is because as Dale said, when you go to youtube you go to hear a song that you already know, or one that you just heard in some series, but you have no idea what it is, but you like the snippet that you heard and are interested in hearing more. The major difference is that people who pass Tin Pan Alley get to hear whatever is being performed/ available and they then choose what they want to listen to. Most people who visit youtube don't know about the girl named "Ria" who may have a new fantastic idea for a musical and have some songs on her page. Not unless you go to search for it. I think that that may be the main difference between the two!! Unless I just don't get what Tin Pan Alley is all about.
Like people have said, I didn't know what Tin Pan Alley was, but as soon as they compared it to youtube, i could guess. I agree with Jamila about the main difference is you have to be looking for the songs. And I think a downside of youtube is there are a lot of things out there almost too many. Anyone can post a video, not just the actually talented. The amount of videos can be overwhelming. Its like trying to find a needle in a haystack.
I think that youtube is without a doubt the new tin pan alley. Social media is (unfortunately) the new way in which people connect and communicate with one another. And though it is disheartening that so much of our communication centralizes around technology, there is something incredible about the way that so much new material and information whether it be artistic, political, or even educational is becoming so easily accessible.
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