Is music worthless?

Have you heard that 100,000 songs are uploaded every day to the streaming platforms? 

At first my eyes glazed over that very large number because big numbers make my brain feel hazy. But when I thought about how our upcoming single will be part of that 100,000 in about a month’s time and my jaw clenched because I really hope it doesn’t drown as just another song in the musical deluge. 

They’re calling it an “oversupply” of music. Which is striking existential dread in the hearts of many musicians I know because we remember the rule of supply and demand. Too much supply means that new music is now worthless, right? 

I want to push back on that purely economic valuing of music, because I think it’s a trap. 

Once we leave behind the idea that musicians rely on people streaming music for an income (which, judging from our latest royality payment of $13, is more an exception than the rule), this big number could be exciting. It could be ushering in an age where everyone is making music. Rather than music becoming worthless in this world, it’s a valuable and meaningful part of everyday life. Which it already is, and always has been.  

We’re in the aftermath of Elvis and the Beatles; a very peculiar corner of history where musicians were big business. This is unusual in the history of the world where up until recorded music, most music was made by people who weren’t “professional”. I think this has twisted our idea of the value of music.  

Just because a local green grocer isn’t Woolworths doesn’t mean their produce is lousy. In fact, it might be fresher because it doesn’t have the massive overheads. In fact, sometimes the best food is the food you grow yourself. Picture me winking with every subsequent push of this metaphor! 

There’s a local bushdance that runs every month in Wyuna Hall. It’s a lovely small country hall with polished wooden floors perfect for kids to take their shoes off and slide along in their socks. These dances were started because the council threatened to close the hall, saying it wasn’t being used. So they set out to prove the council wrong by filling the hall every month with musicians and dancers. 

John the Caller has blocks of wood with the dance names on it that he curates into the set for the night - including the all-important one that says supper near the end. He will ask Peter, the accordion-wielding band leader for a waltz, or a heel toe polka, or God help us a Virginia Reel. Sharon the tin whistle gun will be off, fingers flying across the tune and Squish will hold it all together with the bass guitar. There’s a local farmer who joins in on keys and told me that music is the only thing that keeps his mind off all the jobs he still hasn’t finished yet. 

We’ve joined in with the band twice since moving out here and it feels like the opposite hustling on a streaming service, its music plugged straight into the veins of the community. 

When we think about music - or our lives for that matter - just in economic terms of how much money we’re generating, it can be devasting to our mental health and I believe we’re seeing that with these terrifyingly high rates of anxiety and depression, especially with teens. 

When my main job was running music programs in school I felt like I was in a daily battle to prove that music deserved to exist in the curriculum. Often this would come from the students and parents - a year eight girl asking me once “how is this going to help me pay my taxes?” which just took my breath away. 

What is the message we send when we say literacy and numeracy are the most important things because they help you get a “good job”. What if we said the Arts are the most important things because they will help you make meaning out of your life, no matter what you end up doing?

I think we’re freaking out because we’ve forgotten the value of music in all of its forms. In the whispered lullabies to soothe a baby, the raucous thumping of a bushdance, the silly made-up songs my Dad used to wake me up with, Lach coming up with ridiculous banjo riffs that just give him specific delight, a roomful of people singing with abandon in a church or karaoke bar. 

It might not be singing in front of a thousand people you can’t see because of the bright lights. It’s more the man who comes up to you after a gig you thought was a failure who, with tears in his eyes, tells you the song you ended on was the song he sang to his dying grandmother. It’s singing ‘Shallow Brown’ in four part harmony with your family even if you got the lyrics wrong (or if you have to hide them in your sailor hat Dad!).  

When we’re tricked into thinking only one way of making music has value, it does feel like a hopeless state of affairs and that I should throw my violin into the nearest creek and retrain as an accountant. But as my favourite music writer Ted Gioia wrote in a recent article, “Imagine the results if these thousands of neglected songs actually created thousands of social connections, even just on a local level.” 

And sure, we have a single coming out soon and I would love for a thousand people to stream it and love it and add it to their playlists and come out to a show. But I know that’s just my ego, and actually the whole point of this music thing is connecting with people. Which I get to do every day, even if I’m just playing music for myself.  

So, thanks for connecting with us and our music.