Who would have known there were so many parts to the distribution of music? The first diagram on page 52 was incredible; to get from creator to audience can take as many as 4 steps?
The book speculates about the connection between what an organization actually does and “making art”, plus defining what would be considered part of the organization. The idea of distributors being included as “arts organizations” is kind of conflicting. Yes they are helping with the spread of art, but they are not actually participating in the process of making art. I think this is a question best answered by ones personal opinion, some might say yes they are a part of the arts organizations, while others may disagree.
I do not understand how we can still be having problems gathering accurate data when we have been collecting it since 1977. If it is difficult to get precise information from large employers, why have we not adjusted our screening process so we can collect the data properly? As well as not being able to collect data from “arts activities of organizations embedded within larger non-arts organizations such as universities and local governments” (pg 56). This sounds ridiculous. Does the university not have records of who is enrolled in which activities? I bet sports organizations do not have these problems. With educational institutions being one of the most common type of presenter for art, why is it we cannot get accurate data?
It is somewhat appalling that over the past 42 years, we have yet to come up with a successful way of measuring data; especially since we currently have three or four different entities that attempt to collect this data, but without success because of improperly collected data; therefore a lot is missed because the questions are not answered properly.
I find it difficult to believe that most recorded arts organizations are for-profit when we do not have sufficient data to support this conclusion, since our information on non-profits is lacking a significant amount of information. But I can believe that the concentration of the industry is higher in the recorded arts.
The recorded arts are just as important as live performances; we can take video and audio recordings of the live performance and distribute it. This way, not only does the live audience experience the performance, but those who could not attend, for whatever reason, have the opportunity to hear the performance. The performance can also be reproduced in a studio and distributed as a more “professional” copy of the original performance, which many find pleasing as there are no errors present on the studio recording that you might hear on a recording of a live performance.
It is a shame that nonprofit groups are growing smaller and smaller. Being a member of a non-profit orchestra, I know the joys of sharing classical music as an art and not having to worry about how many CDs we sold. We perform in order to enrich the lives of our audience members and in turn they make donations so that we might continue to enrich their lives and the lives of other community members.
I have been a member of three different nonprofit orchestras, Eastern Connecticut Symphony Youth Orchestra, the Thames Valley Orchestra, and the Willimantic Orchestra, and I do thoroughly enjoy it. I can see myself continuing to be a community orchestra member wherever my life might take me. It is a dying art form that needs to be embraced.
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