The Final Session

Martin Perna: All the things we're creating in this digital world will be here when we're gone, so they'll have to be lived under or re imagined

Erin McKeown: I feel as an artist my head is going to explode. Looking at some of the artists I've seen speak and stepping way back from this conference into a bigger picture. One of the things I'm seeing is the new DIY is the old DIY. Putting your energy and integrity into it.

Nicole Atkins: Figuring out what I can do with my6 life besides creating songs. Trying to figure out how I can help out in my town.

Martin: How do we cultivate arts experiences in the future. Still a lot of division where people don't think they're in the right place, so the Artist's Passport in Austin goes to high school students so they have a document of their cultural involvement.

Nicole: I'm still taking in the whole copyright, Rhapsody, downloading thing. I buy vinyl.

Vijay Iyer: Ornette Coleman once made the distinction between the music business and the music world. We are not our playlists, we are bigger than that. I'm always interested in how grassroots movements in marginal communities, and how music becomes like water, what will be the next community to re purpose music to suit their needs. What is the future of the music business in terms of diversity? Who is making decisions that affect those communities? Does the future of music provide longevity to artists? What happens to an artist who is 50 or 60 or 70 years old?

Notes from the Twitter feed:
A lot have to do with not-sucking
"If someone names their band Various Artists they'll make a lot of money" (Sound Exchange, Debbie said it today, but I've heard John Simson say it before)
Engagement of fans is replacing sales as measure of success

Jean Cook: Is it?
Vijay: For jazz, festival and club owners are still gatekeepers to fans.
Martin: Label said we should have had more sales based on our club attendance
Erin: Some disconnect between online numbers and people who see me in a club. A little disturbed that online followers has replaced Soundscan.

Kristin Thompson from Twitter: What a musical turning point was in your life
Erin: (played with five heroes)
Martin: spending a month in Cuba, music fills a much more community and spiritual need.
Vijay: Turning point in musical lives or careers? I remember wacking on my sister's piano when I was five. In 97 I traveled to Sengal. A year after I moved to NY...wrote a feature in the Village Voice and that really got the ball rolling for me.
Nicole: When I started writing my own songs when I was 20, I was always in someone else's band. I listened to Big Star and Uncle Tupelo and wrote what I called my "weird songs", but I didn't play them. Then I played them for my friend in Virginia Reel and he said "your weird songs are your good songs, your other stuff is boring."