TouMilou Music | Support
How?
Buy an album – If you buy a digital or physical album on Bandcamp, you’ll support a next project – there is always something going on.
Spread the word – If you like these albums, do share them via Bandcamp (use the Share/Embed option), or simply copy the links to their TouMilou pages.
Review an album – Contact us to request a review copy of a physical or digital album.
Play the music yourself – The scores are there for you to try. People ask, but you don’t need my permission to play the music and I’d be delighted to hear the result.
Make a donation – It will be much appreciated!
Why?
While music lovers used to spend their money to build personal collections of albums of their favorite artists, streaming services now provide them with access to basically all music out there for a trifle. To artists this means that recorded music is no longer a marketable product unless they cater for the masses.
Even a moderately ambitious recording project will take an investment of a couple of thousands of euros – there are studio costs, musicians fees, expenses for transportation, consumables, design, printing, pressing, promotion, and so forth. Streaming will earn you a couple of tenths of a cent per play, which means that it takes millions of streams to merely break even.
For mainstream artists such volumes present no problem. However, if music is Frisian, Latvian, Basque or belonging to any such small ethnic group, if it is progressive, avant-garde, experimental or—since you are here—contemporary modal, if it is obscure, obnoxious or even subversive, then its audience is bound to be too small to support recordings commercially. Music in any such category is not recorded to make money, but for the love of it, and to build a reputation that will bring in concerts or students. It represents an investment.
While streaming is said to have saved the music industry, it has sofar failed to create an environment where musicians and composers, the actual creators of music, thrive. A system that basically defines value by volume can ultimately only produce blandness. There is of course nothing wrong with mainstream, but music renews itself in the fringes so we need those to be viable too. Independent artists need your support – streaming them won’t cut it. So, no, Erato, Európe and Pîrî Reis are not on Spotify or any such platform. But they are still easy to access.
Mind you, I am not judging you if you are a streaming service enthousiast: they offer a great deal. Do keep in mind though that there are better and fairer ways to support independent artists and labels.
Professional interests
Michiel van der Meulen is member of Nieuw Geneco (New Association of Dutch Composers, est. 1911), the professional association that promotes the direct and indirect interests of Dutch composers. Their aim is to promote the creation of new music and increase the visibility of composers working in the Netherlands, by advocating a fair practice code, stimulating co-operation and solidarity, and involving listeners and music lovers.
