grants and one man bands

S

singlespeak

New member
Hi all,

I was wondering if anyone out there knows anything about getting grants or similar for making music. I just finished my first album next to my daytime jobs and I thought it would be awesome to get grants for doing just that: making albums. I don't need to become famous, I'd just like to get by writing and recording songs because I love it and I'm good at it, I think. If people like them, all the better of course. Anyone have any ideas about this? My album's available for free by the way, right there on my home page. Feedback would be much appreciated as it's the first time I did the whole process by myself.

Thanks,
Vincent
 
singlespeak said:
... I thought it would be awesome to get grants for doing just that: making albums...
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You want the government to pay you to make albums? :confused:

Even if my government would, that would be someone else's tax money, and I wouldn't want to be part of that. And yes I know my government does that all the time but that doesn't make it right.

Either your music makes money in the free market or it doesn't, there's no free lunch.
 
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There was a thread about this recently in the cave. Some politician thought musicians should be paid to sit at home on their asses and write music.



I'd be friggin rich :)
 
Arts

Grants are not necessarily government funded. And even so, the government supports the arts, no? Writers and visual artists, for example?
 
Grants are far more common for chamber and symphonic music, and they can either be public or private money.

I don't see grants being available for contemporary pieces.
 
Some European countries do give grants to artists.

You're going to have to track that down with your own government tho, here they make people work for a living.
 
singlespeak said:
Grants are not necessarily government funded. And even so, the government supports the arts, no? Writers and visual artists, for example?
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Yes, the government takes taxes from us and then decides which private businesses should get some back. It's wrong because it gives those private businesses an advantage over the rest. It opens the door for corruption.

Just my opinion, but I think the government fucks up just about everything it does and the best thing would be if they did hardly anything. No handouts to a select few, no saving businesses "because they're too big to fail", no drug war, no being the self-appointed World Police, GTFO of all of that stuff is my message to the government.

I don't want a government that gives part of my taxes to some musician down the street when I can't find work. It's totally fuckin' wrong for a government to do that and it pisses me off. But that's what ours does with these stupid cash for clunkers and such bullshit routines. Government subsidized musicians is no better than that. That's for communist countries.
 
now we're getting somewhere

ok, there's some really interesting comments, thanks. Let's discuss. So far I read "cultural activity isn't work", to put it crudely (philbagg). I think that's a very dangerous statement. From caveman paintings over Michelangelo to Rothko or the Beatles and even this forum, art has always been important in society.
Seafroggys says grants don't come for contemporary pieces. I don't think that's true, at least not in the visual arts, to my knowledge. So what makes music so special? Surely a lot of crap gets produced in the visual arts? Abstract expressionism wouldn't be what it was without government backing. Why does chamber music deserve money and less historical music not?
TimOBrien, I will have to track that with the Belgian government, that is correct. I'm mainly interested in the discussion. How is making a record not 'work', if it is enjoyed by a sizable group of people? How do you define 'work' then? Is sitting at a checkout counter more 'work' than producing art? Why do we value art then?
 
singlespeak said:
... Why does chamber music deserve money and less historical music not?...
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Exactly. That's why the only thing that works is if the government stays the fuck out of doing this "give away tax money to a select few" bullshit.

I'm pissed because earlier this year my government took part of my taxes and gave it to some guy up the road so he could buy a new truck. Someone please explain to me why I shouldn't be pissed at that? The only reason they did that was because the car companies contributed to the president's election campaign. That is so blatantly wrong. It's corruption, stealing in plain view.
 
dintymoore said:
Yes, the government takes taxes from us and then decides which private businesses should get some back. It's wrong because it gives those private businesses an advantage over the rest. It opens the door for corruption.
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A private business invests its money in whatever it wants to, imo sadly enough. Which businesses get money back has nothing to do with which businesses support the arts, I think.
dintymoore said:
Just my opinion, but I think the government fucks up just about everything it does and the best thing would be if they did hardly anything. No handouts to a select few, no saving businesses "because they're too big to fail", no drug war, no being the self-appointed World Police, GTFO of all of that stuff is my message to the government.
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So you're an anarchist? Then we should be able to agree to a large extent.
dintymoore said:
I don't want a government that gives part of my taxes to some musician down the street when I can't find work. It's totally fuckin' wrong for a government to do that and it pisses me off. But that's what ours does with these stupid cash for clunkers and such bullshit routines. Government subsidized musicians is no better than that. That's for communist countries.
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I don't think we should get too political on this. The question is whether contemporary art in all its forms is important to society. Anything that is, gets money allotted to it - defence, poverty, illness. Why not art?
 
dintymoore said:
The only reason they did that was because the car companies contributed to the president's election campaign. That is so blatantly wrong. It's corruption, stealing in plain view.
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I completely agree.

I really like Clint2000 btw. I wouldn't have panned the drums to the left, though...
 
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And a realization I had (I know, I'm pretty slow) was that if McCain had got in there that he would have got the money from GM so he would have done the same thing. So it would have made little difference who won the election.

Somebody mentioned "other than government" grants. :confused: Like from universities? I'm all for that, where do I apply?
 
singlespeak said:
... I really like Clint2000 btw. I wouldn't have panned the drums to the left, though...
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Thanks - I appreciate that! One of those songs I had to record so I'd stop singing it in my head - it was driving me nuts! I wasn't real happy with the drums, mainly the kick sounded cool in the intro but later it was buried too much. I probably should have used a different pedal beater.

* please 'scuse the mini-hijack *
 
singlespeak said:
Or adjusted the volume? Or EQed it? Surely the pedal beater is a marginal issue, no?
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It was a 26" drum with a calf skin head and a huge lambswool beater. Perfect for Count Basie Big Band but no matter how I eq'd it - zero high end. Maybe I should have replaced it with a sample.
 
So am I the only one who noticed that the OP is from Belgium?

A debate about USA tax practices is somewhat tangential. What is the process for getting grants for contemporary music in Belgium?

As TimOBrien said, some European govts do. I read an article about this somewhere. I believe the idea was that it increases the worldwide prestige of the country to have successful musical acts coming from there. It probably also improves the GNP by bringing more money in.

Obviously, in the US where the market has independently build a huge contemporary music industry, there's no need for the govt. to fund us, but there is incentive for countries who don't have that business infrastructure.
 
I know one musician who did recieve some private funding to compose and record native American music combined with "electronica trance music" (to me, it was basically "new age music".

I beleive he approached organizations he saw advertised as providing grants for various PBS (public braodcasting) programs.

To get the funding, he had to jump through a lot of hoops and convince the benfactor that he was creating a "culturally significant" piece of work. I don't think producing some relatively routine "pop" music would have met whatever criteria he had to meet. He had to periodically provide rough mixes to prove that the project was indeed moving forward.

I don't know the specifics - but I do know the amount of the "grant" may have been enough to purchase some modest remote recording gear and pay for limited mixing and mastering - but the funds certainly were not enough to allow this musician to sit on his ass and get rich.

I personally would not want to depend on grants to sustain a reasonably comfortable lifestyle.
 
In general, small studios encourage artists to apply for as many grants as possible.
Why?
Because the money goes to the studios, not the artists.
I'm not in favour of any kinds of grants, myself.
 
In the 70's me and the guys I played with got a grant from the Canadian government that lasted for a summer. We were allowed to use the public schools and went around to a different one 5 days a week teaching music lessons. It was a lot of fun and we got a bit of cash, not much but it was a cool summer job for an 18 year old.

I don't see anything but good with grants as long as it's not my tax dollar paying for them. If it's from a private individual or institution - then it's just a gig so why not? :)
 
Isn't a teaching grant a completely different beast than an artistic creation grant? Paying a guy to teach kids about music seems to be fundamentally different from paying a guy to create music that may suck! :D
 
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