Demand for Live Music is High; What It Means for You

By christian howes: A recent New York Times article reported a boom in attendance for big concert acts and a high current demand for live music. I've noticed high turnout and engagement at my own shows, and seen many musician friends and colleagues out on the road, working harder than ever. What could this mean for you?

• If you're a professional performer, you could book/promote shows to new audiences.
• If you're an amateur, it could be time to organize a jam session or house concert series.
• If you teach, you might organize/promote/attend concerts with students in new ways.
• Other? Leave a comment if you have another take on this.

If I were trying to convince venues to book a show right now, or trying to get people to buy tickets, I would overtly reference the trend: "Have you heard? Demand for live music is up. Want to book a show/buy a ticket?" As someone who has had a free-lance performing career for the greater part of the past 25 years, I’m cautiously optimistic. For years,

• We’ve worried about being replaced by DJs/backing tracks.
• We’ve complained of declining audiences and stagnant gig wages.
• We’ve all but dared to speak of the possibility that live music could cease to become a source of meaningful income.

Now, at this particular moment, people suddenly appreciate the value of live music. Flights, cruises, and other experiences are in demand as well. What changed? "Human Connection" Everyone's been saying:

• We're isolated by social media, AI, the pandemic, the political divide, and...
• We lack "real community, conversations, and shared experiences."

Musicians are in the unique position of making human connections happen, by taking out their instruments and playing live. As much as we musicians have looked to prove that people don’t appreciate music (Josh Bell’s famous subway experiment comes to mind), appreciative audiences have remained steady in places of pain: protests, war zones, memorials, hospice, churches, prisons. In these places there tends to be an urgent desire to find humanity through feeling intimacy, trust, freedom, or some kind of catharsis.

Violinist Christian Howes.

Music can humanize an environment by injecting or catalyzing feelings into a void of loneliness and fear. Right now, people appreciate that. Or, maybe people are just desperate to have fun. Either way, it looks like a positive trend. For those who find it safer to be skeptical about the societal value of music, I get it. But based on the evidence, if there was ever a time to perform live and feel hopeful as a musician, now is as good as any. * * * Christian Howes helps violinists gain skills in improvisation, contemporary styles, and more through his newsletter, play-along videos, and more at www.ChristianHowes.com.You might also like:

• How to practice improvisation: A balanced approach
• Christian Howes Workshop on Improvisation: New Worlds of Possibility
• Let's Find Common Ground: Jazz Meets Classical on Christian Howes' Podcast

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