(Musical) Life Begins At??? ~ by Greg Hancock, Antique Singer Songwriter from Devon, UK

     

There is no shortage of articles, blog posts and even whole websites dedicated to exploring the fact that the music industry is changing fast. Most concentrate on two things: the rise of technology and the demise of live music. Both of these are things I will mention later but I want to focus on a positive aspect to the rise of technology that is relatively new too...
     I got my first guitar when I was about ten, and after learning the usual four chords, soon lost all interest in doing things the “right” way, and in learning to play other people’s songs. This meant I was not the kind to lead a campfire singalong... in fact for most of my life the very idea has filled me with horror!
     No, I very soon discovered that making up my own songs was

much more fun and much more interesting. I had no idea what I was doing of course, but soon found that I could come up with words that fitted a chord sequence in a new way which gave me a lot of satisfaction. Since childhood then, I have never stopped this activity. What HAS been missing until relatively recently is recording, and performing in public.
     Looking back now, I think this was probably down to shyness and anxiousness that others might not think my songs were as brilliant as I did! In thirty years from the age of 20 to the age of 50, I think I performed my own songs in public no more than three or four times. Guitar playing and songwriting became very private activities for me and the knowledge that the songs would not be performed perhaps allowed me to explore depths of personal honesty and chord weirdness that would have been unthinkable if they were ever to be exposed to public scrutiny.
     So... my fiftieth year... was a strange one. In January 2012 I was living in Abu Dhabi where I had been for a decade. I was single. I had money, a respectable job, a lovely flat and two beautiful cats I had adopted in Saudi Arabia several years before. By December, I was living back in the UK, married, completely broke, jobless and living in a small rented flat with just one of the Saudi cats remaining. It took some adjusting!
     

One of the few advantages of the UK was the delicious warm brown ale that the English do best. My local pub was full of a very eclectic crowd of people, but I was pleased to see a wide age range and felt quite comfortable there. One evening it turned out there was an open mic night. My earlier instincts kicked in and I thought it would be dreadful... but it wasn’t. I was knocked sideways at the quality and variety of the performers. More surprising was the respect and appreciation shown to one or two of the musicians who were even older than me...and to be honest, not that great. My show-off attention-seeking gene suddenly kicked in and I resolved to come and show what I could do the following week. As the day approached I was amazed at how nervous I felt about it all. I practised for hours, and kept changing my mind about what to play. However, the evening came and I took my guitar and put my name on the list.
     I am sure it wasn’t a great performance! My fingers trembled and my voice wobbled, but I did manage to do three original songs and halfway through the second one became aware that people were actually listening and paying attention. Unexpectedly, this gave me confidence rather than greater self-consciousness and I actually started to enjoy myself.
     When I had finished, I found myself chatting and exchanging music gossip and ideas with a whole host of others who were there. People as young as 17 up to others in their 60s were equally interested and interesting. Several of the people I met that night have remained good friends, and I really felt I had tapped into a social network that I would find very satisfying.
     In less than a year, I felt able to try to get gigs on my own. Just corner-of-the-pub and restaurant gigs, and mainly requiring covers, but still letting me cut my teeth about performing in public – and actually paying just enough to be able to live a little more comfortably. I often felt a bit conscious that I was the oldest person in the venue... but again, I found that nobody else seemed to care about that if they liked the way I played, so I stopped worrying about it!
     When I recorded an EP of five songs, I could only afford three

hours of studio time, so I asked two friends who were much more experienced musicians than I was to learn the songs, and we recorded everything in one afternoon. I really didn’t know what to do with the finished EP but having asked around I did send it off for local radio play and review. The response was amazing to me. Hearing my music on the radio was very encouraging and gave a new confidence to go further. As a songwriter, I think I was always able to fit clever sounding words to a tune. What I lacked was anything interesting to say, and so fell back on the clichéd themes of love and loss of love that is the norm. I never really believed in that stuff though, and my efforts sounded horribly insincere to me. It really wasn’t until I was in my forties that I started to think I might have something to say about things that might be of interest to others. I learnt to comment but not explain. I avoided the pronoun “I” and told stories in the third person even when they were in fact very personal. I think both these tricks can lead to a more comfortable listening experience for the audience. Self-confessional music can be wonderful when done by the likes of Joni Mitchell, but can also be slight squirm-inducing and tedious when lesser artists try it. Especially perhaps when they are older.
     

So this is where I come on to my main theme. One of the things blamed for the decline in the music industry is the developments in technology that have been so extraordinary in the last fifteen years or so. As it became possible to listen to music on the internet without paying for it, the listening habits of many also started to change. However, it is this same technology that has made it possible for many artists to get their music heard. Simple home studios can be set up very cheaply and the resulting recordings can easily be good enough to be presented to radio stations and so on. Neil King who runs FATEA in the UK, often mentions that his mail bag is filled with new music from people who in previous years would rarely have considered sending it in: older people, family people and people from diverse backgrounds.
     Now, the decline in live music as a mainstream activity for the majority of younger people is undeniable. It is increasingly a niche activity. Music no longer defines youth “tribes” as it did from the 50s to the 80s. The stars of today and the future are not musicians or even DJs – but online playlist curators. Social media interaction and online gaming are what many young people use to define themselves as different from their parents’ generation, and those are the places they will receive their main influences from. It’s true that some young people are as obsessed with music as my generation was, but they are more likely to be musicians themselves and to be actively making music. A large audience made up simply of interested listeners and fans is becoming increasingly hard to find. People just don’t go out so much – for various reasons – and spend less when they do. It is very noticeable that the majority of people involved in the world of acoustic folk, blues and roots music are middle aged or older. These days, when performing, at 56 I am sometimes amongst the younger people at the venue! The quality and skills of some of the younger musicians coming through is utterly mind-blowing, but they too are having difficulty finding opportunities to play to their contemporaries, relying on the old codgers who will still buy tickets and CDs to provide some sort of income. 
     As a case in point, just this week I attended a sell-out gig by a local band who are all extraordinary musicians and are doing some very original but upbeat and quite poppy material. The age range in the band is 24 – 28 years old. Two of the band are teachers at a music academy and about a third of the audience was their students. The other two thirds probably averaged between 38 and 45, with many my age and older. The reflections from the light show on the large number of bald heads was dazzling!
     The result I think will be a severe decline in the number of musicians who can actually become professional and not rely on other paid work to make a living. Maybe for a few years when very young, it is fun to live in a van and have only enough money to survive each day...but it really isn’t fun when you’re older – I’ve tried it. Even some of the most popular and in-demand musicians lead a precarious hand-to-mouth existence today.
     This is where technology comes in again to assist. I have decided that I am far too old for a full time career in music. My life is too complicated with other commitments, and I like online shopping too much! However, this no longer means that I can’t get my work heard. I can be part of a large community of like-minded people of all ages, and all around the world. Many of the people I have got to know online, through following their music, or through radio chat threads etc have become real friends in the analogue world too. I can have regular interactions with some of the musicians I admire and respect the most... and have also been able to form real friendships with some of them too.
     I can record and get my recordings out there to people more

easily than was ever the case in the past. I can also have total control over what I record. I curl up on my sofa with a cat or two and network mercilessly online, constantly on the lookout for opportunities. I keep up to date with what other musicians in my field are doing, and can use the reactions of others to what they are doing as a guide to what to encourage and what to avoid in my own music. I have never written with an audience in mind. I continue to write for myself, but it’s very satisfying in middle age to find that there are others who “get” me and like what I do....and they’re not all the same age as me!
     Technology means that it is much easier now for older- and perhaps less photogenic – artists to be active in the music world. There is no longer an urgent need to get a record label deal, an agent or a manager.
     (Although if anyone fancies it, I’d would love to have all three!)

 To get in touch with Greg, click on WEBSITE