Noah Stone, the Blog.

Some time ago I did the score for Seth Wiley's short film,P1. Check it out.

Just read this on yahoo:

> "You can't ask people to pay (for music) when they've been getting
> it for free," celebrated French economist, author and former
> adviser to president Francois Mitterand, Jacques Attali, told a
> packed MidemNet conference here Saturday.

It's 2007 and there's no conversation about music FEELING free? Who's at MIDEM? Is the debate really just
free or pay? Is anyone talking about delivery methods that feel free
and compensate creators?

Here's something from BMI:

>“50 Ways To Leave Your Lover” – 1976 Pop Award/Million-Air [2million]

Paul Simon has a bunch of these awards signifying 2 million radio
plays (in this case, since 1976).

Big whoop. She Wants Revenge has 4.7 million plays on Myspace IN 2006! But
there's no system in place to pay for those performances.

Now, there is a distinction between a single radio play which is heard by many people at once and an Internet stream which is singular. And there are other distinctions between broadcast spins and myspace listens as well. Broadcast spins you could say are passive listens. Perhaps there are 10,000 people listening at one time but not all of them like Paul Simon or respond to the song by making an LP purchase. Myspace listens are [mostly] active. In the old/current model, radio is looked at as promotion and advertisement for a product. The labels gave it away, thus no performance royalty for a sound recording. The industry is continuing to look at myspace plays as advertisements for CDs. The problem is, the CD is on the way out. For many kids, myspace IS the product (a crappy 96kbps product at that). The primary experience of a band may be their myspace page, youtube video, and, when they're in town, a live show.

Eventually where it will go (or ought to go) is some sort of entertainment fee bundled into your TV/Internet/sat radio/mobile device service that is distributed to copyright holders based on actual plays. And for the consumer, it feels free. The CD is over. A model based on advertising for a $14 piece of plastic is over no matter how hard they sue. And totally free music is unacceptable. One may disagree, but I'm sure the film/TV industries are not going to go down as quietly. In fact, this may all get settled by them 5 years from now. In the meantime, I worry that writers and performers will be undermined by an industry jamming an old model on a new reality.

No, you can't ask people to pay directly for music. The experience
of music has changed no matter how much the powers that be wish it
hadn't. The debate shouldn't be free or pay. It should be how do we
make it work.

Yes, this is the first post of the new, improved Noah Stone, the blog.... nay, the music blog. I'll be using this as a place to post not only my music but music I'm into.

So, to get started, here is a brand new song of mine, Work With You. I wrote and recorded this last week. The ping-pongy, noodley guitar is my good friend, Yogi.

And, here's an old Jane Siberry, or I should say, Issa (she has changed her name), song, Lena Is a White Table from the 1988 album The Walking. I must warn you that it's very 80's and very strange. The song is a conversation between two people, each panned left and right. They are giving directions to someone, "First you go up the hill... Don't forget to say the church... The Church? Well I don't think... Just in case the miss the turn... Let me do the talking... You make mistakes sometimes... Well, so do you... You never let me talk... Yeah, drink your beer..." And then there's some misunderstanding about who Lena is. One of them is saying she should go to school, but she can't because she is a table. Lena is a white table.

All songs are posted for sampling purposes and will be removed by request. Please support artists and buy the albums.