How to build a thriving music scene in your city Elizabeth Cawein
Each of these songs
represents a scene, a movement,
in some cases, a sonic revolution
that completely altered
the course of popular music.
They’re all also calling cards,
almost, for those cities,
songs totally linked
with their city’s identity,
and it might be why you probably
consider them to be music cities.
Now, the magical mythical thing,
the thing we kind of all love
about stories like these
is that those cities weren’t doing
anything in particular
to make those moments happen.
There’s no formula for capturing
lightning in a bottle.
A formula didn’t give us grunge music
or introduce Tupac to Dr. Dre,
and there’s definitely no blueprint
for how to open your record business
in a South Memphis neighborhood
that, turns out,
is home to Booker T. Jones,
William Bell and Albert King.
So this is just something
that happens, then, right?
When the stars perfectly align,
great music just happens.
And in the meantime,
New York and Nashville
can churn out the hits
that come through our radios,
define our generations
and soundtrack our weddings
and our funerals
and everything in between.
Well, I don’t know about you,
but the very idea of that
is just deadly boring to me.
There are musicians all around you,
making powerful, important music,
and thanks to the internet
and its limitless possibilities
for creators to create music
and fans to discover that music,
those zeitgeist songs
don’t have to be handed down to us
from some conference room
full of songwriters
in a corporate high-rise.
But also, and more importantly,
we can’t decide that it’s just
something that happens,
because music is about
so much more than hits,
those big, iconic moments
that change everything.
It’s more than just entertainment.
For so many of us,
music is truly a way to navigate life.
A means of self-expression, sure,
but it also helps us find our self-worth
and figure out who we are.
It connects us with other people
as almost nothing else can,
across language barriers,
across social and cultural
and economic divides.
Music makes us smarter
and healthier and happier.
Music is necessary.
What if you lived in a city
that believed that,
that said, “We’re not waiting
for that hit song to define us.
We’re a music city
because music is necessary.”
By seeing music as necessary,
a city can build two things:
first, an ecosystem to support
the development of professional musicians
and music business;
and second, a receptive and engaged
audience to sustain them.
And those are the two critical
elements of a music city,
a city whose leaders recognize
the importance of music
for our development as individuals,
our connection as a community
and our viability
as a vibrant place to live.
See, smart cities, music cities,
know that thriving nightlife,
a creative class, culture
is what attracts young,
talented people to cities.
It’s what brings that lightning.
And no, we can’t predict
the next egg that will hatch,
but we can create a city
that acts like an incubator.
To do that, first,
we’ve got to know what we’ve got.
That means identifying
and quantifying our assets.
We need to know them backward and forward,
from who and what and where they are
to what their impact is on the economy.
Let’s count our recording studios
and our record labels,
our historic landmarks
and our hard-core punk clubs.
We should count monthly free jazz nights
and weekly folk jams,
music schools, artist development,
instrument shops,
every lathe and every luthier,
music museums open year round
and music festivals
open just one weekend a year.
Now, ideally through this process,
we’ll create an actual asset map,
dropping a pin for each one,
allowing us to see exactly what we’ve got
and where organic momentum
is already happening.
Because it’s not enough
to paint in broad strokes here.
When it comes to specific support
for music locally
and a broad understanding
of a music brand nationally,
you’ve got to have the receipts.
Next, we’ll need
to identify our challenges.
Now, it’s important to know
that, for the most part,
this won’t be just
the opposite of step one.
We won’t gain a whole lot
by simply thinking
about what’s missing from our map.
Instead, we need to approach this
more holistically.
There are lots of music venues on our map.
Awesome.
But are they struggling?
Do we have a venue ladder,
which just means, can an artist
starting out at a coffee house open mic
see a clear path for how they’ll grow
from that 25-seat room
to a hundred-seat room and so on?
Or are we expecting them to go
from a coffeehouse to a coliseum?
Maybe our challenges lie
in city infrastructure:
public transportation, affordable housing.
Maybe, like in London,
where the number of music venues
went from 400 in 2010
to 100 in 2015,
we need to think about
protections against gentrification.
The mayor of London,
in December of last year,
actually added something called
the “Agent of Change” principle
to the city’s comprehensive plan.
And the name says it all.
If a real-estate developer
wants to build condos
next to an existing music venue,
the developer is the agent of change.
They have to take the necessary steps
for noise mitigation.
Next, and this is a very big one,
we need leadership,
and we need a strategy.
Now we know there’s a lot
of magic in this mix:
a lot of right people,
right place, right time.
And that will never stop being
an important element
of the way music is made,
the way some of the best,
most enduring music is made.
But there cannot be a leadership vacuum.
In 2018, thriving music cities
don’t often happen
and don’t have to happen accidentally.
We need elected officials
who recognize the power of music
and elevate the voices of creatives,
and they’re ready to put
a strategy in place.
In music cities,
from Berlin to Paris to Bogotá,
music advisory councils
ensure that musicians
have a seat at the table.
They’re volunteer councils,
and they work directly
with a designated advocate
inside of city hall
or even the chamber of commerce.
The strongest strategies will build music
community supports like this one inward
while also exporting music outward.
They go hand in hand.
When we look inward, we create that place
that musicians want to live.
And when we look outward,
we build opportunities for them
to advance their career
while also driving attention
back to our city
and leveraging music
as a talent-attraction tool.
And here’s something else
that will help with that:
we’ve got to figure out who we are.
Now, when I say Austin,
you probably think “live music capital.”
And why?
Because in 1991, leadership in Austin
saw something percolating
with an existing asset,
and they chose to own it.
By recognizing that momentum,
naming it and claiming it,
they inevitably caused
more live music venues to open,
existing spaces to add
live music to their repertoire,
and they created a swell
of civic buy-in around the idea,
which meant that it wasn’t just a slogan
in some tourism pamphlet.
It was something that locals really
started to believe and take pride in.
Now, generally speaking,
what Austin created
is just an assets-based narrative.
And when we think back to step one,
we know that every city
will not tick every box.
Many cities won’t have
recording studios like Memphis
or a songwriter and publishing
scene like Nashville,
and that’s not a dealbreaker.
We simply have to find the momentum
happening in our city.
What are our unique assets
in comparison to no other place?
So, if all of that sounds like something
you’d like to happen where you live,
here are three things you can do
to move the needle.
First, you can use your feet,
your ears and your dollars.
Show up. Be that receptive
and engaged audience
that is so necessary
for a music city to thrive.
Pay a cover charge.
Buy a record.
Discover new music,
and please, take your friends.
Two, you can use your voice.
Buy into the assets-based narrative.
Talk about and celebrate
what your city has.
And three, you can use your vote.
Seek out leadership that doesn’t
just pay lip service to your city’s music,
but recognizes its power
and is prepared to put a strategy in place
to elevate it, grow it
and build collaboration.
There really is no telling
what city could be defined
by a certain scene or a certain song
in the next decade,
but as much as we absolutely
cannot predict that,
what we absolutely can predict
is what happens
when we treat music as necessary
and we work to build a music city.
And that is a place where I want to live.
Thank you.
(Applause)