The authorities occasionally try to crack down on our right
to party. Sex and drugs and rock and roll frighten our leaders. These attempts
tellingly stopped when they realised that the club culture was turning into a
giant industry which attracted profits for the exchequer. Tom Hodgkinson
Money makes the world go round into a hole in the ground,
follow the paper trail of the money makers and you can see why bankers, CEO’s,
lawyers and the like get well paid while nurses, teachers are badly paid.
Anything that makes money gets money and anything that does not gets naught.
Musicians fall into this trap and it is worsened by the
artist poverty mind-set which says I am not worth much, I do this for fun. Just
because you enjoy doing something does not mean that you should not be paid for
it but you have to learn how to create value in the minds of those paying for
it.
A couple weeks ago I had a pupil complain about the price of
the exam fee for grade 6 and I took him to task over it especially as he may
become a professional musician in the future. It was a classic case of a young
person opening his mouth and the attitudes of his parents coming out.
The attitude of the government of any country is by its very
nature protective, of themselves that is as they are the ruling classes; change
would mean that they might not stay as they ones in charge. But as the above
quote says there is a trade off when it comes to the money, remember the role
of the artist is to challenge and present ideas for something different.
Vic
