In the beginning, art was shaped by creativity
alone. Our knuckle-dragging ancestors told
stories, shouted out primitive melodies and
drew in the dirt. Later, technology shaped
art, as cave painters began to use charcoal
and pigments in their drawings, and augment
their melodies with primitive drums.
Art advanced as capitalism and technology
crept forward, taking giant steps during the
Renaissance, when the Church and the ruling
class began to finance visual artists, musicians
and composers on a whole new scale.
Art became a job. The personal tastes of
those who financed artists dictated what
art survived. Skip forward roughly five hundred
years to the 1990s, and we still had
basically the same system: art financiers
became record labels, publishers and film
studio executives who acted as gatekeepers,
determining what art the public would
see and hear. Then the digital age took the
financiers and middlemen out of the artist/
audience relationship. We are witnessing
evolution in the arts.
In the digital world, there’s no shipping or
printing cost, no retail space to rent, and usually
no production cost. A homeless person
can go to the library and write fiction that
can be read by millions. A kid in Vietnam or
Des Moines with a borrowed camera and a
guitar can recruit legions of fans eager to
download everything he or she posts. We are
getting back to a world of art for art’s sake.
Because there are no production costs, revenue
is optional.
As a professional musician and writer, I feel a
little like the high-class hooker whose earning
is threatened when a sorority house of eager
hotties moves next door to my brothel. Free
art is omnipresent: 80 percent of Japan’s most
popular books in 2007 were thumbed out on
cell phones for free downloads. MySpace and
YouTube offer more free music, video and
art content than Virgin, Tower Records and
Walmart combined could ever hope to put
on their shelves. What’s truly amazing about
our new world is that the free art is often as
good as the stuff we buy. Regrettably, without
gatekeepers, one needs to sift through a lot of
garbage to find the gems. Without the record
labels telling us what is good, we clearly miss
some jewels in the rough.
Recently in Washington DC, Joshua Bell,
arguably one of the best violinists in the
world, busked a 45-minute, rush-hour subway
set on his 3.5 million dollar violin. Six
people stopped to listen, and he collected
$32. Two days prior, Bell sold out a Boston
theater where the seats averaged $100. The
Washington Post organized this incognito
concert as part of a social experiment about
perception. Do we recognize talent in an
unexpected context? Yes and no.
The other night I spent an hour on YouTube
watching what looked like a twelve-year-old
boy painstakingly explain how to play part
of “Cliffs of Dover.” As I fumbled slowly
along, trying to memorize the seemingly random
series of notes, this kid monotonously
instructed, “fifteen fret on the B string,
twelve fret on the B string…” Though his
performance wasn’t flawless, I respected him.
According to the brutal slew of messages
posted below his video, I was alone. It made
me wonder: who are these assholes who post
these condemning comments?
And why would
anybody go to this
much trouble to record
and post a video knowing
there’s no monetary
gain—knowing they’re
exposing themselves to
vicious attacks by semi-anonymous
critics?
Tyne Daly said, “A critic
is someone who never
actually goes to the battle,
yet who afterwards
comes out shooting the wounded.” As I scan
YouTube, I have to admire those brave souls
who, in spite of these venomous attacks,
soldier on to literally share their art with the
world. Motivated by the guilt of taking and
not giving back, I videoed a few clips of
some of my favorite guitars doing what they
do. (Search “John Bohlinger” on YouTube,
and feel free to degrade me in the comment
section.) I’m not much of a technical guy, nor
am I patient, so my homespun videos are
replete with errors, both in my playing and
recording—which seems right in keeping with
the art’s evolution. It’s fast, messy and free.
Ideas are shared, unfettered by big business
polishing it up to make a buck.
Which is not to say there isn’t money made
in free art. Back in December, The New
York Times reported that several YouTube
favorites, such as Michael Buckley and Cory
Williams, are now earning mega-bucks from
product placement and the YouTube Partner
Program, which sounds like a profit-sharing
program for video posters with gigantic
audiences and a lot of content. Which is not
to say there isn’t money for the small-time
posters. I recently contributed a track to a
B-Bender guitar album called The Bendegos.
One of the other guest artists is a great
player named Sol Philcox, who launched his
career on YouTube posting some blazing tele-pickin’
videos he made as a kid. There are
thousands of examples of commerce serendipitously
working its way in to free art.
YouTube and sites like it are the venues
for art’s evolution. The best work will be
rewarded, if not monetarily, at least through
notoriety. Players play, writers write, painters
paint—it’s in our blood, and we can’t stop.
Regardless of financial gain, it’s gratifying to
have an audience. We are lucky to live during
a time when every artist has a means of
sharing his or her work. It’s like we are all in
kindergarten and the entire world gets to
admire our finger paintings thumbtacked to
digital bulletin board.
John Bohlinger
John Bohlinger is a Nashville guitar slinger who has
recorded and toured with over 30 major label artists. His
songs and playing can be heard in several major motion
pictures, major label releases and literally hundreds of
television drops. For more info visit
johnbohlinger.com.