But, oddly, this new musical ambassador is playing no role at all in
Music Week – sponsored by the Music Industry Association of Belize. But,
we’d venture to say that MIAB doesn’t really need him with the star
studded series of concerts they’ve got lined up for this weekend. We’ll
tell you about that shortly, but first to today’s activities. MIAB held
a conference to discuss new trends in the global music industry. The discussion
was led by Paul Friedlander, a professor from the University of California.
He told us how the rise of the internet and the death of the major record labels
is good for Belizean artists.
Paul Friedlander,
“For the last 50 years what we people listen to was dictated in this
case by four multinational corporations, what artists they hired, and so the
whole main stream culture was driven by the tastes of board rooms in four cities.
The change has allowed somebody in Belize to put their music online and for
me to listen to it in California and for me to love it and enjoy it and buy
it on I-Tunes.”
Jules Vasquez,
“Or alternately there is the down side that you can just rip it, steal
it off the internet which most of the people who access music online research
shows that is what they are doing.”
Paul Friedlander,
“Absolutely, right about 20% of the people in the US are file sharers
but remember there has always been free music. When radio came around in the
1950s, the record companies jumped and screamed you are giving it away for free
and what they found out was that that was the best marketing they could ever
have otherswise how would people listen to their artists. I can tell you an
example, about six weeks ago I was listening to Belizean music and I noticed
in the newspaper that Umalai and the Garifuna Collective from Dangriga were
going to be performing in my town. Yes I could listen to their music for free
but when I went down and listened to them and I knew they were going to get
the money I bought their CD. That is the music business.
You have a wonderful small industry that is growing and people are coming
together that we could have accomplished musicians from Belize making a living
making music so the upside is you now have a way to distribute your music. You
now have a way to think about people in other countries like Mexico or Honduras
Costa Rica, Nicaragua hearing for the first time Belizean music.”
Interestingly, Friedlander says that despite the rise of CD’s
and MP3 players, audio cassettes continue to be the number one means of listening
to music across the world. He foresees that eventually cell phones will replace
those tried and true cassettes. But there won’t be any cassettes rolling
over the next three days at the Bliss Center as MIAB rolls out a trio of star
studded concerts.
Ivan Duran,
“Three concerts are left. The first one being tonight at the Bliss
with Carlos Perrote and Friends. On Saturday we are joined by a good friend
of Belize Manuelo Burgon the famous Costa Rica pianist. The grand finale of
Music Week will be at Sunday and it will the Brukdong Concert and yesterday
was Mr. Peter’s birthday and he turned 79 and we are doing this concert
in honour to him as a great Belizean icon and artist.”
The admission for the Friday and Saturday concerts is free for the
first 100 people who arrive the rest will pay ten dollars.
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