Music isn’t just a cultural asset. It’s also an important factor in our country’s economy and image. For this reason, it was important to initiate the dialogue that lasted nearly two years between Bernd Neumann, Germany’s federal minister for culture and media, the Federal Ministry of Economics and Technology, and the music industry.

Since the launch of the Initiative Musik, I’ve been working alongside a supervisory board made up of six representatives from the world of politics as well as six from the music industry. For me, the decisive issue is that we work together to ensure that the Initiative Musik’s essential goal is firmly lodged in the public’s consciousness. That goal is the recognition that music has an inestimable value for our country, that it makes an enormous contribution to our gross national product, and that it is therefore of great economic importance to the nation.

Stopping the Drop in Value
Over the last decade, the value given to the music industry has been eroded on a daily basis to the point that it has gradually become invisible. One factor in this decline has been the economic slump in the music industry, whose digital sales can no longer match up with the revenues derived from the sales of audio recording and playback devices. As part of the process of digitalization, the value and thereby the esteem individuals give to copyrights has fallen in a bottomless abyss. The Initiative Musik’s goal is to fight back. It will do so by building structures that will draw music out of its shadowy existence, where it is neglected and underappreciated, and recharge it with new values. We plan to have a hand in seeing to it that musicians and their achievements are firmly anchored in the consciousness of music lovers and consumers. We will have structures that allow them to make real money again, rather than just peanuts.

In 2008, we have € 2 million at our disposal - €1 million from 2007 and €1 million from 2008. It’s not much when you compare it with the highly subsidized film industry. But it is a start and it’s not just limited to the funding provided by the Federal Government Commission for Culture and Media (BKM), the German Collecting Society for Performance Rights (GVL), and the German Music Authors’ Society (GEMA). On the other hand, we also want to see a growth in the support budgets from the political sphere and the music industry. Dear German companies, listen to our call. We are the people who help you when it comes to supporting the professional growth of the younger generations. Supplement our means, and let us speak with your departments responsible for corporate social responsibility. As Goethe said himself, “Wherefore ever ramble on? For the good is lying near.”

What do we do with the money?
We put it straight toward supporting contemporary music, from poetry to rock. Given that classical music from Germany is already an export powerhouse, we have intentionally excluded it from our support. Take this one example: Tickets for the Berlin Philharmonic’s debut concert in Los Angeles’ Walt Disney Concert Hall were sold-out two months before the concert – at $360 per ticket! And such high prices were paid, despite the fact that the United States has no ticket subsidies.  In Germany, the rule of thumb is that a standing-room-only ticket for a David Bowie concert costs the same amount as a highly subsidized seat at a concert with a 90-person first-class orchestra. Is that an equitable distribution? Is classical music more “cultural” than pop? No!


Two Support Programs
The Initiative Musik invests its money in two support programs that, to put it briefly, only scratch the music industry’s existing structures. Using these programs, we aim to support the crème de la crème of Germany’s next generation of music professionals. It’s our goal to help Germany’s next Duffy keep on track and gain an international foothold.

1)  We have a support program for artists

We’re not talking about supporting bands made up of grade school kids, after-hours doctor duos, and a bunch of lawyers getting together to play in a string quartet. Instead, our support goes to young, talented artists – whether formally educated in music or not – who are masters of either their instrument or trade and who either aspire to or are pursuing a career as a professional musician. We’re talking about artists who know how to adapt and swim with the musical tide, but also those whose minds are set on a musical ambition and can play their notes at the highest professional level. We’re talking about bands like Tele or Silbermond.

We’d like to support professionally organized young bands that already have a couple of CDs on the market. This can take the form of, for example, supporting production costs or tours through Germany or so-called “buy-on” deals to help them open up for a headline acts.

We also help the Sportfreunde Stillers (a popular German Indie rock band) of the republic – i.e., artists who’ve already found a foothold at the domestic level – to secure more reliable financing that will allow them, for example, to make appearances at international festivals. We also want to help support artists to market themselves and get played in radio stations and record stores from Boston to Osaka.
 

They should be sitting for autograph sessions, appearing on national MTV music shows across the world, and finding appropriate distributors abroad.

These have originally been the tasks of professional managers, who look after things such as contracts and licensing agreements on behalf of the artist. But it’s often the case that young bands can’t afford top managers who know how to function on the international stage. Nevertheless, it’s still important for musicians to work together with a professional operation. This should include bookers, managers, and labels, all of which should contribute their main skills. For this reason, our support program for artists is also linked with the goal of trying to match them up with a professional business partner

2)  We have a support program for infrastructure

With its infrastructure support, the Initiative Musik will build an expressway on which many artists will be able to cruise at high speed. The issue here isn’t about individual artists. Rather, it’s all about infrastructure support means, for example, making available to them contact information for the bookers at top venues in Great Britain. Starting with today’s launch of the Initiative Musik, we will be assembling and maintaining a list of these top venues and contacts in what we consider to be our target countries, including France, Great Britain, Austria, Switzerland, Japan, the United States, and Canada. These kinds of contacts are indispensible when it comes to making the most of sales and marketing.

Infrastructure support also means taking advantage of and making the most of domestic and international music and entertainment trade fairs in their role as the best sales platforms for music companies. This might involve networking and matchmaking at prescreened and moderated meetings, where companies from one country can cross paths with possible clients from another country. For example, labels and music publishing companies from Germany can make licensing contracts at these events for the Japanese market.

For years now, other countries – such as France, the Scandinavian countries, Austria, Australia, and New Zealand – have operated export offices for their own music industries. They represent their labels at international trade fairs and organize festivals worldwide to act as stages for their national acts, thereby promoting “their” artists in what might be called the “classic” way. Other export offices, however, have built up ingenious structures using tax-savings methods, such as taking advantage of the subsidies for printed material and magazines, which are assessed a 7% VAT in Germany.

The Initiative Musik plans to build structures and develop instruments like those used by the export offices. At the same time, it wants to do a whole lot more because it works hard to support of a new generation of artists while at the same time actively advancing the integration of individuals with a migration background in the field of contemporary music

So, what now?

The supervisory board of the Initiative Musik has resolved to only make decisions about support when the proposals and plans are able to expand the current structures in a sensible way and correct existing deficiencies. When it comes to supporting artists, what counts is the complete package, i.e. the master plan for building a musical career. Those are aspects of our guidelines. Since opening our offices, we’ve provided support for 40 artists and 6 infrastructure projects (as of Oct. 9, 2008). You’ll also hear from us two more times this year, about who and what will be supported and why.

The Initiative Musik is an organization dedicated to supporting contemporary music. Nevertheless, it will also be an active platform for dialogue that tackles the most pressing issues in the music industry and raises them to a higher political level in the EU. While working on the international level, the initiative will also function on the local, regional and state levels. In the long run, those who fight together always have a stronger effect than those who fight alone.

The Initiative Musik provides a fantastic opportunity to take to a whole new level the dialogue between decision makers in the music industry and the world of politics as well as to once again establish some degree of recognition in the public’s mind for the artistic achievements of musicians. Doing so will make take their meaning far beyond that of being merely a financial instrument.