One of the things that has come out of my visit to Brazil has been the opportunity to discuss my research into Fora do Eixo and talk about the relationship between the academic work (which can take years to publish) and the work I do for Music in the Digital Age, which publishes immediately, as I write it.

In this discussion, recorded at the conference in Brasilia, Fabricio Nobre points out the reasons why this knowledge needs to be disseminated quickly as well as accurately. This is a timely topic.

If nothing else – this has motivated me to get to work on this section of the book… perhaps even before I go further on the copyright section. We’ll see how that goes.

In the meantime, I’d be interested in your thoughts on this discussion. Lots to go through here…

I remember the last time I had to go and work with independent musicians in Brazil…

I’m off to Brazil tonight. One of the later sections of the book is about music commerce, and I’m going to be drawing in some of the academic research I’ve been doing about Fora do Eixo (say ‘for-a-doe-AY-show), the network of independent music collectives that work across the whole of Brazil and beyond.

Part of my trip to Brasilia and Sao Paulo for the next 10 days is to attend the trans-national Cultura de Red meeting, and interview a bunch of the people involved in this network, learn how they’ve used free online tools, open source software and open data to accomplish what to most people might have seemed impossible.

It’s a fascinating story, and one I can’t wait to tell. In around 70 cities across Brazil, a land where cities are separated by thousands of miles, and large uninhabited spaces, a workable touring, festival and distribution arrangement has been devised by groups collaborating online to ensure that life in the independent music sector is a viable and sustainable career.

They call it ‘solidarity economy’ – and much of it revolves around ways of helping each other out. Your band is coming to play in my town? Cool – they can sleep on my floor, I’ll cook for them, pick them up at the airport – that sort of thing. I’ll make sure they hook up with the right venue and we’ll try and sell some CDs while they’re here. And you do the same when my band comes to you.

That’s the tip of the iceberg. The crazy bit is that they have developed to the point where they now have their own currency. They have healthcare. They have their own bank. Their own university. Festivals appear to be sustainable. Bands make a living. And this is in a place where there is no route to mainstream media from the independent sector. If you’re not on a major label you can pretty much forget about airplay — of any kind.

It’s not without its critics (and that’s something I want to explore too), but there’s something really fascinating about an independent music sector that, in the face of such overwhelming odds, has come up with a system that could only function in the age of the internet.

Last time I was there, I did some video interviews that explained a bit about how it works, and those are up on my Brazil research project website. But this time, I’m going to delve a bit deeper and try and make sense of it in the context of the Music in the Digital Age book – as well as for my university work.

What are the lessons here that could be applied more broadly? Could something like this work in Europe? North America? And so on.

Plus, of course – I love going back to Brazil. Apart from meeting up with some good friends and enjoying the food, the sights and the culture, it’s mostly the record shopping I look forward to. The weather is just a nice bonus.

I’ve started writing the next section of Music in the Digital Age. I’ve found that recording the audiobook version helps me proofread the e-book version — and so I’m doing that as I go. I thought that since it’s been a month or so since I last updated the book, I’d give you a sneak preview of what’s in the pipeline.

This section’s about copyright. Hope you find it of interest.

Here’s where you can get the e-book
Here’s where you can get the audiobook

As usual, you choose what (and whether) to pay.

A question about building an audience and not just playing the same gigs over and over…

This one’s about choosing which are going to be the gigs that really matter…

One from Terry about the future of mobile platforms…

In which I address Shana’s question about networking as a new manager.

More to come. In fact… I have a bit of a backlog here to get through.

Last week, I invited readers to send me questions they wanted answers to. The cutoff was Friday afternoon, and then I said I would go through and make a quick video responding to some of them.

I made a start – and quickly found out that we’d be talking about quite a long video if I gave all of the questions the answers they deserved. So I’m making a bunch of videos. Here’s the first of them.

Cole got in first – and posed three for the price of one. Here’s my response to his questions. More to come soon…

I’ve spent this weekend (so far) working on the audiobook version of Music in the Digital Age, and you can get it at Bandcamp. Each section of the book has been released as an album.

Part 1 is the overview, which I call ‘Understanding Music in the Digital Age’. It features the chapters about the way in which I think about music, and ways in which to understand the online environment as a conversational space.

Part 2 is The 20 Things Revisited – which goes back to my original ebook from 5 years ago, ‘The 20 Things You Must Know About Music Online’, and addresses and updates each point along the way.

Hi. I thought it was high time I started a dedicated website for this book, so that I can keep you up to date on my writing without filling up your email inbox whenever anything interesting happens.

You’ll notice that this is so new, I haven’t even really started putting anything here yet. Give me time – I only bought the domain a couple of hours ago…

But I thought it might be a nice idea to do something special just for the people who have already downloaded the book.

How about an invite-only Q&A session? And by ‘invite-only’, I mean, just for people who have bought (or simply downloaded) Music in the Digital Age. The early adopters. That’s you.

Ask me questions

Ask me anything you like – either in the comments below, or use the contact form. It can be about the book, about your music career, about the online digital music environment – whatever’s on your mind.

Get your questions in by 3pm UK time on Friday 18th May (that’s this coming Friday) – and I’ll answer a bunch of them in a video that I’ll post here on this blog this time next week. I’ll try to get to as many of them as I can… and then perhaps we can get into a discussion afterwards that might add further value.

Think of it as a free consultancy session. And it’s just for you guys – not for those others who don’t have the book yet. Don’t tell them either. It can be our secret… Unless you think they’d find it helpful – in which case, feel free.

Where I’m at with the writing

I hope you’ve been enjoying the book and finding it interesting.

So far, I’ve finished two of the five sections of the book – the overview section, ‘Understanding Music in the Digital Age’ and the ’20 Things Revisited’ section which brings my original e-book from five years ago up to date with my current thinking.

The next section I’m working on is about ‘Music as Culture’ – and I’ll be getting to that over the next few weeks, now that the teaching semester is coming to a close.

Look forward to hearing your thoughts and questions – and talk to you soon.

Incidentally, if you originally downloaded the book without paying, and you think you might like to become one of those people that contributed a few dollars (or bought me a nice gift) – it’s not too late. Here’s your chance.