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by dingnuts 347 days ago
> which really has led to fewer drummers.

what's your basis for this claim? please provide some data showing number of drummers over time, or at least musicians, over the last fifty years or so. I tried searching and couldn't find anything but you're so confident, I'm sure you have a source you could link
2 comments
globnomulous 347 days ago
Sure, here's a blog post that cites BLS statistics showing a 45% decline in the number of working musicians in the US just between 2002 and 2012: https://thetrichordist.com/2013/05/21/45-fewer-professional-...
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jchanimal 347 days ago
I’m one of those statistics. But I still play. It’s fun to imagine myself with a full time studio career but instead I’m a database startup founder. (I got into databases by building a web crawler to recommend how musicians could promote themselves on mp3 blogs.)

How many musicians or artists are finding their need to explore similarly met by opportunities that simply didn’t exist in 2002? If art is expression than we should expect the people who might have wielded a brush or guitar to be building software instead.

If this is you, I recommend Rick Rubin’s The Creative Act. It’s as pure an expression of the way I like to work in music, as it is aligned with how I think about code and product design.

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johnnyanmac 343 days ago
>How many musicians or artists are finding their need to explore similarly met by opportunities that simply didn’t exist in 2002?

Given the current job market: very few. They didn't become SWE founders, they were thrown into dead end jobs as a means to survive. At best, maybe they became music teachers to try and keep the spark alive.

The survivor's bias is pretty strong here.

>If art is expression than we should expect the people who might have wielded a brush or guitar to be building software instead.

everyone expresses differently. Too bad that not all expressions lead to a career that sustains oneself. If you really believe AI will take over programmming, what's the next frontier after building software?

Secondly, most software is product, not art. Most people aren't going to feel like they are expressing anything as they pump out CRUD widgets. That's just modern day pencil pushing.

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johnnyanmac 343 days ago
Gotta love being so confrontational about wanting a source and then never responding when provided one.
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