What do artists personally think?

This picture is from the creative commons section on the Flickr website. It was taken on August 7, 2012 and uploaded by Mennonite Church USA Archives.


Kat Quinn was a student here at MHS just as all of us are now. She graduated in 2006 and moved to New York City to pursue her dreams as a song writer. I contacted Kat through Facebook and was lucky enough to interview her even though she is on a very tight schedule.

Ellie(E): Do you use your music career entirely to make a living? If not, what else do you do to earn money? 

Kat(K): I don’t. I also have a part time job at a Private Equity firm.

E: What are your big sources of income based on your music career (CD's, ticket sales, iTunes/mp3 downloads, etc.)?
K: The biggest for me is getting payed for live shows probably.. whether it be from a tip jar, a pre-arranged price from the venue, or ticket sales. And I guess I usually factor in CD sales to the overall amount I made at the show.. so that’s definitely a part of it too. But I definitely make the most money from playing live.

E: Do you promote your music using the internet? If so, how? I do. I’m on most of the major music-related sites.. iTunes, Facebook, Bandcamp, Reverbnation, Youtube, etc.

K: I use it mostly for promoting shows at this point (by posting about events and news, or creating and inviting people to events), but will definitely be utilizing it more during my next EP release.

E: How do you sell your music? If you have more than one way please state all ways. (iTunes, the internet, just CD's, etc.)

K: I sell it on the internet- iTunes, CDBaby, Bandcamp, eMusic, and I think other sites (I’m not totally sure all the sites where it’s sold bc CDBaby distributes it to a lot of different music-selling sites). I also sell CDs at my shows.

E: To your knowledge, do you know if your fans get music by not paying for it? (burning CD's, file sharing, mp3 converters, etc.) How do you feel about this even if it's not happening to you?

K: I don’t know if it happens to me. I know people listen on Spotify or YouTube, but I think that’s all great. I also give out free downloads of songs, especially if someone signs up for my mailing list. For me, I’m definitely in the stage where I just want the music out there, and I have a part time job to keep me from needing to have money-making my priority with music right now. Right now the priority is having as many people listen as possible. There might come a day when that changes, but right now I don’t mind.

E: Most likely you want your music out there to as many fans possible. How far will you go to become more famous?

K: I won’t go that far. I really love writing songs, which is how I got into this. I have grown to love performing and would like to have a growing fanbase, but writing is my number one thing as opposed to singing and the lifestyle that goes with it. I want the songs to get out there, but for me, the less famous the better.

I found in my research that there is an ad campaign that is trying to get rid of the illegal download of music on the internet. Artists like Eminem, Stevie Wonder, Shakira, Britney Spears, and a few others have signed to be on this campaign. Eminem writes "I'm sorry; when I worked 9-to-5, I expected to get a paycheck every week. It's the same with music; if I'm putting my heart and all my time into music, I expect to get rewarded for that. I work hard and anybody can just throw a computer up and download my music for free. It could kill the whole purpose of making music."I have also found that Madonna, who is also part of the campaign, isn't very happy about the fact that people pirate her music. On the MTV website there is an article about Madonna's thoughts about the file traders. She asks the file traders "What the f--- do you think you're doing?"