{"id":122657,"date":"2021-02-08T16:18:35","date_gmt":"2021-02-08T15:18:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.erasmusmagazine.nl\/en\/?p=122657"},"modified":"2025-12-19T11:25:23","modified_gmt":"2025-12-19T10:25:23","slug":"corona-science-this-crisis-may-prove-to-be-a-historical-watershed-for-the-music-industry","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.erasmusmagazine.nl\/en\/2021\/02\/08\/corona-science-this-crisis-may-prove-to-be-a-historical-watershed-for-the-music-industry\/","title":{"rendered":"Corona science: \u2018This crisis may prove to be a historical watershed for the music industry\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"

The music industry has been hit pretty hard by the coronavirus pandemic. Musicians who depend on live performances for their livelihoods are finding themselves living below the poverty line, and those musicians who are raking in the money are few and far between. This being the case, what are the music industry\u2019s prospects down the track? Pauwke Berkers, a sociologist of culture at the Erasmus School of History, Culture and Communication, and Frank Kimenai, an external PhD candidate who has worked in the music industry for over fifteen years, joined forces to try and answer this question.<\/p>\n

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Frank Kimenai and Pauwke Berkers<\/span><\/p>

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How did you two meet?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Berkers: \u201cI\u2019m involved in a major NWO-funded project, called POPLIVE. It mainly relates to the live music industry, because that\u2019s how musicians earn their living. When conducting a study, one can look at the music industry in several different ways. We are using an ecology metaphor. That\u2019s how we ended up with Frank.\u201d<\/p>\n

Kimenai: \u201cI mainly look at musical ecosystems and the resilience of the music industry. Pauwke and I were both active in the field of music industry policy. We both talk to a lot of funding organisations, government agencies and organisations. I was introduced to Pauwke by someone else. At the time, he and his team were drafting a paper on music ecosystems, and I requested a copy of that. That is how we first connected.\u201d<\/p>\n

What is a music ecosystem?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Kimenai: \u201cEssentially, an ecosystem is a collection of living and non-living factors in a particular area and how they relate to each other. A forest is an ecosystem, as is a lake. But you can also zoom out and look at the macro level. The Amazon river, too, is an ecosystem. In much the same way, we can discuss the European music ecosystem, or, at a more specific level, the Rotterdam music ecosystem. The most interesting thing about doing so is figuring out how people, companies and organisations relate to each other in such music ecosystems.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\t

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