How a Musician can be Successful

In my research, I’ve explored different aspects of how musicians can be successful, with respect to the economic principles “people gain when they trade voluntarily” and “people generally respond to incentives in predictable ways.” Musicians can be successful if they incentivize people to buy their products and make music that people enjoy. The first part of a musician being successful is that they need to find a way to make money. Since less people buy music, and those who do use a streaming service, which only gives a tiny amount of money back to the musician. According to The Rolling Stone, some ways musicians can make money are by selling concert tickets and merchandise. The incentive is that when people like and support a musician, they want a chance to see them perform live. People also enjoy having tee shirts, posters, and phone cases that represent their favorite musician. The next main thing a musician needs to do to be successful is make music that people listen to. According to the Smithsonian, music is getting simpler. This is because people enjoy listening to simple music. People also enjoy listening to a greater amount of simple music rather than a smaller amount of more complex music. The musicians benefit because more people are buying their music, and they’re buying a larger number of songs. It’s also worth noting that this simple music isn’t worse just because it’s simple. As CDM explains, in a way it’s impressive that there’s so many distinct songs that use the same four chords. People don’t need to buy music, they buy it because they enjoy it. Music wouldn’t be on the charts if people weren’t buying it, and people wouldn’t buy it if they didn’t enjoy it. Since people are buying and enjoying the music, there’s no valid reason to call it bad.