Digital entrepreneurs: negotiating commerce and creativity in the 'new' music industry.

The proposed project is a pilot study on musicians’ digital commercial practices
and how musicians’ perceptions of recent changes to the music industry shape
their creative music subjectivity. Within the context of the emerging discourse of
‘creative labour’ and the changing dynamics of the music industry the project
examines: the ways in which musicians are utilising new internet technologies to
engage with audiences and make money from their music; whether musicians are becoming more self-consciously entrepreneurial in their attitudes towards the monetisation of their work and fan interaction; and how musicians negotiate
potential tensions between the commercial and creative aspects of their musical
labour. The project comprises a survey of all UK-musicians signed to record labels based in the South-West and follow-up interviews with a small sample of those musicians. The research findings will be relevant to all those working in the music industry, especially musicians and managers working at a local level.