The Mason Theory: Cottage Industry

Monte Mason is a good composer colleague of mine and has had a theory for many years explaining why there are so many composers working in Minnesota compared to places like New York or Los Angeles: our weather. We can't go outside because it's too cold...so we might as well compose!

We worked together at the Minnesota Composers Forum many years ago and we would postulate on the socio-economic explanations for why 500 composers were working in Minnesota. We were young back then and used to think that 500 was a big number. Now, we know that 500 is the cost of having someone remove a season of snow from your driveway or a house visit for a man to come fix your furnace or the price of a good space-heater.

Back then, when the MCF (as it was called) was gathering steam, we had visions of Minnesota becoming the Athens of the Cornfields. That was before we understood that the citizens of Athens liked their slaves obedient and their wars fought by the Spartans.

Now we understand that 500 composers in the middle of the country amounts to not even 2% of the ASCAP writer membership (which would be the average if composers were evenly spread like peanut butter all over the country). We know, too, that composers are like dust-bunnies -- they gather together in clumps, but not under beds or in the corner of rooms. Composers go where it's possible to hear their music played and that often means going to places where there is money to pay musicians. Composers go where there's money.

I know that sounds crass, but I think it's true. Compare North and South Dakota to Minnesota. The people are more or less the same. What's the difference? In Minnesota, there is more business, people, wealth, concert venues and, as a result, there are more churches, orchestras, open-mic nights at the coffee house, and night clubs. And this isn't happening to the same degree everywhere in Minnesota. It's happening in the concentration of all of these things: in cities. The bigger the better. And the Twin Cities are the biggest cities in the Upper Midwest whose states are listed here in the order of their populations: Wisconsin, Minnesota, Iowa, North and South Dakota.

There is always somewhere that is more important, bigger, and wealthier than wherever you live. It's a curious fact. Grand Forks looks to Fargo looks to St Cloud looks to the Twin Cities looks to Chicago looks to New York looks to Los Angeles looks to London looks to Berlin looks to...ad infinitum.

So what is the importance of the cottage industry? and how does this relate to composing music? and how does this relate to where you live?

From the InvestorWords.com website, comes this interesting definition for cottage industry: "An industry where the creation of products and services is home-based, rather than factory-based. While products and services created by cottage industry are often unique and distinctive given the fact that they are usually not mass-produced, producers in this sector often face numerous disadvantages when trying to compete with much larger factory-based companies."

Handmade goods. There is something quaint about that term "handmade" but I think it is congruent with what today's composers do. They work alone, usually at home, and create unique and distinctive products and services. I think the idea of a "cottage industry" was created in retrospect after the industrial revolution got started.

Once the majority of people were in factories, those still stuck at home making handmade products (like sweaters, furniture, etc) must have looked antique and uncompetitive. But we're in a new revolution: the information revolution with the internet and file-sharing and instant messaging.

The Digital Cottage Industry is connected, internationally, to the widest of markets via new technologies. It is now possible for someone in a place as remote as Valley City, North Dakota or Casselton or Hurdsfield to compose, record, distribute, and sell music to a breathless public. Composers may work in their cottage but they have the same tools as anyone in the music industry.

So what about the Mason Theory that Minneapolis is a Golden City on a Golden Hill among fields of Golden Grains? Is it possible that no place is bigger or better than any other place now that the internet flattens the playing fields of gold?

The cottage industry that depends on imagination and innovation needs more than the tools. No, I'm afraid it really does matter where your cottage is. Proximity to intentionally and professionally creative people still matters. I would like to suggest a corollary to the Mason Theory.

I will call it the Davidson Corollary. Creative communities exist because individual creators need a host of like-minded individuals to compare works and ideas. Creative friction between individual creators generates creative "heat" which generates better work which attracts more like-minded people which generates more creative "heat." A virtual circle of creativity.

In this description of the world, the egg comes first: a critical mass of people, money, and time. The dust-bunny (creative community) springs forth from that egg.

Location. Location. Location. In your little Digital Cottage.

(I've got to cut down on my metaphors in the morning.)