Is there a market for classical music online?

[Anderton]

I've been working on quite a few classical projects lately, and while the artists have done okay with CDs, they haven't really checked out the online options at all. How is the online "climate" for classical music, like solo classical guitar or harpsichord? I might add these are really some pretty outstanding performances that I think more than classical music aficionados might like -- if they knew about the recordings.

[PeterTuneCore]

I've been working on quite a few classical projects lately, and while the artists have done okay with CDs, they haven't really checked out the online options at all. How is the online "climate" for classical music, like solo classical guitar or harpsichord? I might add these are really some pretty outstanding performances that I think more than classical music aficionados might like -- if they knew about the recordings.

The hard part here is getting into iTunes and the other stores with classical. The "spec" for classical has subtleties that makes getting classical safely into the stores very difficult. The metadata (song name, artist, etc.) is much more complicated: does the pieces have an opus number? A number? "Artist"--does that mean the composer, the performer, the performing group, the conductor? The year of PERFORMANCE is different from the year of COMPOSITION, and then there's confusion over public domain...

As you can see, problems abound. The difficulties of shepherding a release through means a much higher error rate, which means less data to go on. But even so, I can say that classical can do very well indeed.

The most successful sales come from orchestral versions of familiar tunes, and guitar and keyboard arrangements of familiar tunes: covers. That works for almost anything, covers are some of the best performing releases in every genre, but classical does particularly well. A classical guitar album featuring holiday standards has nearly unlimited potential.

If you have more traditional classical music (Bach, Mozart, etc.), be very clear with the "big name"--if you recorded Beethoven, put that in the title, front and center. If it's a special arrangement, state it fast--"Brahms on Guitar" will stand out.

More as I think of them!

--Peter
peter@tunecore.com

[slight-return]

I've been working on quite a few classical projects lately, and while the artists have done okay with CDs, they haven't really checked out the online options at all. How is the online "climate" for classical music, like solo classical guitar or harpsichord? I might add these are really some pretty outstanding performances that I think more than classical music aficionados might like -- if they knew about the recordings.

hmmm, wow good question

from the perspective of an audience member ( as opposed to one involved in the marketing)

I put it much like the audiodrama community...."out there, but fragmented"

I think the classical/Early scene is, in some ways, used to being underserved and marginalized, so the attractor/aggregator thing tends to shift around.
As peter mentioned, the language works a little differently*

I suppose it depends on the target audience and what kind of penetration you are looking to get out of it...as peter mentioned, you can probably generate a lot more traffic with holiday music, popular arrangements, etc as you get more crossover audience
but the harder-core audience is going to have much less interest in that the popular blitz can kind of clog the channels-- kind of they "they have some stuff, but I have to wade through 500 "holiday on ice" selections and 3000 albums featuring 'a certain Canon' ;) or Carmina Burana


*note on that - that was a gripe I used to have with iTunes and still have with some systems was their reliance on metadata like ID3 tags (older vers of iTunes didn't allow for raw filename as a data field) and those tend to be structured for popular music.