Exclusive Interview: 4QFor New Music Strategies’ Andrew Dubber

We continue our ongoing 4QFor (Four Questions For) series with UK music industry educator commentator and consultant Andrew Dubber. He is Senior Lecturer in the Music Industries at Birmingham City University, blogs at New Music Strategies and has some interesting projects planned for 2008. (Read more 4QFor interviews with the heads of imeem, We7 ReverbNation and Nimbit here.)

Q1: What major changes in the music industry do you foresee over the next year?
I don’t foresee changes in the music industry. I leave fortune telling to the fortune tellers. What I do is describe those changes as they happen, evaluate and analyze what they mean for the independent music sector, and suggest strategies based on the new music environment.

It’s far more mundane than jetpacks, silver jumpsuits and meals-in-a-pill, but I’m much more interested in how your music business can make money with new (and actually real) contemporary technologies.

Q2: How as you preparing to benefit from these changes?  Personally, my mission is to achieve my two main goals. The first is to be interesting, the second is to be helpful. If I can do that around describing those changes and new opportunities in new technology and music, I’m pretty much living the ideal life. A bit of public speaking here, a spot of consultancy there, a splash of travel, and the rest of the time keeping my Music Industries students in the know at Birmingham City University. And if someone along the way gives me a bit of money for being helpful, then there’s a benefit too.

Q3: What excites you?  The new and the interesting, second hand jazz vinyl, train travel, good coffee, genuine talent intelligently applied – and getting feedback from people who… 

have been helped in a tangible, bottom-line way by something I’ve written or something I’ve said at a seminar.

I was very excited recently when my free PDF e-book, The 20 Things You
Must Know About Music Online passed the 100,000 download mark, was translated into Chinese, Dutch
and Portuguese and was printed in hard copy. And I’m excited about the
launch of my new website, New Music Ideas,
the start of my new podcast (very soon), and the production of my
audiobook seminar series (currently underway). I’m quite easily
entertained, actually.

Q4. What’s next?  Hard to tell. Like I said, I try and avoid the crystal ball gazing.
I’ve mentioned the new podcast, which although I’m working on it, is
still in the future for my readers, so that’s next. As is the
audiobook series and some other exciting things I’m working on with
some very interesting people – quite a few of which I’m not allowed to
talk about, but I can reveal are very exciting. I guess that’s ‘next’
from everyone else’s perspective – it just all seems very ‘already
happening’ to me.

In February, I start a Knowledge Transfer research project at the
university, which embeds me into about 25 music businesses just to try
and be helpful. So looking forward to that.

(Read more 4QFor interviews with the heads of imeem, We7 ReverbNation and Nimbit here.)