Music Distribution

The major music websites that allow anyone with music interest to upload their music for free in Taiwan include: StreetVoice, Indievox, Blowmusic (吹音樂) and Ysolife (樂手巢). American music websites include SoundCloud and MySpace.

These websites tend to specialize music from independent musicians and encourage

songs that are more indie-flavored, innovative and original in expression, and not too close to mainstream pop music. Although one can release and share music and songs on Facebook and YouTube too, these two platforms are seen mostly as promotional tool rather than release platform. Normally major music service websites in Taiwan typically collaborate with major music companies with a roster of established singers only and do not deal with individual indie musician customer. Blowmusic (吹音樂), a subsidiary company of StreetVoice, offers Packer (派歌 數位發行), a digital music release package that charges a fee to release music on a few selective commercial music service websites for independent singers. Websites such as StreetVoice mostly cater to indie music fans and are not well known to the general music consumers, the focus of music distribution mostly center on a several major commercial music websites that charge membership fee.

After a singer release his songs either on free independent music websites (StreetVoice, Indievox, Blowmusic and Ysolife) or on commercial music websites (KKBOX, myMusic, Omusic, and Hami), they need to promote their music on social media to increase the visibility of their music. The independent and commercial music websites function primarily as a platform of release and sharing only. These websites tend to attract hard-core music fan customers only and its clientele base is limited. To promote their music to audiences outside the die-hard fan base, singers need to use social media including Facebook, YouTube and Instagram.

Facebook was widely considered as the most important social media platform for promotion for its combination of sharing text, photo, video, sound file, and even the latest function of streaming. Facebook’s influence has dropped drastically in the past few years in Taiwan due to its strict advertising fee policy. Many indie singers are

adopting Instagram as the new social media marketing platform, according to my interviewees.

“Independent singers start out by putting their music on music platforms such as StreetVoice, Indievox, Blowmusic (吹音樂) and Ysolife, but these sites are for niche audiences only. It’s extremely difficult for an indie singer to put his music on

mainstream music sites such as KKBox, iTunes and Spotify for the mass audience to listen to. Mainstream music sites only collaborate with mainstream music labels to release albums for mass audience and don’t welcome indie singers unless he has high visibility. I produced and released my album DIY style, without the backing of an indie label. I feel lucky I live in the current era in which I can release music independently without any label’s support.” -- Cliff Huang（克里夫）

Mike Chang and Huang Wei-jie concur with Huang that they feel blessed to be able to release their albums independently without any label's backup.

About half of my interviewees exude a sense of easy and joy with their career choice during these interviews. They feel lucky to be working in the current digital and social media era when releasing and promoting music is much easier than a generation ago.

Mainstream commercial music websites are so hostile to music work with less commercial value that even the soundtracks of Taiwan's Golden Horse Awards two top winning films Great Buddha+ (大佛普拉斯) (composed by Lin Sheng-Xiang (林 生祥), who won both the Best Movie Theme Song Award and the Best Film Score Award for this album) and The Bold, the Corrupt, and the Beautiful (血觀音) in 2017 were shut out by the mainstream music sites and were released through StreetVoice's

Packer service on limited channels instead.

Section Two: The Independent Music Journey

4.2.1 Motivation and Creative Principle

As music critic Ma Shi-fong (馬世芳) points out, the basic criteria to define independent music include distribution method, creative process, production method, experimental music styles and most importantly creative principle.

Creative principle stands as the most important parameter to gauge what is independent music. Apart from technical aspects such as distribution and production method, the essence of independent music lies in the faith to create and share music that one is impassioned about, without the manipulation and packaging of a music label because of commercial concern and the pressure to sell more albums.

Several interviewees concur on the principle of maintaining one's artistic

integrity and doing what one is impassioned about in the realm of independent music.

Thirteen Band (拾参樂團), offers their opinion on their career trajectory.

“We were luckily signed by Universal Music to release our debut album during our college years, which was a disappointment artistically and commercially. They wanted us to sing commercial songs that they thought would sell in the market. Since then, we decided to go indie. We like to do concept albums. We write songs about our life experience and feelings and conceptualize the album. We find it far more

satisfying to create and release music we truly enjoy.” – Thirteen Band (拾参樂團)

Huang Wei-jie (黃瑋傑) is a very idealistic and passionate indie singer who wishes to use music to tell the stories about his Hakka cultural background and also critique social issues he is concerned about.

“I create and release Hakka music because I grew up in a Hakka community.

That’s my family’s history and that’s the story I want to share with the audiences. In my own life, I care about social issues and actively participate in protests and

campaign. With my second album, I deal with the topic of Taiwan’s migrant workers.

The life experience came first and I turned them into music to share with people.” – Huang Wei-jie (黃瑋傑)

Tony Huang (黃偉豪), an interviewee who has competed and placed in the top 10 on the TV talent show Super Idol (超級偶像), offers his take on why a singer should stick to his vision.

“People always tell you different opinions about how you should change your music to fit into market demand or audience taste. They always contradict each other anyway. So, the best way is to just stick to what you believe in and try to do a great job with it.” – Tony Huang (黃偉豪)

4.2.2 Creating versus Self-Promotion

Although social media give indie singers the access to publicize their music and live concert event for themselves, that option is only free in monetary term but not in time and energy. Singers would like to devote as much time as possible to creating their best music possible. The social media platform pushes the responsibility of planning and creating promotional content from the traditional media to the singers themselves. Even as indie singers mostly realize they need to multi-task by

performing the duties of singer/songwriter, live concert agent, and media content planner, there exist immense challenges in trying to deliver all these tasks with limited time and budget.

My interviewees expressed ambiguous feeling towards the task of

self-promotion. On one hand, they realize they would not get exposure from mainstream media and are glad to be able to use Facebook to promote their music. On the other hand, they think it’s exhausting to devote too much time curating the content for Facebook. They also express torn feeling about how much of their personal life they should divulge to promote or contextualize their music. Interviewee Chen Wei-ru shared his thoughts on the rewards and challenges of social media promotion.

“I started doing Facebook live streaming this year and the result is pretty good. I can see audiences are interested in seeing more personal, intimate aspects of our daily life moments. But it’s always a struggle with self-promotion. I’m glad that we have social media to promote our music now since we don’t have access to

mainstream media. It takes a lot of time and energy to create the content (photo, text

or video) and post it. Then there’s the question of how much of my personal life I really want to reveal to people who don’t know me. I try not to over do it. Posting once a week is enough for me.” – Chen Wei-ru（陳瑋儒）

The attitude to write extensive promotional text also varies according to the singer’s educational background and preference. Cliff Huang and Mike Chang, two interviewees with intellectual background, enjoy writing fascinating stories about their songwriting process on Facebook to share with audiences. Chen Wei-ru and William Chen, on the other hand, don’t enjoy the process as much and claim one post a week should suffice.

4.2.3 Live Performance/Storytelling

Since 2000, the emergence of Taiwan’s three main music festivals (namely, Formoz Festival (野台開唱), Ho-hai-yan Rock Festival (海洋音樂季) and Spring Scream Music Festival (春天吶喊音樂季)) provide stages for all aspiring bands to showcase their music yearly. In addition, the proliferation of “live house” venues such as The Witch Store (女巫店), Kafka on the Shore (海邊的卡夫卡) and Riverside Café (河岸留言), Backstage Café (後台咖啡廳), The Wall (那牆) live house and many others serve to develop and maintain audiences for indie music on a weekly basis.

Because of lack of access to traditional mainstream media and lack of budget for promotional activities, Taiwan indie singers spend the bulk of their time between promoting their new materials on social media and on live performance.

The ability to deliver a riveting live performance and cultivate rapport with audiences is a key factor that differentiates indie singer from packaged mainstream idol singer. Many idol singers from mainstream labels rely on studio album

production and expensive music video budget to package them. Consequently, they lack the ability to perform live.

“I think studio recording represents the best possible sound while live

performance follows the time flow, the interaction with audiences and can express emotions of the moment.” – Chen Wei-ru (陳瑋儒)

“I thinks studio recorded songs often shows the constraint in space because you can’t move inside and must follow the rhythm. With a live performance, however, the performer is closer to the audiences, can interact with them, and can enter into the emotions easily.” – William Chen （陳鈺羲）

In contrast, indie singers see it as essential to perform competently live in usually intimate, small to medium size live house venue. They usually rely on the successful audiences feedback at a live performance to sell their albums. They also use these intimate live performances to strengthen the sense of community with fans.

Competent indie singers also consider live performing a chance to reinterpret their songs that already have studio version. With live performing, they are able to interact with the audiences and respond to audience cues. The live performing

experience is usually way more emotional than the studio recording and more organic in feeling.

Live performance is also a key factor that draws experienced indie music buffs.

Mainstream singers are usually available in selective concerts only and are heavily protected by high-budget stage effect. Music fans who relish the live experience can usually derive a more engaging music experience from indie music live performance event.

Another key difference between indie music and mainstream commercial music is indie music’s focus on storytelling rather than over-the-top belting out singing often witnessed in mainstream commercial concerts.

Very few indie singers interviewed for this research will resort to hitting-the-high-notes techniques often seen in mainstream singer concert. The focus of the music in on the storytelling. As a result, the lyrics in indie songs are usually far more

thoughtful, sophisticated and literary.

Cliff Huang states he is a singer who uses songs to tell stories about people and the land. He opines he is not a superb interpretive singers like Jam Hsiao (蕭敬騰) or Zhang Hui-mei (張惠妹). “I will never go to a TV talent show like “I am a Singer”

(我是歌手) where everyone belts out and sing songs to the fullest.”

As it is a prerequisite for indie singer to write his own songs, telling his story with his unique voice through the song is the focus of indie music. Mainstream commercial singers often use their interpretive vocals skill to perform songs written by other professional songwriters.

“Two of the most popular singers who had successful live streaming sessions in my coffee shop are Shiyou (石尤) and Monpig (孟孟). Shiyu is very charismatic

because he is very funny and he shares the very humorous tidbits about his daily life event between the songs and makes it very interesting for audiences. Monpig is very commanding in another way. She is very good at telling the creative story and principle behind each song and adds a story dimension to her songs for audiences.”

-- Avery Huang （黃榮吉）

Cliff Huang tells the stories about how he travelled throughout Taiwan to chat with the grassroots people and listen to their stories. One of his songs is about

someone who has an untreatable skin condition and how he learns to consider this as a gift for him to relish every day in life.

Mike Chang also spends half of his music performance time narrating about the stories behind his songs and expressing his views about social issues and what he thinks the world is about.

Both Cliff Huang and Mike Chang spend equal time singing songs and telling the stories behind the songs in their live concert. They integrate storytelling into their concert and see narrating the stories behind the songs as essential part of their live performance.

4.2.4 Artist as Entrepreneur

The arena of publishing music independently demands the singer to broaden the role of an artist into an entrepreneur, to take on the full responsibilities of the entire operation and act as one’s own CEO, artistic director, promotional personnel, event planner and administration assistant all at the same time.

In contrast to the highly specialized labor division in mainstream commercial music market system, an independent musician needs to perform all the tasks

upstream to downstream by himself, enlisting the help of a few friends if he is lucky.

The basic duties include but are not limited to: writing songs, arranging songs, producing songs, curating the whole album, performing album copywriting, arranging album photography, arranging album design work, negotiating printing and CD pressing with factory, negotiating physical album distribution with company, negotiating digital album distribution on music website, planning and rehearsing concert content with musicians, booking promotional concert dates with live house venues, promoting concert on social media and inviting guests. The above mention tasks are centered around album release cycle only. In addition to the album release promotion cycle, there are basic daily routine of planning, creating and posting content on Facebook and YouTube to maintain regular interaction with fans.

To be an independent singer is to become a one-man corporation that plans and executes all the tasks of an entire album release cycle and the tasks of

non-promotional period administration all by oneself. These tasks all entrusted on one person are extremely challenging and rewarding at the same time. Few occupations would demand and allow a person to experience and learn so many professional skills at the same time.

“I did everything by myself for this Hakka album. Writing songs, producing songs, curating content, copywriting, asking friends to shoot publicity photo, booking TV performance, booking live house concert date, promoting on social media. I feel

very lucky to have the chance to do all of these exciting things.” – Chen Wei-ru (陳瑋 儒)

“We have been called the ‘most labor-intensive band’ by our friends. We write, arrange, record and produce all the songs. We conceptualize our albums and design them. With our background in fine arts and design, we also do most of the design work ourselves. We design the album, our live performance stage and even our music video. We do everything by ourselves to express our vision.” – Thirteen Band (拾參樂 團)

4.2.5 Roles of Audience

In the social media era, audiences have evolved from the role of passive consumer to active participant, co-creator and even sponsor in the new ecological system of independent music sector.

Major platforms including Facebook, YouTube and StreetVoice all can display the number of like clicked by audience and thus shows which particular songs are well received by fans. This number will determine how a singer chooses his promotional singles.

For example, of the 16 songs William Chen has posted on StreetVoice, two songs have surpassed 1000 likes mark (with “You Go” (你走) at 1143 likes and “Escape”

(逃脫) at 1214 likes) while the other songs stayed with two digit likes. Consequently, Chen includes these two popular songs into his limited edition, hand-made EPs sold exclusively at his live concert and from his Facebook fan page.

Photo 1. Indie singer William Chen’s StreetVoice song list and number of likes.

(Source: William Chen’s Facebook, 2017)

Apart from the simple number of likes, audiences’ comments on social media are even more powerful tool and can directly influence a singer’s decision in choosing which songs to include in live performance. To illustrate, for William Chen’s debut concert at Taiwan’s landmark indie music live house The Witch (女巫店) held on April 21, 2017, he hosted a Facebook live streaming session to promote the upcoming concert. Many fans left remarks to express their support. One fan left a comment requesting the song “My Eyes Redden When I Think of You” (想起你我卻紅了眼 眶). The song was thus included by Chen into his set list.

Photo 2. Audience requesting song on indie singer William Chen’s upcoming concert on Facebook.

(Source: William Chen’s Facebook, 2017)

Chen Wei-ru garnered three Golden Melody Awards nominations (Best Hakka Album Producer, Best Hakka Male Singer, and Best Album of the Year) in 2017 for his Hakka album My Dad Speaks Sea Land, My Mom Speaks Four Counties”(我爸 講海陸，我媽講四縣).

To celebrate the glory and boost the sense of community with his fans, he orchestrated the live concert “Golden Melody Awards Hakka Evening” (金曲獎客語 之夜) on June 16, 2017, one week before the awards ceremony. He also invited singer Robin Tseng (曾仲瑋) (who is also nominated as the Best Hakka Male Singer this

year) to share the evening’s program.

Photo 3. Hakka singer Chen Wei-ru and Robin Tseng, both nominated for Golden Melody Awards in the Hakka category in 2017, hosted a pre-award concert together.

(Source: Chen Wei-ru’s Facebook, 2017)

Throughout the evening, audiences expressed which songs they enjoy more by the intensity of their applause, which served as non-verbal feedback for singers to decide which songs they should perform more in the future. After the concert, some audiences voiced the wish to see their next album released. With this live performance event, audiences interacted with the singers and became active sponsor who proposes the prospect of upcoming albums.

4.2.6 Independent Music Journey

All the indie singers interviewed for this research, regardless of background and education, emphasize that performing songs written by themselves and sharing their

All the indie singers interviewed for this research, regardless of background and education, emphasize that performing songs written by themselves and sharing their