Music in the Big City or in the Little City?

While I was on Future Producers, someone mentioned that statistics gathered in more rural areas such as New Hampshire will vary substantially from cities like New York City. And this is quite true. These statistics will not apply to a big city band. Here are some comparisons with New York City:

New York City's population is 8 times larger than all of New Hampshire, excluding day workers. I assume that the population doubles due to tourism and day workers. So the real figure is closer 16 times larger than all of New Hampshire.

The black population of NYC is 28%. In New Hampshire, it's 1%. So the type of music preferred here is going to be a bit different.

New Hampshire has about 1,200 bands listed. New York has well over 26,000 bands listed on MySpace and based on my limited counting of New York bands, there could easily be some 50,000 bands in New York (MySpace makes it hard to find all the bands in a large city or state; only 1000 per letter are listed). Now, as with New Hampshire bands, a great number will turn out to be non-bands. But several observations come out of these figures:

* You can play to a new audience every day in NYC, that's why Broadway plays can stay put in NYC, but only stay for a few days in New Hampshire. That's the day worker/tourism factor.

* There's more competition in NYC. That's right. More competition for the same lunch. with 50,000 bands going after 16 million people, the band to people ratio is around 1:320. In New Hampshire, it's 1:830 This leads to the next figure. Are people 3 times more supportive of bands in NYC than in NH? maybe, but on any given night, the number of venues is fixed and in the musical game of chairs, it looks like bands have to fight for a chair.

* The bands are going to be better in NYC. This is where the phrase "if you can make it here (i.e. NYC) you can make it anywhere" takes on new meaning. There aren't more opportunities in NYC, there's more competition! Again, this is due to the math. So, if you can play a regular scene in NYC, you'll do fine when you tour because just to get on the stage in NY means you have to fight off a few bands just as worthy as you for the spot.

* It's easier to learn the craft out in the country, if this next statistic is at all accurate: There are 112 open mic locations listed near New York City (as identified by OpenMikes.org ) versus 27 open mics near Manchester, New Hampshire. I can't vouch for the accuracy of the NYC figure, but that's a long way from the 430 or so you would expect, given the size of the population.

* Transportation is more of an issue in rural states than in the city. Let's face it, if you live in a big city, you can have a large audience night after night and you don't have to move much or even tour. But out in the country, the audiences are smaller, and touring at least regionally is required if you want to have financial success.

Anyway, I was a little surprised by these figures and I hope I've opened your eyes a little on the big city versus little city music scene. See you next time!

new hampshire music new york